Graham looks up at me from the floor. “Hot damn, Quinn. That is . . . yeah.”
I smile at Gwenn. “Did you make me pretty?”
She starts giggling.
I make my way to the bathroom and laugh when I look in the mirror. I’m convinced they only make blue eye shadow for this exact purpose. So three-year-olds can put it on adults.
I’m washing my face when Graham walks into the bathroom. He looks at me in the mirror and makes a face.
“What? You don’t like it?”
He kisses my shoulder. “You look beautiful, Quinn. Always.”
I finish washing the makeup from my face, but Graham’s lips don’t leave my shoulder. He traces a soft trail of kisses up my neck. Knowing that this kiss won’t lead to sexhopedevastation makes me enjoy it more than if this were happening in our own bathroom at our own house.
It sounds so fucked up. I don’t understand how his actions can elicit different responses from me depending on the setting. But right now, I’m not going to question it, because he doesn’t seem to be questioning it. He seems to be enjoying it.
He remains behind me, pressing me against the sink as his hand runs over my hip and slides around to the front of my thigh. I grip the sink and watch him in the mirror. He lifts his eyes and stares at my reflection as he begins to bunch up the front of my dress with his fingers, crawling it up the front of my thighs.
It’s been over a month and a half now since he’s initiated sex. The longest we’ve ever gone. I know, based on how things ended the last time we had sex, he’s waiting for me to initiate it. But I haven’t.
It’s been so long since he’s touched me, my reaction seems to be intensified.
I close my eyes when his hand slips inside my panties. I’m covered in chills from head to toe, and knowing this can’t go too far makes me want him and his mouth and his hands all over me.
The door is open and someone could walk down the hall at any moment, but that only serves as further affirmation that this make-out session will stop any second now. Which is why my mind is allowing me to enjoy it as much as I am.
He slips a finger inside of me and runs his thumb down the center of me and it’s the most I’ve felt from his touch in over a year. My head falls back against his shoulder and he tilts my mouth toward his. I moan, just as his lips cover mine. He kisses me with hunger and impatience, like he’s desperate to get all he can out of this moment before I push him away.
Graham kisses me with urgency the whole time he touches me. He kisses me until I come, and even as I whimper and tremble in his arms, he doesn’t stop kissing and touching me until the moment passes completely.
He slowly pulls his hand out of my panties, diving his tongue into my mouth one last time before pulling back. I grip the sink in front of me, breathing heavily. He kisses me on the shoulder, grinning as he walks out of the bathroom, smiling like he just conquered the world.
I take several minutes to collect myself. I make sure my face is no longer flushed before I walk back to the living room. Graham is lying on the couch, watching television. He makes room for me on the couch, pulling me against him. Every now and then, he’ll kiss me or I’ll kiss him and it feels just like it used to. And I pretend that everything is okay. I pretend every other day of the week is just like Sundays at Graham’s parents’ house. It’s like everything else falls away when we’re here, and it’s just me and Graham without a single trace of failure.
After dinner, Graham and I offer to do the dishes. He turns on the radio and we stand at the sink together. I wash and he rinses. He talks about work and I listen. When an Ed Sheeran song starts to play, my hands are covered in soapy suds, but Graham pulls me to him anyway and starts dancing with me. We cling to each other and barely move while we dance—his arms around my waist and mine around his neck. His forehead is pressed to mine and even though I know he’s watching me, I keep my eyes closed and pretend we’re perfect. We dance alone until the song almost comes to an end, but Caroline walks into the kitchen and catches us.
She’s due with her third child in a few weeks. She’s holding a paper plate with one hand and holding her lower back with the other. She rolls her eyes at the sight of us. “I can’t imagine what it must be like when you’re in private if you two are this handsy in public.” She throws the plate in the trash can and heads back toward the living room. “You’re probably that annoyingly perfect couple who has sex twice a day.”
When the door to the kitchen closes, we’re alone and the song is over and Graham is just staring at me. I know his sister’s comment has made him think about my affection. I can tell he wants to ask me why I love his touch so much in public, but recoil from it in private.
He doesn’t say anything about it, though. He hands me a towel to dry my hands. “You ready to go home?”
I nod, but I also feel it start to happen. The nerves building in my stomach. The worry that being so affectionate with him at his mother’s will make him think I want his affection at the house.
It makes me feel like the worst wife in the world. I don’t do this because I don’t love him. But maybe if I could somehow love him better, I wouldn’t do this.
Even knowing how unfair I am to him doesn’t stop me from lying to him on our way home. “I feel like I’m getting a migraine,” I say, pressing my forehead to the passenger window of our car.
When we make it home, Graham tells me to go to bed and get some rest. Five minutes later, he brings me a glass of water and some aspirin. He turns out my lamp and leaves the room and I cry because I hate what I’ve turned this marriage into.
My husband’s heart is my saving grace, but his physical touch has become my enemy.
Chapter Eleven
* * *
Then
I can feel the heat of his body next to me. I like that the sun is up and he’s still here.
I feel Graham move before I open my eyes. His hand finds mine beneath my pillow and he threads our fingers together. “Good morning.”
When I open my eyes, I’m smiling. He lifts his other arm and brushes his thumb across my cheek. “What’d I miss while you were asleep? Did you dream?”
I think that might be the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. “I had kind of a strange dream. You were in it.”
He perks up, releasing my hand and lifting onto his elbow. “Oh yeah? Tell me about it.”
“I had a dream that you showed up here in head-to-toe scuba gear. And you told me to put my scuba gear on because we were going to swim with sharks. I told you I was scared of sharks and you said, ‘But Quinn. These sharks are actually cats!’ And then I said, ‘But I’m scared of the ocean.’ And you said, ‘But Quinn. This ocean is actually a park.’ ”
Graham laughs. “What happened next?”
“I put on my scuba gear, of course. But you didn’t take me to an ocean or a park. You took me to meet your mother. And I was so embarrassed and so mad at you because I was wearing a scuba-diving suit at her dinner table.”
Graham falls onto his back with laughter. “Quinn, that is the best dream in the history of dreams.”
His reaction makes me want to tell him every dream I ever have for the rest of my life.
I like that he rolls toward me and looks at me like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. He leans forward and presses his mouth to mine. I want to stay in bed with him all day, but he pulls away and says, “I’m hungry. You got anything to eat?”
I nod, but before he can climb out of bed, I pull him back and press my lips against his cheek. “I like you, Graham.” I roll off him and head to my bathroom.
He calls out after me. “Of course you like me, Quinn! I’m your soul mate!”
I laugh as I close the door to the bathroom. And then I want to scream when I look in the mirror. Holy shit. I have mascara smeared everywhere. A pimple that appeared on my forehead overnight. My hair is a mess, but not in that sexy, come-hither way. It’s just a mess. Like a rat slept in it all night.
I groan and then yell, “I’m taking a shower!”
Graham yells back from the kitchen. “I’m looking for food!”