LILY
When I opened my apartment door, I was greeted by the cool blue light of the television and that was it. No baby crying, no bird screaming, no desperately shouted bungled rewrites of history to silence the General. All was quiet except for the murmurs from the TV. I switched on the lamp in the front entryway, and that was when I saw Gabe. He was passed out on the couch. He was bare chested and holding Ivan tight to him. The General was sound asleep in his cage, which had the door wide open.
I was hardly Agatha Christie, but I could piece together what had happened: The Case of the Nine-Month-Old on Solid Foods. There had been a poop incident, but it seemed as though Gabe had handled it like an absolute pro. It also looked as though the General had escaped—something he never did when I was home—but Gabe had handled that too without even a phone call or a panicked text to make me worry. What a love. I crept across the apartment and carefully closed the door of the General’s cage. I slipped the sheet over it and slid my phone from my purse pocket. I snapped a picture of Ivan in Gabe’s arms and sent it to Daisy. Within one second, she had replied.
Why?
So you can go elope!
I tiptoed around my apartment so as not to wake Gabe. I moved his huge and muscular hand off Ivan’s chubby back and put Ivan down in his crib for the night. Changing out of my dress in the dark, I grabbed my stretched-out old cotton nightie with faded butterflies without thinking, but then I opted for a slightly nicer pink one that I had bought on an impulse but had never worn before. Slipping it over my head, I looked at myself in my bedroom mirror. It barely came down over my rear end, and the place where my thighs met my tush was hardly hidden by the lacy hem. It was a bit over-the-top, but too sexy had to be better than too frumpy. Using a trickle of water, I wet my toothbrush and brushed my teeth, keeping my lips tight around the brush to stay as quiet as possible. But all my creeping around was for nothing because just as I was rinsing, Gabe appeared in the doorway. Sleepy faced, hair sticking up every which way, in only his boxers.
In other words, absolutely delish.
“Hi!” I said around my toothbrush.
“Hey,” he answered, his voice about two octaves lower than usual. Morning voice at bedtime. Lordy.
He scratched his stubble and blinked against the bright bulbs of the bathroom. “You done in here?” he asked.
I wiped some minty foam off my mouth and nodded. I set my toothbrush down and turned off the faucet.
“Good.” He tugged me by my nightie into the bedroom. It pulled tight around my body, and I barely managed to switch the light off before he dragged me from the bathroom. He grabbed my hand, led me to bed, and crawled in beside me. As I was getting my pillow situated, he scooped me into him, spooning me from behind. I felt him hard against me, between my legs. He slipped his forearm between us and pulled down his boxers. I reached behind me and bunched up my nightie to get it out of the way, and he slid himself along my opening. I hadn’t been particularly turned on before, but now the floodgates were open, and he groaned when he felt me. With a small adjustment of his hips, he pushed into me, and I curled up instinctively, but he didn’t let me curl up all the way. He stayed as close as possible to me, the curve of his chest right against my spine and his strong hand cupping my breasts. He reached around me with his other arm and found his way to my clit.
We had been wild and noisy. We had been risqué and intense. But this time we were soft and quiet, and I loved that. I love the way he touched me, the way he held me, and the way he made me feel so cherished.
When I felt myself getting close, I gripped his hand to tell him where I was. He drove into me and stayed there, nestled his mouth against my ear, bit down on my earlobe, and whispered, “Come for me.”
I slid my hands over his and held on tight as I began to let go. I saw shimmering water and dappled light. As I was coming, I had this vision of a string that linked our hearts. Something bound us together that I felt but just didn’t quite understand yet. He came as I did, not with savage thrusts but with one deep drive and a rumbling groan.
As we finished, he pulled me into him even deeper. I snuggled down into him, my chest against his back, and our slowing breaths fell into rhythm.
I didn’t want to ruin this moment. But I didn’t want to stay mum and keep things from him either. And so, into the darkness of my bedroom, I whispered, “Gabe. I have my life here. I have my responsibilities here . . .” I swallowed hard and clamped my eyes shut. “Our lives are so, so different.”
His embrace tightened, and he pressed his lips to the crown of my head. “Is that a bad thing or a good one?”
I truly didn’t know how to begin to answer him. The feeling in my heart was indescribable—infatuation with a twist of uh-oh. But how was I going to explain that? By rattling off a series of hypothetical bullet points about things that he hadn’t even broached yet and that we might not even be headed for at all? By saying something like, All right, so think of an iceberg. Above the waterline is my fear of flying! Below, we have all other unknowns that could sink this ship too! Lemme start by telling you a cautionary tale about a turdmuffin named Boris . . .
He’d think I was out of my freaking mind.
So I decided to keep it simple and address the most pressing issue—the only thing he’d actually asked me about so far. “The thing is . . . about Brazil . . .”
He adjusted his embrace so that his forearm was diagonally across my chest, and his hand gripped my shoulder, making me feel tiny and safe. “Say yes. It’ll be fantastic. I promise.”
Oh, how I wanted to say yes. With all my heart, I wished I was stronger than my fears. But honesty mattered to me, and I was not about to pretend that we didn’t have something very real, and very scary, that might come between us. Yet again, I took courage from his strength and stared at the clock as the second hand ticked past. “I want to say yes, but I have to say no. Because I am absolutely petrified of flying.”
I braced for his reaction—disappointment, disbelief, incredulity. But it’s the safest mode of transportation and all those logical things to say. Instead, I was met by nothing but the sound of his steady, calm breathing. Very slowly, I turned my head, being careful not to move too much in his arms. His face was peaceful and his eyes were closed. He had already fallen asleep.