Page 54 of My Family

But tonight, I do.

I can feel my pulse in places I didn't know had pulses. My lips are swollen. There's a mark on my collarbone that I'll have to hide tomorrow, and I don't care, I don't care about anything except the weight of his arm across my stomach and the sound of his breathing slowing to match mine.

The Egyptian cotton is ruined. Harry's going to kill us.

Ethan's hand traces my hip, his thumb finding the ridge of bone and circling it. My head is on his chest. I can hear his heartbeat.

"What if we didn't go back," I say.

I don't even think before saying it, but I need to. I feel his hand still on my hip.

"Liam."

"I know. I know. Just humor me. For five minutes."

He exhales and then kisses the top of my head. Then his hand resumes its circuit, and I know I've won.

"Fine," he says. "Where would we go?"

I close my eyes. "Somewhere warm but not too warm. Not Florida. Maybe Savannah. Somewhere with those big trees that hang over the streets, you know? The ones with the moss."

"Live oaks," he says, because of course he knows the name.

"Yeah. Those. We'd get a place near one. Small. Like, nothing fancy, just a one-bedroom with a kitchen I can actually cook in. If we can't afford that, we don't even need a real kitchen, just, like, a stove that works and a counter that's bigger than a cutting board."

He chuckles softly. "What would you cook?"

"Everything. Pasta from scratch. Lu's bread recipe. She wrote it down for me, on the back of an inventory form. Curry. Those dumplings Jack's always talking about. Breakfast every morning. Eggs the way you like them, over medium, with the yolks still runny."

"You'd cook me breakfast every morning?"

"Yes, Daddy," I answer. He pulls me tighter, and I feel the rumble of a laugh in his chest.

"What would I do?"

"You'd finish your degree. Nursing. You'd study at the kitchen table while I cook, and you'd complain about pharmacology, and I'd pretend to understand what you're talking about, and you'd quiz me on drug interactions, and I'd get every single one wrong."

"You'd get some right. At least Tylenol."

"None right. Zero. But I'd look hot trying."

He laughs. "You always look hot, baby."

"We'd get a dog," I say. "A big one. Something dumb and happy, like a golden retriever."

"No," he says, immediately. "You'd never clean up after the dog, I'd have to do all the work."

"Please, Daddy?" I ask, looking up at him. He has that smile on his lips.

"I'll think about it." His hand slides from my hip to my stomach, palm flat, fingers spread. "What about jobs?"

"I'd work in a restaurant. Start as a line cook, work my way up. Somewhere small, somewhere good, where the chef actually gives a shit about the food, just like Lu. You'd do something, I don't know. Something where you get to take care of people. That's your thing. You can't not do it."

"Night shifts at a clinic," he says. "Somewhere understaffed. They always need people."

"You'd come home at six in the morning smelling like antiseptic, and I'd already be up because I couldn't sleep without you, and we'd sit on the couch together and have sex."

"We'd be so tired," he chuckles.