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“I call shotgun,” Susan yelled, pumping her fist in the air. When Vivian gave her a curious look, Susan smiled innocently. “If you’re going to treat us like children, we’re going to act like children.” The words had no irritation to them, so Vivian just reminded all the women not to forget their coats and hustled them into Susan’s car.
As soon as the last of Susan’s friends had gotten out of the car and was wobbling through her front door, Susan turned to Vivian and said, “Has my son come to his senses yet?”
Vivian gave her mother-in-law a sideways glance. “I’m glad most of the drunkenness was an act. I don’t think alcohol mixes well with the medications you’re on.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Can I have Friday off? Karl asked me to the opera.” She didn’t know if that meant he’d come to his senses—and she wasn’t sure what his senses were. She wasn’t sure what her senses were.
“Good.” Susan’s cooing of the word made Vivian uneasy.
“Why good?”
“Opera is very special to him.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t you want Karl to come to his senses about you?”
“I don’t know.” She needed to know what Karl’s senses were to be able to recognize them and decide if she wanted them in her life. Vivian looked at the houses around them. She’d not seen so many swan planters in one neighborhood before. “I think I got us lost.”
“What? I should’ve been directing you. We’ve gone too far south and east, so make a left at the next light.”
Unfortunately, the process of getting back on track didn’t distract Susan from her questions. “Don’t tell me you’re not interested in Karl as more than the accidental father of your child. I’ve seen the way you look at him. Not to mention how he looks at you.”
“We’ve had this conversation before, Susan. Karl thinks I’m a suspicious character. No matter how hot he is for me—” she rolled her eyes when Susan tittered “—he’s unlikely to look past what he thinks of me just because he wants me naked. And I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you about your son.”
“I like to be reminded that Karl’s human. Sometimes he doesn’t act like it.” Her mother-in-law reached over and squeezed Vivian’s knee. “It would be easier to mother you both if you both wanted the same thing, but I’ll be supportive no matter what. You’ve been a great help to me. And Karl’s my son. Like me, he’ll get past his snap judgment about you and see you for the person you are.”
Susan’s words brought tears to Vivian’s eyes. “Thank you. And thank you for being a mother to me when I need one most.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“YOU DIDN’T HAVE to buy me a dress,” Vivian said as she smoothed the silk over her hips.
Between the short time they’d lived together and his daily stops at Healthy Food, she could now read Karl’s stoic face. Not a muscle moved, but the hazel of his eyes got warmer as they traveled from her curled hair down to her toes and back up again before stopping at her face. She felt a bit like a furtive teenager when her body responded with tingles while standing in Susan’s living room. “You said you didn’t have anything to wear to the opera.”
“What I said was that I didn’t know if I had anything to wear because I’d never been before. I don’t understand why you bought it—”
“How about because I wanted to?” His intense eyes never left hers but she felt like he saw through the bronze latticework at her waist to her bare skin. “Because we’re married and having a child together, and I am learning how to share my life with you. And because I like the way you look in the dress.”
“Thank you. I like the way you look in the tux.” The way the wool clung to his shoulders and smoothed over his chest. The way his cheekbones made his face so stern, but she knew she could make him melt if she wanted. The way she was already melting.
But acknowledging what you wanted out of a night wasn’t the same thing as being willing to risk getting it.
