Family Ties

She was feeling better but not a hundred percent, so dinner was more subdued than the night before. She and Trip called it an early night and went up to bed shortly after. Christy and I opened a bottle of wine and spent a couple of hours on the couch, just reading and occasionally chatting. I finally closed my book and looked at my watch.

“Think I’m going to head up,” I said. “I don’t want to take you for granted, and I don’t want to assume, but…”

“Of course I’ll sleep with you.” She smiled and replayed it in her head. “I like saying that.”

“And I like hearing it.”

“It feels kinda weird standing here without clothes,” she said as she dabbed white cream under her eyes, “but it makes things a lot simpler. I don’t have to avoid my lingerie or wait for my skin to dry before I put on pajamas.”

“I know what you mean,” I teased. “I have the same problem.”

“Funny, ha ha.” She gestured at the array of cosmetics. “I’m doing all this for you, you know. I want to look nice and feel nice and smell nice for you.”

“I’m not complaining,” I said. “I’m just… amazed.”

“Well, you can blame Sabrina. I really didn’t understand proper skincare until I met her.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand it.”

“Laugh all you like,” she said, “but you’ll thank me in ten years.”

“So… you think we’ll still be together in ten years?”

She blushed but then looked uncertain. “Don’t you?”

“I still have a lot to tell you,” I said. “About myself.”

“Well, I haven’t run away so far.”

“That’s true. But some of the things might be… pretty hard to get used to.”

“You won’t know till you try me.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You still aren’t going to tell me?”

She met my eyes in the mirror and nodded. Then she borrowed from her father’s playbook: she visibly adjusted her attitude and smiled.

“What? The ten years thing?”

“No. I… I’ve been thinking the same thing. Not tonight, but in the back of my mind. It’s natural. ‘Is she The One?’”

“I’ve been wondering the same.”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “It depends on what you have to tell me, I guess.”

“True. But we don’t have to rush. I mean, we’ve only been a couple for…

“Yeah, but like you said, we’ve been dancing around it since we first met.”

“True.” I tried to remember when it was, exactly, and she read me

“September 3rd,” she said, “1981.”

My eyebrows tried to do a backflip. “Holy crap! You remember the date?”

“Of course. I’m bad with math, but I remember dates.” She beamed.

“Wren and I were late to Art History and you couldn’t stop staring at us. We thought you were cute. I drew you in my sketchbook that night. I even wrote the date so I’d remember.”

“Mmm hmm. I’ll show you sometime.”

“I drew you a lot between then and now. Well, except for… you know.”

“When I was a jerk?”

“I wish I could draw people like you do.”

“I did, didn’t I?” I had a sudden, whimsical thought. “You should sculpt Mr. Big sometime.”

“Maybe I already have,” she said coyly.

My eyebrows did their acrobat thing.

“I’m kidding. But I’ve thought about it.”

“Of course.” She turned from the dresser and faced me. “I always draw or sculpt the things I like.”

I brushed her cheek and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Ten years might not be enough.”

“I know.” She stretched upward for a kiss.

“Are you ready for bed?”

“Bed or sleep?” she asked with a grin.

“Uh-oh. What have I gotten myself into?”

“Come to bed and find out.”

Wren and Christy went shopping the next day. Trip and I had to move our cars to let Wren back hers out. She used it so rarely that I sometimes forgot she had it.

He and I left a little later. He’d already done most of his Christmas shopping, but he wanted to buy some lingerie for Wren. I knew of a specialized boutique—I’d found it during the hunt for Christy’s Halloween dress—so we went there first. We probably shouldn’t have been surprised to run into the girls, or that they were carrying bags filled with purchases.

“See, I told you,” Christy said to Wren.

“Told her what?” I asked.

“That you’d come here. You have excellent taste, if I do say so myself.”

“I do indeed.” I bent and kissed her.

We chatted for a few minutes and tried to peek at their purchases, but they fended us off easily.

“The saleslady knows what we like,” Christy said. “Just ask her what we were looking at.”

Trip gestured at all their bags. “Looks like you already bought half the store.”

“For your information, Mr. Penny-pincher, we left you plenty to choose from.”

“And to think,” Christy said sweetly to Wren, “we bought these pretty things for their enjoyment.”

“Yeah, we should probably take ’em back.