Page 59 of First Comes Marriage

Ever since she was a teenager, when she’d spend every other week doubled over in pain as her ovaries did everything they could to twist and force her into submission, Sabrina had been cautioned that kids might not be in the cards for her. Sure, the worst of the pain had gone once she’d hit her mid-twenties—except, of course, for those times when her ovaries created cysts the size of citrus fruits, as if they wanted to be sure she hadn’t forgotten about her diagnosis.

Incurable—except with surgery.

Controllable with medication—sometimes.

And the reason she’d never let herself seriously consider wanting children, at least not intentionally. At thirteen when the doctors had first diagnosed her PCOS, becoming a mother was the farthest thing from her mind. But at thirty-one…

No. You will not feel sorry for yourself. You will not mourn things you’ve never even wanted before.

But what if Sebastian wanted them?

All the more reason to remember that this is nothing more than sex. And health insurance. And convenient co-habitation.

All the more reason to remember that it’s temporary.

Because Sabrina knew how this story ended, no matter how good it was right now. This was the honeymoon phase, and she knew from experience that didn’t last. She knew at some point, whether it was next week or three years from now, at some point she’d look at Sebastian and she wouldn’t even recognize him anymore. At some point he’d remember that she wasn’twhat he wanted. She wasn’t enough.

And yet. After the way he’d stood up for her with her parents, after the way he’d looked at her as he demanded she touch herself, she’d let herself start to believe.

Don’t be stupid, Sabrina.

One way or another, this was going to end. She had already given away too much of herself in her last marriage. She couldn’t risk that happening again, no matter how different Sebastian seemed. Once she could purchase her own health insurance, they would file for divorce, like they’d agreed. And the sooner, the better. No need to wait until Christmas. Maybe then she’d at least have a hope of preserving the friendships she was beginning to form. Maybe this time, when the papers were signed and the dust settled, she could keep her place in this town, even if she couldn’t keep her husband.

Still, she couldn’t help but hope that maybe they could always be…whatever they were, even once they were no longer married.

“Sabrina?” She opened her eyes to Sebastian’s scowl, and her chest ached. It was his worried scowl, so different from his angry scowl or his embarrassed scowl or the thousand over scowls she’d begun silently cataloging over the last few weeks. “Are you alright?”

“Fine!” she chirped, and the word sounded false even to her own ears. “Did you win?”

He eyed her carefully, as though debating whether or not to allow her to change the subject. “Not yet. But we can go if you’re not feeling—”

“I’m fine,” she repeated, this time making more of an effort to mean it. “Besides, we can’t go yet. We haven’t ridden the Ferris wheel.”

“I thought you were afraid of heights.”

“Why would you think that?”

“On the plane—”

“Oh! No! It’s not the heights, it’s more the giant metal deathtrap hurling through space at a thousand miles an hour.” She chuckled and some of the worry seemed to slip from his face, his shoulders relaxing.

“But a giant metal wheel of doom is fine?” His lip turned up as he teased her.

God, how she loved that little quirk of his mouth.

“Bring it on,” she said.

He held out his hand to her and her heart fluttered in her chest as she took it, interlacing her fingers with his. There was something unexpected about holding his hand like this, alone, with no one scrutinizing their every move, something unbearably intimate about feeling the roughness of his palm against hers just because they wanted to. Just because they could.

Something that didn’t feel temporary at all. Something that made it all too easy to imagine how it would be if this thing between them was real. If she could keep him.

Chapter Twenty-one

The five-story-high Ferris wheel at the edge of the Town Common was the centerpiece of Aster Bay’s annual Labor Day weekend carnival, the entire block of greenspace covered with brightly colored rides and stalls. From the top, you could see over the roofline all the way down to the bay in one direction and view the stained-glass Garden of Eden in the steeple at St. Anthony’s head on in the other direction. As night settled over the town, the lights on the Ferris wheel blinked to life, beckoning Baz and Sabrina closer.

There was no line when they approached—the youngest carnival-goers had all been shuffled away by parents and indulgent grandparents when the streetlights came on a half hour ago, and most of the teenagers wouldn’t make their appearance until dark had well and truly fallen. Baz handed over a strip of day-glow orange tickets to the bored-looking attendant and followed Sabrina into a waiting car.

She’d gone quiet on him again, shooting glances his way when she thought he wouldn’t notice, her lips pinched tightly the way she did when she was holding something back. He hated that look—not as much as he hated the various stages of embarrassment and hurt he’d seen flicker across her face the day before at her parents’ house, but still, he hated it allthe same. Ever since they’d gotten home from Brookline, she’d seemed…distant.

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