22. Fran #4
After, we lie tangled together under the blankets, my head on his chest and his arm around my shoulders, both of us catching our breath.
Skin to skin. The night has gone fully dark except for the lights he hung and the river overhead.
My body feels loose and warm and thoroughly appreciated, and my brain, for once, is quiet.
The nursery comes back to me, the finished room waiting behind its closed door.
“I keep thinking about the nursery,” I say quietly, because thinking it is not enough. “How long you worked on it. How you didn’t know if we’d ever need it.”
“I hoped.” His hand traces slow circles on my back. “That was all I had for a long time. Just hope and sawdust and a lot of sleepless nights.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“It was.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “But I’m not lonely now.”
“I missed this,” he says, softer. “Being close to you. Not just the physical part of it, I mean. Though that was-” He clears his throat. “Excellent. But this. Lying here with you. Feeling like we’re on the same team.”
“We weren’t on the same team before?”
“I don’t think we were on any team. I think we were just - existing in the same space.
Going through the motions.” He shifts slightly, pulling me closer.
I let him. I do not take my hand back from where it has landed on his chest. “I want to be on your team now. Officially. With matching jerseys and everything.”
“You want us to have jerseys?”
“I want us to have whatever you want us to have.” Another kiss, my hair, my temple. “I just want to be yours. However that looks.”
I don’t say it back. I’m not ready to say it back, there’s still too much healing to do, too many trust falls to navigate. The thing rises in my throat anyway, stupid and huge, and I swallow it and stay curled against him, and I let myself have this moment without analyzing it to death.
“The baby’s moving,” I say, because she is, a slow roll across my belly, like she’s settling in for the night, or like she has opinions about truck beds.
“Can I-” He hesitates. Always, now. “Can I feel?”
“Yeah.”
He slides his hand down to rest against my bump, and we both hold still, waiting. A few seconds later, a tiny foot, or maybe an elbow, pushes out against his palm.
“Oh,” he breathes. “That’s - wow.”
“She’s been doing that all week. Getting stronger.”
“She?”
“I don’t actually know. I’ve been calling her she in my head, but we haven’t done the anatomy scan yet.” I pause. “Do you want to know? The sex?”
“Do you?”
“I think so. I keep changing my mind.”
“We can decide together.” He’s still looking at his hand on my belly, a kind of wonder on his face I could not have imagined in my father’s office, in the cold months, in the cooler when I told him it didn’t mean anything. “When you’re ready.”
“Together,” I repeat. “I like that word.”
“I like that word too.” He leans down to kiss my forehead. “Get used to hearing it. I plan to use it a lot.”
We stay until the night gets properly cold, until the string lights feel like a dare to the dark, until I am sleepy and wrecked and still not saying it.
Then we find our clothes. He helps me with the dress because the belly has opinions about arms and zippers, and he does not make a joke, and I do not thank him out loud.
We pack the cooler. He offers me his hand down from the truck bed.
“You know,” I say, taking it, “this was actually a pretty good date.”
“Just pretty good?”
“Don’t fish for compliments.”
“I’m not fishing. I’m seeking honest feedback so I can improve for next time.” He says it with a straight face and ruined mouth. “Was the mattress comfortable enough? Too firm? Too soft?”
I play along, ticking it off on my fingers. “The mattress was perfect.”
“And the food?” he prompts, shameless.
“Excellent. Especially the cake,” I concede.
“The string lights?” He’s enjoying this far too much.
“Romantic without being over the top.” I’m smiling now. I can feel it. I let him see it. “You did good, Davis. You can do it again sometime.”
He helps me into the cab. Seatbelts. Safety first. He settles into the driver’s seat and looks at me like I am still the meadow.
I buckle in, resting my hand on my belly where the baby has finally stilled. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I love you,” he says. Quiet. Not a trap.
“I know you’re not ready to say it back, and that’s okay.
I’m not asking for anything. I just - I needed you to know.
That this isn’t casual for me. That you’re not-” He stops, searches for the words.
“You’re not a project or a second chance or a way to make myself feel better about the past. You’re the person I want to build a life with. However long that takes.”
I could say it. The words are right there, hovering on the edge of my tongue, wanting to be spoken.
I can still feel him between my legs. I can still see the stars when I blink.
I am still the woman who told him it meant nothing with his come on my thighs, and I am also, apparently, the woman who will not take her hand back.
So instead of saying it, I take his hand and hold on tight.
“I know,” I say. “I believe you.”
He looks at our hands. He has the sense not to say so.
It’s not everything. But he drives us home one-handed, and I don’t let go.