Page 117 of Proposal Play

When I reach for the remote on the nightstand, Maeveslides closer, snuggling tighter against me. Fuck, that’s nice. My heart thuds hard. So loud she has to be able to hear it. I will it to quiet down.

I run my hand over her hair again. I can’t seem to stop touching her as I aimlessly search the streaming options, barely paying attention to the screen.

But then she freezes for a few seconds before she inches away from me.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

She backs away more. “I don’t want to crowd you in bed.”

That won’t do, her slipping away. “You’re not crowding me,” I say, meeting her gaze in the soft glow of the room, shaded blue and then green as the TV screen reflects on her face.

Worry lines her eyes. “It’s cool. Not everyone likes to cuddle.”

“I’m not everyone.”

“I know.”

“Is this your way of saying you don’t want to cuddle?” I counter, slightly guarded. I hope that’s not what she’s saying.

“No. It’s that…I want to be respectful of your space,” she says, full of tact.

I scoff. “Fuck respect,” I say, then raise my arm, inviting her back into the crook of my shoulder. “Get over here. And fuck those everyones who made you think guys don’t like to cuddle.”

She smiles. “Well, well, well. I guess I’ve learned you’re officially a cuddler.”

“Shut up and cuddle,” I say, then haul her against me.

“There you go again—giving me orders.”

“And you love them,” I tease. She does, and it’s easierto justbein this moment rather than think too hard about what happens tomorrow, next week, and next month.

She primly pulls the covers up. “I’m an independent woman. I don’t want a man to tell me what to do.” She pauses and shoots me a mischievous look. “Unless we’re in bed and he wants to hold my throat.”

That’s a hell of a roadmap. She’s in her sleep cami, so I slide a palm over her chest, up her throat, then around it, gently holding her in place. “Such a good wife,” I say, low and smoky.

She shivers, then whispers, “Next time.”

Two perfect words. A simple promise of more. I’ll take what I can get for now. Rather than push my luck, I find a comedy and turn it on.

Sometime into the second episode, she goes quiet. Then, her breathing evens out. She cuddles even closer in her sleep. I pet her hair. It’s perfect. Totally perfect with her here post-sex. With her comfortable with me. With us slipping back into the way we were.

With no regrets.

But even so, I don’t fall asleep. There’s too much happening in my head. Too many questions. Too many thoughts. Quietly, resting her head on the pillow, I slide away, tucking the blanket over her shoulder. I get out of bed in my boxer briefs, pull on a hoodie, and pad downstairs. My laptop’s on the kitchen counter, and I wish it were baseball season. I could fuck around in some baseball forums, talk trash anonymously about the city’s two teams even though I promised Everly I wouldn’t do thatagain. I need something, anything, to keep me busy because my mind’s a cluttered freeway right now.

I stop at the silver machine, flick it open, and toggle on a browser window. But I don’t have anything to ask Google.

Instead, I close it, head to the hall closet, and open it quietly, taking out a small box from the top shelf. It’s a Lego plant—a prickly pear.

Maeve got it for me for Christmas as part of a whole succulent collection. I go into the living room, flipping on a lamp. I pop open the box and quietly sort the pieces on the coffee table. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, and I need something to focus on now besides my own tangled thoughts.

But as I’m building the terracotta pot, my attention snags on a frame on the other side of the room.

I set down the plastic arm of the cactus, and head over to the frame to inspect the picture more closely even though I’ve seen it before. It’s the photo of Maeve reading in the tree tent on one of our Big Adventures, curled up on her side in the sleeping bag, a book light illuminating the well-worn pages. I can’t tell what she’s reading, but I bet it’s one of her mother’s books. She loves those, says she reads them till the pages fall out. Pretty sure that’s what she was reading that night.

As it grew darker over the Sierras, I snapped some pictures of the starlit sky from the tree, then turned around and saw her like that in her orange sleeping bag. I remember thinking she’d want to look back on that someday. I took the photo for her so she could remember it.

That was six years ago.

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