I wake before dawn. Adrienne is curled up against me, her flesh warm and gloriously naked next to mine.

Not having any kids about to barge in is a good thing.

Being up at the ass-crack of the day is not.

I throw my forearm over my eyes, wishing it wasn't in my nature now to wake up so early. Then I hear my phone. Fucking hell. I hadn't just woken up as a matter of routine.

Cursing under my breath, I slide out of bed, tucking the blankets back around my wife to keep her warm as I dig for the offending device under a trail of discarded clothes.

When I find it, my stomach sinks. It's the prime minister. It's six in the morning here, but he's flown to his home riding in Vancouver for the weekend. It's only three there.

“You should be asleep,” I say when I answer.

“Yeah. Can't. So I was thinking.” Famous last words. “How do you feel about…”

I grind the heel of my hand into my eye socket and reach for the notepad and pen on the bedside table.

Slim, lovely fingers slide them into my grasp. I twist around and see that Adrienne is up. She gives me a little shrug and a rueful smile. What can you do, her expression says. I'll make coffee, she mouths, pointing to the machine in the corner.

I turn my attention to the PM and the initiative he wants to task to two of his cabinet ministers.

By the time I've made the three follow-up calls necessitated by Gavin’s idea, Adrienne is on her second cup. But she's still naked, so I'm calling this a win. “Have you had too much coffee to go back to sleep?” I ask as I rejoin her on the bed.

“Probably yes.” She smiles at me. “How long do I have you for?”

“All weekend. I’m taking the train back with you tomorrow.”

She doesn’t look like she believes me.

I wince as I point to the phone. “No promises that won’t ring repeatedly, but I don’t need to be back in Ottawa.”

Still not convinced.

Fair enough. I hook my hand around the back of her calf, right below her knee, and tug. “How about we just see how the day goes? I’m not busy right this second, for example.” I press her leg out to the side and slide my palm up her thigh. “And I’m starving.”

After I go down on Adrienne, we stumble into the shower, and she returns the treat.

Then we put on clothes and go outside. Adrienne insists on it, foolish girl. I’m pretty sure romance can be completely recaptured in bed, but this is her weekend in the big city.

She has an entire day planned, and despite my base desires to take advantage of our kid and work-free time, I also want her to do exactly what she wanted to do before I showed up.

We start with breakfast at a cafe a few blocks away. It looks like exactly the type of place where Adrienne’s admirer from the night before would hang out, and I tell her that as we peruse the menu.

The waitress swings by quickly with coffee then returns to tell us the specials. She gives us a few minutes, then returns once we’ve stacked our menus at the edge of the table.

“You guys know what you want?” she asks with a warm smile.

I order eggs Benedict and Adrienne gets the frittata of the day.

“Are you visiting for the weekend?” the waitress asks as she scribbles our order on her notepad.

“Something like that,” Adrienne says.

I grin at her.

The waitress twirls her pen at me. “You’re…oh, God, this is embarrassing. Like, I recognize you, but I’ve forgotten your name. But you work for the prime minister, right?”

Surprised, I lean back in my chair. “That’s right.”

She blushes. “I follow you on Twitter.”

“Right. Cool.” I’m not sure what else to say. This is the first time I’ve been recognized outside of a political convention or the immediate six blocks around Parliament Hill. I clear my throat and reach across the table to take Adrienne’s hand. “This is my wife, Adrienne. And I’m Stew Rochard, by the way. That’s my name.”

The waitress groans and nods. “Okay. Very nice to meet you, and I apologize for blanking on that.” She waves her order pad in the air. “I’ll just get your order going and bring your coffee right over.”

We watch her go, then Adrienne taps her foot against mine under the table. “Now who’s being hit on?” she teases, smiling at me.

“What? No.”

“Yes. That was a nerdy political version of what happened last night.”

I give my a wife a long, disbelieving look, and she tips her head back and laughs. My phone vibrates, and I pull it out. It’s an email I can reply to after I eat, so I put it away.

“At least with Gavin out west, I get you mostly to myself for breakfast,” she says lightly.

I grunt. I don’t like his unexpected trip. I don’t like what I suspect is the reason behind it.

Adrienne doesn’t miss any of my reaction, and her expression slides into serious concern. “Anything you can talk about?”

“Not really.”

“Boo.” She winks at me. She knows exactly how it is, and really doesn’t mind. But at some point when we’re alone I’m going to tell her that I worry the prime minister is falling head-over-heels in lust with the new intern, and there’s no way that ends well.

“You make me extraordinarily happy, you know that?” I bracket her legs with mine under the table. “And at times like this, I’m grateful for what we have. I promise I know how much you’ve been carrying our family.”

“So serious over breakfast,” she murmurs, but she doesn’t look away.

“I’m always serious about you. Have been since the first moment I laid eyes on you.” She’d been a first year university student. I was an upper-year and tried to show off. Big man on campus. Hard to do with my tongue hanging out of my mouth.

She’d had my number from the start. “I remember.”

I like the way her eyes go soft. “Good.”

Our food arrives then, and we take our time, having a second cup of coffee before we finally settle the bill and head out on foot.

I swear Adrienne’s disappointed that the waitress doesn’t try to slip me her number when we leave. I take her hand. “What’s next?”

We go to the Royal Ontario Museum for a temporary exhibit about tattoos from around the world. Tattoos: Ritual. Identity. Obsession. Art the brochure says. We wander through the quiet exhibit hall for an hour, sometimes together and sometimes drifting apart. She takes my hand as we head upstairs to see dinosaur bones and leans in. “Remember when you wanted to get a tattoo?”

“Back in university?”

She winks at me. “Yeah.”

It’s at this point I realize two important things. First, my wife was long overdue for a weekend away, just the two of us. And second, deep down she’s still that angsty rocker girl I fell in love with. Not so hidden at the moment.

She was more Guns N’ Roses to my extensive Queen collection. I fell in love with her plaid shirts and Doc Martens, and kept that secret to myself until after I’d gone crazy for her clever mind and sexy mouth, too.

“I’m pretty sure I just said that to impress you.” I curl a strand of her hair around my finger. “What did I want to get?”

“I don’t remember. Probably something you’d hate now.”

“We’ve changed a lot from back then, but…” I tug her close. “This is the same. This will always be the same.”

Halfway up the wide, sweeping stairs of the Royal Ontario Museum, I kiss my wife, and it’s not quick or discreet or polite. Life is too short for that. I make her breathless and I make her blush.

And that’s exactly the same as it used to be, too.