Do I Know You?(54)

I file this information away with care. I can do this. I can give her what she wants. It’s only as hard as asking.

Asking and answering, I suppose. With Eliza’s eyes on me, I decide I won’t overthink the first response my heart supplies.

“I want a family.”

I don’t hide my honesty in my character’s bravado. While it feels huge, I’m instantly glad I said it. Having children is something Eliza and I have discussed, something we want in general. When we got married, we were twenty-four and in no hurry. Over the past year, though, I guess something shifted in me, and not knowing how to raise the subject, I let the idea hide in my mind. This is the first time it feels easy to say.

Obviously, I watch Eliza’s reaction with intense focus. She blinks, but even while I prepare myself for disappointment, for redirection, I don’t find reluctance in her expression. Nevertheless, I remind myself, it could just be her character’s reaction. Not my wife’s. I’m not certain she knows what I’m saying is the truth, either, instead of part of our collective charade.

Her measured voice offers no indication when she replies. “It would require meeting the right person, of course.”

“Of course,” I say. My heart races, but not unpleasantly. In these things it’s sort of impossible to know where nerves end and excitement begins. “And making sure the time was right for her,” I go on.

“Naturally.” Eliza’s eyes dance with unspoken conversations and quiet joys.

I feel emotions too enormous to name swell in me. Chasing my instincts, I channel them into the bravado I’ve felt since Eliza sat down with me, wrapped in the confidence of this character and this clean slate. “So the guy you met for coffee,” I say. “Did you go home with him after the first date?”

When she smiles, I’m pretty sure I see the same raging hope lighting up her expression. “Not the first date, no.”

It’s the response I was expecting. I remember our coffee date perfectly—including how I’d wished I was going home with her. Removing my napkin from my lap, I toss it gently onto the table in front of me. “I think we’ve outdone him, though, wouldn’t you say?”

Eliza eyes me. “What exactly are you asking?” She smiles again, lips pressed together seductively. It takes everything in me to keep from reaching forward, caressing the lithe neck I murmured into while we danced, and crushing my mouth to her red-velvet lipstick.

Instead, I only match her expression.

“I’m asking if you’ll spend the night with me,” I say.





31


    Eliza


I SAY YES.

Graham glows while he hurries to pay the bill. I would find his obvious eagerness cute or sweet, except right now, much hungrier descriptions fill my mind.

We walk the path from the restaurant to the forested grounds of the hotel, not speaking while slate changes to gravel under our feet. I get the unexpected feeling everything is new, the first time I’ve walked this way, though of course it’s not. There’s expectation lighting up every color, singing in every quiet sound, humming in the gentle wind on my cheeks. Excitement prickles me like prodding fingertips.

Context, I guess, is everything. We know exactly what we’ll do when we reach our destination.

In the dark, I feel intensely the feet separating us, until suddenly, Graham’s arm encircles my waist. It is its own impossibly enticing promise. The casual pressure of his hand on my hip invites me to imagine everywhere else I’d like to feel it. I don’t fight my imagination, instead letting fantasy preoccupy me the rest of the walk.

Graham holds the door open for me when we reach his room, which is technically our room. I walk in, my eyes sweeping over the details. The soaking tub in the lavish bathroom. The wide living room. The balcony with the Jacuzzi. While I would guess the view is incredible, right now there’s only black night sky.

In front of the bed, I stop. I could be reflecting on everything I’ve deprived myself of, everything I felt I needed to deprive myself of for this unlikely, unconventional, improbably wonderful game we’re playing, but—I’m not. Instead, I’m just grateful for everything I get to experience now, in exactly this way. I’m grateful for how this moment will be made sweeter by everything I’ll get to explore.

Grateful for the reason I’m here, too.

I turn, finding Graham standing behind me, silently watching. He pushes off the doorframe, walking into the room with mesmerizing, slow strides. Is this . . . swagger? Whatever it is, I’m fixated.

“Do you want to use the Jacuzzi?” He nods toward the glass doors leading out to the balcony. His voice drips with invitation. He’s projecting the confidence he had during dinner but—finally, for once—I catch the hint of unsteadiness in his delivery.

It is somehow endearing in ways no swagger ever could be. This man who’s been with me countless times is . . . nervous with expectation. He’s jittery.

In the next moment, I realize I feel the same way. What’s more . . . I love it. I love the shallow hitch in my chest, the pounding of my heart, the charged focus of my mind searching every moment for clues to what’ll happen next.

“No,” I say. I decide to race headlong into the feeling. “I’d like to put my hands on you. Kiss you. I’d like to do everything with you.”