CHAPTER 61
The Drive Home
Daniel kept one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around Elise's fingers, as if the entire evening could be carried safely between their palms if he simply refused to let go.
The city moved around them in layers of glass and light.
Restaurant awnings folded into shadow. Office windows burned above empty sidewalks.
The private dining room was already behind them, but Daniel could still see Marcus standing behind Elise's chair, could still see the man's hand pause above her hair until every permission had been spoken aloud.
Elise did not rush him. She watched the road with him, her thumb moving slowly over his knuckles.
After ten minutes, Daniel said, 'I keep expecting to feel humiliated.'
Her hand tightened. 'Do you?'
'No.'
The answer surprised him enough that he almost laughed.
The feeling inside him was sharp, yes. Tender and hot and unsettled, yes.
But not humiliation. Humiliation had always been a private collapse, a shrinking, a sense that he had lost value because another man had been seen as valuable.
Tonight had not made him smaller. It had made him painfully awake.
Elise looked at him. 'What do you feel instead?'
'Exposed.'
'That is not small.'
'No. It is not.'
The honesty stretched between them in the dark car.
Daniel turned onto the freeway. The road opened, lanes shining under sodium lights. He glanced at Elise. Her hair still held the memory of Marcus's touch, or maybe Daniel was giving the memory too much power. Either way, the sight of it pulled heat through him.
'I wanted to hate him for being gentle,' he said.
Elise swallowed. 'I know.'
'I wanted him to do something wrong so I could become simple again.'
'And he did not.'
'No. He made it worse by respecting everything.'
Elise's smile was sad and fond. 'Respect can be devastating.'
Daniel laughed once, quiet and broken around the edges. 'That sentence is ridiculous and unfortunately true.'
They drove another mile before she spoke again.
'I liked it,' she said.
The words entered the car without apology. Daniel felt them land, felt the old flinch begin, then felt something steadier step in front of it.
'I know,' he said.
'I liked his hand in my hair because he asked. Because you said yes. Because I could feel you watching me and not turning away.'
Daniel's throat tightened.
She turned toward him fully now, seat belt crossing the dark shimmer of her dress. 'And I liked coming back to you after.'
That was the piece his fear kept trying to erase. The return. The way Elise's desire had not moved in a single direction away from him, but outward and back again, like a tide.
At a red light near their neighborhood, Daniel lifted her hand and kissed the center of her palm.
'When we get home,' he said, 'I want to be the one to take your hair down.'
Elise's breath changed. 'It is already down.'
'I know.'
The light turned green. Daniel drove on, the meaning of his words filling the car with a heat neither of them named immediately.
At their driveway, he parked but did not move to get out. The house stood quiet, familiar, safe. A place where their marriage had slept through too many evenings and now waited to see what kind of night would enter it.
Elise looked at the front door, then back at him. 'Do you want to call guardrail before we go inside?'
Daniel rested his forehead against the steering wheel for one second, overcome by love for the question itself.
'No,' he said. 'But I want the word in the room with us.'
'Always.'
They went inside together, still holding hands.