“It was good,” she says quietly, thinking of how fast the time flew by sitting there with Nick, how pleasant and easy it felt. “We had a good conversation.”
“I meant the food,” Jason says, raising his brows. “Not the company.”
“The food was great. Here.” She tosses him the takeout bag as he mumbles something under his breath.
“What?” she says.
He repeats himself more slowly, loudly. “I said—I think someone has a crush on Dr. Beautimus.”
“Dr. Beautimus?” she says, standing to close the blinds. “Is that some slang term I don’t know about?”
“Yeah. Dr. Beautimus. Dr. Dime-piece.”
She laughs nervously and says, “Dime-piece?”
“A perfect ten,” Jason says, winking.
Valerie rolls her eyes and says, “I think you’re the one with the crush.”
Jason shrugs and says, “Yeah. He’s hot. But I’m not trying so hard to deny it.”
“I don’t go for married men,” she says emphatically. “I didn’t say you were going for him,” Jason says. “I just said you have a crush on him.”
“I do not,” she says, envisioning Nick’s dark eyes, the way he squints with a slight grimace whenever he’s making a point or being emphatic. It occurs to her that she might sound unduly defensive, that she shouldn’t protest quite so hard—especially given the fact that she and Jason often banter about hot guys, such as the bachelor who lives across the street and occasionally mows his lawn shirtless, and that some of them happen to be married.
Jason opens the bag, inhales, and nods approvingly. “So what did you talk about all that time?”
“A lot of things,” she says, realizing that she has not yet told Jason about the basket from Romy. She considers doing so now, but feels suddenly drained, deciding it can wait until morning. “Work. His kids. Charlie’s school. A lot of stuff.”
“Did you mention that you think he’s smokin’?”
“Don’t start,” she says.
“Don’t you start,” he says. “It’s a dangerous path, falling for a Baldwin like him.”
“Whatever,” she says, laughing at the term Baldwin and thinking that she did once have a crush on Billy—or whichever brother was in the movie Flatliners—and that Nick does bear something of a resemblance to him. Unfortunately for her, she thinks, as she watches Jason dive into his lasagna, Nick has even nicer eyes.
17
Tessa
Tess?” Nick says that night when he finally comes to bed just after one in the morning. His voice is tender, almost a whisper, and I feel a rush of relief to hear him say my name like this.
“Yes,” I whisper back, realizing that we’ve just made a rhyme.
He takes several deep breaths, as if collecting himself or deciding what to say, and it occurs to me to fill the silence with a question about what is going on in his head. But I force myself to wait, sensing that his next words will be telling ones.
“I’m sorry,” he finally says, pulling me close to him, wrapping his arms around me. Even without the hug, I can tell he means it this time. Unlike his apology for being late, there is nothing obligatory or automatic in his voice now.
“Sorry for what?” I breathe, my eyes still closed. It is ordinarily a passive-aggressive question, but tonight it cornes from a sincere place. I really want to know.
“I’m sorry for what I said. It’s not true.” He takes several more deep breaths, exhaling through his nose, and then says, “You’re a great mother. A great wife.”
He kisses my neck, just under my ear, and hugs me harder, all of his body now against mine. It has always been his way of making up—action over words—and although I’ve criticized and resisted this approach in the past, tonight I don’t mind. Instead, I push back against him, doing my best to believe him, dismiss the brewing doubts about our relationship. I tell myself that Nick has always been a bit of a dirty fighter, quick with cutting words that he later regrets and doesn’t really mean. Then again, I wonder if there isn’t always a grain of truth in them, somewhere.
“Then why did you say it?” I whisper, between his kisses and some of my own. “Why did you say things aren’t working?”
It occurs to me that the two things aren’t mutually exclusive. I can be a great wife and mother—and things could still be broken. Or slowly breaking.
“I don’t know . . . I just get frustrated sometimes,” he says as he tugs down my sweatpants with rapidly building urgency.
I try to resist him, if only to finish our conversation, but feel myself caving to the overwhelming physical pull to him. The need for him. It is the way I felt in the beginning, when we’d rush home from school to be together, making love two or three times in a night. A way I haven’t felt in a long time.
“I want you to be happy,” Nick says.
“I am happy.”
“Then don’t look for problems.”
“ I don t.”