42. Luc
LUC
Only honest.
The words haunt me. They follow me as I lie awake beside her, listening to the soft rhythm of her breathing. They echo in my ear as we eat together, walk together. As we fuck.
I’ve silently castigated myself a million times for demanding the truth from her while offering her none of my own. I’ve said from the beginning that I can’t, that I won’t, love her. And I believed it when I said it.
I’ve loved only once before and did so with the reckless certainty of a man who thinks he has it all. But losing Allegra taught me that certainty is an illusion, that the ground is always shifting, and love is something you have to survive.
I will not survive it twice.
So I offered Primrose a summer. A handful of weeks, as it turns out. Because she is a gloriously stubborn woman. Pleasure without promises. Sex without strings. A beautiful thing with a fixed and clearly marked ending, according to the date on her plane ticket home.
Such fucking arrogance. As though the heart cares for what the body wants. As if it listens to what the mind warns against. The heart doesn’t give a fuck about terms and conditions or my own personal policy guidelines.
These days with Primrose have been among the happiest of my life.
Breakfasts stretching into brunch. Wet footprints across the terrace after we swim Bare feet resting in my lap as we read.
It’s a plague of hair ties in my bathroom, a constant litter of coffee cups, and long pale hairs everywhere. Including my ass crack.
She is maddening and she is tender. And my heart wants to hold her forever.
She has replaced no one but has become more of herself. I hope. And no house will ever feel the same without her.
I’m staring at the kind of photograph that should only be viewed in a dark room with a locked door when my children call. For one absurdly guilty second, I nearly drop my phone.
Two worlds colliding in the palm of my hand: Felix and Sylvie’s grins flashing across the screen when, moments ago, Primrose smiled a secret smile beneath my thumb. Her hair fanned across my pillow, her expression…
Fuck. She was about to come.
This woman. So many contradictions. Doctor. Daughter. Nurturer. Healer. The woman who let me fuck her in a club—who got off on watching herself being fucked. Then let me take dirty pictures of her.
I promised to delete them.
I have not deleted a single one.
I push away the pinprick of guilt before answering, as though honesty is something I need only practice when convenient.
Be only honest. Yet look at me—I keep photographs I swore I wouldn’t, and I tell her I can’t love her while refusing to face the truth. That I might already do. Every day I let her believe my heart remains out of reach, when the truth is the traitorous muscle has begun to beat only for her.
I am so fucked, I think as I arrange my expression into something my children won’t question as I accept the call. For a second, I see nothing but sky, then a flash of blond hair. Then one of Sylvie’s nostrils.
“Papa!” The image lurches, the screen filling with her face.
“Hold it still,” Felix complains from somewhere nearby. “You’ll make him dizzy.”
“I will not make him dizzy.”
“You’re already making me feel that way.
” Felix uses a much pleasanter tone than the one he’s lately reserved for his sister, and I begin to wonder what tricks Amélie has employed.
But then, there they both are, jostling for the camera.
They’re golden from the sun; Sylvie’s hair bleached several shades lighter by salt and chlorine while Felix’s dark mop bears strands of copper.
Sylvie has acquired a dusting of freckles across her nose, and my boy looks older somehow. Mon dieu.
“Ma famille.” My heart is full at the sight of them.
As much as I’ve enjoyed my time with Primrose, I’ve never been away from my children for any length of time before.
A night here and there due to business, but I work long enough hours not to be deprived of them for days. Pre Primrose. “Have you been behaving?”
“Oui,” Sylvie says immediately.
“Non,” Felix says at exactly the same time.
She elbows him, and he grins.
I settle deeper into my chair. “I see.”
“Where’s Primrose?” Sylvie demands.
No hello, Papa. No I miss you, Papa. Just where is my llama-loving friend?
“She is—” I glance up as though I expect her to come walking through the door. But she doesn’t. She won’t. Even if she were awake, she wouldn’t interrupt this call. “Busy,” I decide on.
From somewhere off-screen I hear Amélie make a noise of deep understanding. But she doesn’t understand a thing.
“Busy doing what?”
Taking a siesta after a vigorous afternoon of… none of their business. “I’m not sure.”
“But you’re in the same house—all alone.”
“Who says we’re alone?”
“Tante Amélie.” My daughter blinks. And her aunt laughs. “She must be so bored without us.”
“Perhaps when you call tomorrow, I can ask her yourself.”
“Excellent!” Sylvie claps her hands together before I’ve even finished. “Then I can talk to her about Lola and Bouton and if she has visited Andiamo and also if Alejandro is her boyfriend yet.”
“Yes. You can ask all those questions, I’m sure.” Unfortunately, she won’t be able to tell you that Alejandro has been seconded to a winery far away because she doesn’t know.
“Who is Alejandro?” Amélie demands from beyond.
“A man who works for papa.” Sylvie turns her head over her shoulder as my son rolls his eyes. Girl stuff, the look seems to say. “He has lashes like a llama,” she adds.
Felix leans closer. “Is she still cross with you?”
“The llama?”
“Primrose,” he says as though I’m dense.
“Why would she be cross with me?”
My children exchange a look I haven’t seen in quite some time. Silent and conspiratorial.
“Don’t tell me. Because Tante Amélie said.”
“No, because we saw her,” Felix replies unhappily. “We were at Maria’s house—”
“Waiting for the stars to come out,” my daughter adds. “We can still do that, Papa, yes? When we come back from our vacation.”
“Yes, when you come back from your vacation from your vacation, we can ask Maria and Jose.” I turn to my son again. “You saw Primrose?”
“She was at Zoe’s house—”
“She was wearing a pretty blue dress!”
“She looked like she was going out, but her eyes were red. You were the only one at home,” he adds with an air of accusation.
“She should’ve come with us,” Sylvie adds. “Then you would not have upset her.”
“I haven’t upset anyone,” I protest. “Primrose is perfectly fine.” More than fine, last time I saw her.
My daughter looks down her nose at me while my son looks unconvinced.
“Will she still be there when we come home?” Sylvie gets so close to the screen that, for a moment, all I can see is one gimlet eye and one sun-browned cheek.
“Of course,” I say, because the admit I don’t know would be a mistake. My brain tells me the sooner she leaves, the better for me. And my body tells my brain to shut up. “She’ll be here.” Even if only for a little while. But the answer comes easily. Too easily to be the truth.
Felix leans into view beside her. “You promise?”
“I do.”
They accept this with the resolute faith children place in their parents when they’re young, and the conversation moves on to the places they’ve visited, and the things they’ve seen. But my promise feels like a chicken bone stuck in my throat.
Primrose has not indicated that she’ll leave before our time is up.
The date on her ticket that we don’t speak of.
Things between us are good—better than good.
The past few days have been full of laughter and long meals and her warm body curled against mine at night.
So I won’t think about the future. The end.
Whether she’ll be here when the children come home or whether I decide that shouldn’t be the case.
Be honest.
If there was any justice in the world I’d be struck down from above.