Chapter 5 #3
"Don't sound so shocked." She pats my cheek, pleased with herself. "You used to be famous for round two."
"I was twenty-eight," I tell her, "and fueled entirely by beef jerky."
"Then eat a sandwich and rally, cowboy," she says.
"There's an entire empty Saturday, the phone is face down on the nightstand, and I intend to use every hour of it.
" She pushes at my chest. "On your back.
I want to look at you. The belly's fine.
The doctor said fine. I want to ride the man who finally put his phone down. "
I roll us carefully, keeping her seated on me, and then she's up there in the gold light with her hair falling around her face and her palms flat on my chest. She sinks all the way down and we both swear at the ceiling.
From this angle I'm somehow deeper, and she knows it, because she starts to move in slow, grinding circles that make my eyes cross.
"Fuck, Molly." I grab her hips like they're the only solid thing in the world. "Look at you. My wife. Pregnant and bouncing on my cock on a Saturday afternoon like the whole world isn't on fire outside that window."
"The world can wait." She braces her hands beside my head and leans in until her hair curtains us both. "You're so big like this. You're stretching me open in all the places I've been empty."
"Then take it," I tell her. "Use me. This cock is yours. This dumb heart is yours. Come on me one more time and I'll follow you off a cliff."
She rides me until the bedframe creaks and the light slides another inch toward evening.
I sit up enough to kiss her breasts, careful of how tender they are, and she fists my hair and holds my mouth there while she grinds down hard.
The third time she comes it's quieter, almost a sob, her whole body trembling on top of me, and the milking squeeze of her around my cock snaps the last thread I've got.
"Molly," I grit out, "I'm close. I'm going to..."
"In me," she whispers. "I want it. I want to feel you lose it."
I bury my face against her throat and come with a broken "ma'am" that would mortify me if I had any dignity left, spilling deep inside her while she strokes my hair and tells me how much she missed me, how she's keeping this version of me, how she won't give him back.
I hold her through the aftershocks with one hand splayed over her stomach and the other cupping the back of her head.
We stay like that until our breathing slows and the sweat cools on our skin, until the late light slants gold across the floor, and she eases off me with a small wince and a smaller smile and curls into my chest, doodling across my belly with one finger.
I can feel her heartbeat against my ribs. I memorize it like a brand.
"I forgot what this felt like," she says quietly.
"You seemed happy," I say carefully.
"I was." She tilts her head up. "I didn't have to fight a phone for your attention."
I tighten my arm around her. "I'm sorry everything else has been so much."
"You get to decide how much of it comes into this room." She props herself up on her elbow. "I'm not asking you to stop caring about people. I'm asking you to remember that I count."
"You're right," I say into her hair. "Kendall's stuff shouldn't be my stuff. I just—she doesn't have anyone else, you know?"
"Oh, I'm aware." Molly's mouth goes tight. "She's made that very clear."
I frown down at her. "What does that mean?"
"Nothing." She lies back down. "Forget it."
I want to push, but I don't, not now, when everything is finally peaceful. We lie there in silence, and I try to hold on to the feeling of her weight against my side, the smell of her shampoo, the way her breath evens out as she gets close to sleep.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I consider ignoring it. I should ignore it, because today is about Molly, about us. But then it buzzes again, and again, and Molly makes an annoyed sound.
"Just check it," she mutters. "It's clearly urgent."
I reach over and grab the phone. Three messages, all from Kendall.
Kendall: Meet me tomorrow.
Kendall: We need to talk.
Kendall: Alone.
My stomach drops.
Molly's eyes are closed, her breathing slow and steady.
She's not asleep yet, but she's close. I could ask her what she thinks.
I could show her the messages and let her weigh in.
That's what a good husband would do. But she's finally drifting, the doctor's voice is still in my head, keep her stress as low as you possibly can, and it's probably Kendall needing a ride again.
I'll tell Molly after, when I know what this is.
So I text back: Where?
Kendall's response comes immediately: The café on Third. 10am.
I put the phone facedown on the nightstand. Tomorrow, I'll tell her. I tell myself that's almost the same as telling her now. Molly shifts against me, mumbling words I can't make out.
"Go to sleep," I tell her, and my voice sounds almost normal. "I'll be right here."
On Sunday, I get to the café on Third early.
I don't know why. Nerves, maybe. Some instinct that tells me I want to see her coming, want to be settled and prepared before whatever bomb she's about to drop.
The café is quiet, Sunday morning, most people still at brunch or church or recovering from their Saturday nights. I order a black coffee I don't really want and sit at a corner table facing the door.
Kendall walks in at exactly 10 a.m. She's wearing white, some kind of flowing dress that belongs at a garden party, and she's got that look on her face. The one she used to get before a big meeting, when she knew she had the winning hand and was just waiting to play it.
I don't like that look directed at me.
"Hey." She slides into the seat across from me. "Thanks for coming."
"You said it was important." I keep my voice even. "What's going on?"
She takes a breath. Orders tea from the waitress. Stirs in honey, slow and deliberate, like she's buying time.
"Kendall," I say, sharper than I mean to.
"We slept together," she says.
The noise of the café seems to dim, like someone turned down the volume on the world. I stare at her, certain I've misheard.
"What?" I say.
"Seven weeks ago." She meets my eyes steadily. "In Santa Barbara. The night of our dinner meeting. You don't remember because you were drinking—"
"I had one drink." The words come out harder than I intend. "I barely finished one drink and then I woke up sick in my hotel room alone. I don't—I would never—"
"I know it's a shock." Her voice is gentle, the voice you'd use on someone getting bad news. "You passed out after dinner. I helped you back to your room. One thing led to another."
"No." I'm shaking my head before she finishes. "That's not—I would remember. I would never do that to Molly."
"You were really out of it." She reaches across the table like she's going to touch my hand, and I pull back. "I didn't realize how far gone you were until—well. Afterwards."
"You're lying," I tell her, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel.
She doesn't even blink. "The baby is yours, Taz."
The world tilts. I grip the edge of the table to steady myself, my coffee sloshing in its cup.
"That's impossible," I say.
"I know how this sounds." She's still so calm, so measured. "But I did the math. The timing lines up. There's no one else it could be."
"Your husband—" I start.
"I hadn't been with Richard in months." Anger crosses her face, maybe, or grief. "Why do you think I'm divorced?"
I think about that night. The business dinner that went sideways when I started feeling sick after barely touching my drink. The walk back to the hotel that I don't remember taking. Waking up alone in the dark, disoriented and nauseous, convinced I'd caught a stomach bug.
I don't remember anything else. I don't remember her.
"I didn't," I say, and my voice comes out hollow. "I would never."
"You didn't know what you were doing." Her eyes are soft with understanding. "Neither did I, really. We'd both had a lot to drink—"
"I hadn't had a lot to drink!" It comes out too loud.
A woman at the next table glances over, startled. I lower my voice with effort.
"I had one glass of wine," I say, low and furious. "That's it. My body went wrong. I thought I was getting sick. Whatever happened that night, I wasn't—I didn't—"
"The baby needs a father," Kendall says quietly. "I'm not asking you to leave Molly. I would never ask that. But this baby is yours, and he, or she, deserves to know that."
I can't breathe. The café is too small, the walls pressing in. I think about Molly at home, probably still in bed, warm and trusting. We heard our baby's heartbeat together. I held her hand. And seven years ago I stood beside her with a promise written in smeared ballpoint on my forearm.
I'm never going to let you be alone in a room you don't want to be alone in.
"I want a DNA test," I hear myself say.
Kendall nods, like she expected this. "Of course. There are prenatal tests now, completely safe. I'll set it up."
"No. I'll set it up." I don't trust her to do anything at this point. "My assistant can arrange the collection."
"Your assistant?" Her eyes flicker. "You don't need—"
"I need it done right." I stand up, leaving my untouched coffee on the table. "I don't believe you, Kendall. I don't believe any of this. But I'll do the test, and when it comes back negative, this conversation never happened."
She looks up at me, and I can't read her face. Satisfaction, maybe, or pity.
"I understand," she says. "Call me when you're ready."
Three days later, Jensen emails the results at 6:47 p.m.
I'm in my office, the one room in this house that's actually mine, with the door locked and the curtains drawn. Molly thinks I'm on a call. She doesn't know about the test. She doesn't know about any of it.