Page 94 of Happy After All

Or maybe it’s just a favorite movie and not childhood trauma. But I find myself wanting to dig deeper and deeper into him, who he is, every day.

I’ve never really thought that I was well suited to casual sex. Maybe because my emotions are never casual no matter how much I want them to be.

But I still don’t regret this. I’m determined that I won’t.

“Is he Elise’s boyfriend?” Nathan asks, gesturing toward Ben and Elise.

“I’m hoping that he will be. They’re friends.” I give him meaningful side-eye. “For obvious reasons, she’s determined not to disrupt that.”

This feels like a potential minefield. Stepping into conversations about relationships and why people might not want to be in them.

“It’s complicated,” I say.

“Is it?”

“Yes,” I say slowly. “Just, you know, the eternal complication of people being afraid of getting hurt.”

He nods. “I mean, I am familiar.”

“Of course,” I say.

“If you have the chance, though,” he says, “you should take it.”

Our eyes meet, and my stomach gets tight. I know he isn’t talking about us. He’s talking about them. Maybe talking about his wife. But for one moment, for the space of a breath, I wish he were talking about us.

My thoughts race, and I try to sort them out. Try to stop myself from this intrusive line of thinking that I didn’t even realize existed so strongly inside me. This potential to fantasize about a future beyond this week.

I shouldn’t. I know better.

I hope he doesn’t see all these thoughts playing through my eyes. Because this is about Ben and Elise. Two people who have known each other for years, who live in the same place. This is not about Nathan and Amelia. Two people who do not live in the same place. Who wouldn’t even be able to blend their lives easily if they wanted to.

I don’t even know enough about his life to have these kinds of thoughts.

That I feel like I know him as well as I do is about sex. I’m too smart to let myself believe that sex is knowing someone.

I know the way his skin smells. I know how he tastes. I know how he looks when he loses control. That’s a kind of knowing that goes deep.

I knew Chris for years. It took a pregnancy for us to even really behave like we might be forever. To buy a house, to set it up and get ready to bring a new life into the world. We were having a baby, and we hadn’t even talked about getting married.

Now I’m letting little drops of fantasy aboutforeverinvade me regarding a guy I’ve been sleeping with for nine days. I feel like I should be more realistic than that.

There’s that word again.Realistic.

Maybe I should be happy about these fantasies, actually. I guess it means I’m still able to hope with some part of me on a level of delusion that might be disturbing. But at least it’s hope, I suppose.

“Life’s too short.” I realize that might not be the best choice of words, but he doesn’t even flinch.

“I agree.”

But I feel a wealth of complication in that statement. Just because he thinks life is too short to avoid certain kinds of happiness, I don’t believe he applies that same exact thought to himself.

He has clearly decided that his own life must contain a measure of sadness now. I wonder if I’ve done the same.

“How would you write it?” Nathan asks.

I do a double take when he says that. “Um ... I mean, classic friends to lovers, right? He’s been in love with her forever, but because he’s sensitive to her past, he won’t compromise the trust they’ve built, the relationship they’ve built. He loves her, but he also loves her daughter, and he’s a father figure. She’s skittish, and she leans on him, but she doesn’t fully see what he could be to her.”

“Why not?” he asks.

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