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Karl didn’t take his responsibilities lightly, but could Vivian be more than just a responsibility? Could their relationship be a joy?
And could he find this joy with a woman who’d nearly and with forethought committed a felony? He understood her reasons, he just wasn’t sure he accepted them yet or that they fit into his understanding of how the world should be.
“Listening to you think is exhausting.”
Lying in bed, his body heavy with sexual satisfaction and a woman in his arms, was not the time to be having these thoughts. He probably should have resolved them before bringing Vivian back to his apartment with sex in mind.
But she was here, and he had missed her presence so he shifted in the bed until he was embracing her again. His lips grazed the sensitive skin at the back of her ear. “You can’t hear me think.”
She clasped his hands in hers against her chest and said, “Go to sleep so we can do this again in the morning.”
That was the most sensible thing he’d heard all day.
* * *
WHEN HE WOKE up for the second time that morning, the winter sun was streaming into his windows and Vivian was missing from his bed. He pulled on the boxers that she had found so silly, ran his hands through his hair and stumbled into the kitchen. Vivian was in her panties and his T-shirt, sitting at the bar drinking coffee and playing basketball with Xìnyùn.
“I made plenty of coffee, and I can make breakfast, too,” she said simply. He wasn’t able to judge the expression on her face.
“I’d rather take you back to bed and eat breakfast later.”
“I have to be at work soon. Plus I have to go—” she paused “—back to your mom’s to shower and change.” Her lips curled up in a smile and the strange look on her face disappeared. “I don’t think I can work the register in my opera dress.”
“No, I don’t suppose you can,” he said in the strangest morning-after conversation he’d ever had. She was his wife, pregnant with his child, and he was going to drive her to his mother’s house where she lived.
He noticed she hadn’t called his mom’s house home. Even with a place to live, Vivian was still adrift. Her moorings at his mother’s were tenuous, at best. He opened his mouth to suggest she return to his apartment, but said instead, “I’ll find you a pair of sweats.”
Such a hollow offer, but were he to ask her to move back in, where would she sleep? Either of them crossing the expanse of his living room seeking sex was ridiculous. Yet the thought of her moving into his apartment and into his bedroom was uncomfortable in a different way. If he were to stand outside himself and watch their relationship unfold it would be like watching a movie run backward—child, marriage, moving in, first fight, sex. He wasn’t sure the courtship had reached its beginning and was ready to move forward instead of in reverse.
Which hadn’t stopped him from undressing her last night instead of driving her back to Archer Heights. He was a fool for her, and that knowledge was scarier than the child she was carrying.
The bird chirped, “Hit me,” and hopped back and forth on his perch.
She nodded. Vivian couldn’t know what he was thinking, but he felt as if her nod was for more than just the offer of clothes to wear home.
“You’re still reading the Melville stories,” she said.
The book was on the bar, the bookmark not much farther in than when Vivian had left.
When he’d kicked her out. He should be more honest with himself.
“Between exercising your bird—”
“It’s my dad’s bird.”
“Your bird, work and visiting Healthy Food for dinner every night, I’ve not had much time to read.” He picked up the book and flipped through it. “I wanted to reread ‘Billy Budd, Sailor,’ which I read when I was in law school. I should’ve skipped the other stories.”
“You’re not a man to skip to the good parts.”
“No.” He gave her a wry smile. “About the good parts…I’m not going to ask you to move back in. It’s…”
Karl honestly didn’t know how he wanted to finish that sentence. He’d never worried before about a woman’s expectations after one night of sex, but he’d never had a night of sex with his pregnant wife before, either. The rules—as he understood them—for sex with your wife didn’t apply in this case.
