It had made him feel as if some of the beauty in their life together came from him. And that she wanted to nurture that.
Another glance from her. He hadn’t even known what a shy smile looked like on her face until just now. Oh, maybe there had been a little shyness in her playful glances sometimes early on, but even then—from the first moment he had shown he was attracted to her, that first meeting, she had gazed up at him with her eyes lighting openly, no games, no reservations, as if she was entirely happy to reciprocate. He’d liked it so much. He’d tried to be so careful not to screw it up. Years into their marriage, on anniversaries, she would tease him about how carefully he had proceeded. He had been so determined to get everything exactly right and not ruin that spontaneous, delighted pleasure in that brown gaze when she looked up at him.
She’d always said that she had liked it a lot, that care. She’d told him once it was like a courtship. Which had made him feel centuries out of date and completely unfitted to society, but she insisted it was what had won her over for good. Sometimes—when he was feeling kind of awkward and embarrassed about the whole damn conversation and wondering if his pursuit of her had, in fact, seemed a little ridiculous to someone as laughing and easy as she was—she would even pounce on him and pretend to pin his hands to the bed and growl into his ear that the way he had courted her had been hot, he was so hot, and she would giggle and play, and—
Fuck, but he missed those days.
“That smells good,” he tried, and then wished he had cleared his throat first, because his voice sounded as if it had been dragged out of bed three hours early. His fingers curled in his pockets as he waited to see if she would actually answer him this time, unlike all those attempts at conversation from the window earlier while she focused on her hush of snow, shutting him out, until finally he just—had to try something different.
She gave him another quick, shy smile. Oh, boy. That shyness was going to take some getting used to. He didn’t think he objected to it exactly, though, anymore than a man dreaming of summer would object to the first tiny hint of a crocus peeking through the snow.
He did clear his throat this time. “You know, it’s okay if you talk.” He hoped. Some of the things she had said last year, before he gave up and stopped trying to fight her need to get rid of him, had been—hard to survive.
“Is it?” she said, low, and his fingers curled in his pockets again. Because if she realized how much harm her words had done, that was, in its way, a hopeful sign, too.
“It is,” he said. “At least—I hope I can take it.” He tried his own half-smile back. Please don’t start telling me how much I didn’t care again, or that maybe it was my sperm that were screwed up, or—His hands tightened into fists in his pockets, bracing. He knew he had to handle it, if she did, but—Just please don’t.
She pressed the heavy iron lid down on the panini and snuck another glance at him, this time at his—penis? No, probably his pockets. God, hope sprung eternal, didn’t it? “Why are you wearing your wedding ring?” she asked suddenly, in a low rush.
His hands fisted so hard. “Because I’m married,” he said. And then, out of nowhere, that anger at her, that he tried not to feel, but sometimes it lashed him mercilessly: “Or I’m sorry—did you think I was just screwing around?”
She ran a hand over her face—her ringless hand—and then pushed it back over her hair. She had left her hair loose after their shower, and it was nearly dry now around her face. Any minute now, the hair around her face while she worked would start driving her crazy, and she would catch it up in a ponytail. The exact same bouncy blond ponytail she had always had when she was happy. He was relieved she hadn’t cut off her hair amid all the other desperate destructive gestures she had made—although he would far rather she had sacrificed her hair than him—but still . . . the ponytail was deceptive. “I don’t know what to think,” she said.
Really? Well, for once in the past two years, that was two of them. He tried not to find hope in that, too, but he found himself leaning forward against the counter. His whole damn body yearning toward her. “Why aren’t you wearing yours?”
Because you were working with food and didn’t want the rings to get gunky. Say it’s that. Say it’s that, Kai, don’t—
“Because I left you,” she said blankly, and at the same time as the words drove into his gut so violently he thought he would be sick, her eyes sparked with tears. Good God. Her throat had tightened over the words. She regretted it. She regretted leaving him.
And that he should be so grateful for that swept rage back through him, that rage that knew no reason, that just wanted to be furious at her no matter how much he forgave her. “I noticed,” he said, too tightly.