Chapter 14 Emery #3
This makes me laugh again and I tilt his head back to rinse. “No, no, I mean it was the first time either of us slept with a virtual stranger.”
“Must’ve been a good night if we ended up married.”
I nod, inhaling slowly. It had been a good night. So good that “good” is a comic understatement.
The obvious question follows: “How long were we together before we got married?”
I swallow, wondering how he’ll feel about my answer. “Just over two months.”
“I… Wow.”
Anxiety hardens to cement in my gut. Freshly unable to articulate to myself what Luca ever saw in me, I wonder if there’s a reality in which he might not make the same choice.
“How long have we been married?” he asks.
“Three years.”
“Were we happy?”
This question shouldn’t surprise me, but it does.
“Yeah, we were. I mean… I worked a lot. But yeah. Who doesn’t, I guess.
” The question sticks with me in the following silence, the rhythmic pulse of the shower playing behind it.
I see myself at the office while he was home, working on the couch while Luca watched a movie, reading his texts asking when I’d be coming home.
I see myself racing through traffic, late for our anniversary dinner, his body on the ground, crumpled and bleeding out.
I had been happy—at least I thought I had.
But then why did I have to carve out time to be with him? Why was work always first?
The obvious understanding lands: Luca hadn’t been happy. I knew it, I felt it, I put off facing it, because fuck, it hurts to stare directly at it.
Too bad, Emery.
Shaking water out of my eyes, I refocus on rinsing his hair and washing it again. “Your hair hasn’t been this long in years,” I murmur. “Not since we met.”
“How did we meet?”
“At a wedding. Your friend was the groom and my cousin was the bride. I was supposed to go with this guy, but he bailed on the trip, and I couldn’t cancel my RSVP last-minute.”
“Were you two, like, together?”
I glance down at him. I know logically he can’t be jealous about this—we’re married, and he doesn’t even remember me—but that familiar edge is in his voice, the sexy protective one that makes my knees turn to jelly and hope flare in my chest.
“Not really,” I tell him. “We’d gone out a couple of times and he was nice enough for me to ask him if he’d want to go to a wedding in Vegas for a weekend.” I laugh. “Basically, I didn’t want to show up by myself. But then I did anyway.”
I reach for the conditioner and squeeze some into my palm, working it through his thick blond hair.
“I made it through the ceremony and told myself I had to stay at the reception long enough to finish my drink, when I heard this laugh across the room.” I tilt my head, swiping a glob of conditioner from his temple, greedily gobbling up every chance to touch him.
“Which is saying something, because it was loud: a wedding reception in Vegas, and half the people there were acting like they’d just gotten out on parole.
” He laughs at this, and my stomach flips, just like it did the first time I heard it.
I’ve never heard a laugh like his before or since.
It’s the cadence of it, an infectious rhythm, big and round and joyful.
“I still don’t know what you were laughing about, but I glanced over just as you did and I just… didn’t want to leave anymore.”
“Did I come over to you?”
I look down to find him watching me. His dark lashes are clumped into little spikes, droplets of water running down his skin.
“You did. You asked me to dance. So many people there were looking at you, but you were only looking at me.”
“I believe you.” Steam swirls all around us, and with the shower door closed, it feels a little like we’re locked in a bubble, just the two of us.
For a moment, I feel the way I always have with him: strong, desirable, powerful.
“So how did I convince you to keep me?” he asks, eyes flirting.
I smile down at him. “I didn’t take much convincing.
You fit seamlessly into my life. My fridge was suddenly no longer empty.
I saw some daylight on weekends. You made me laugh so hard my ribs ached.
You cooked things for me I’d never tried before.
And I had this perfect, warm body next to me in bed every night. ”
Luca studies me, letting out only a quiet “hmm” in response, and I realize I’ve just listed all the ways he was perfect for me, and none of the ways I might have been perfect for him.
“Do you remember the old apartment with the upstairs neighbor who listened to the news on the highest volume possible?” I ask, wiping a streak of soapsuds from his neck.
“The fridge that died overnight after we’d splurged on Wagyu for my birthday the next day?
Your old beat-up Toyota pickup we named Debbie that we joked hated me? ”
He hesitates, and hope rises in my throat. But he shakes his head. The bubble seems to pop.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, tilting his head back for one more rinse. “It’ll come back.”
I don’t say it, and he doesn’t, either, but I know we’re both thinking it: Maybe.