Page 49 of Suddenly Entwined

Playfully, I jostle Caro’s shoulder. “Oh, she’s wiped?”

“Fine!” she laughs. “I am also wiped. They are fun and they are a lot.”

“The dichotomy of parenthood.”

“Hey, that’s the word of the day,” she says.

“Saw the calendar?”

“Natalie made sure I did.”

“She’s my little rule follower. Most of the time.”

The glass of wine goes down easily after the day I had. I explain to Caro that a permit we’ve been waiting for keeps getting delayed, and it’s really screwing our schedule. It’s getting late, and I’d normally be showered and crawled into bed by now on a weeknight, but I’m enjoying the companionship of sitting side by side with Caro too much. Being able to have a conversation with an adult after work has a special sort of feel to it.

“I’m taking up your whole evening. Once I poured that wine and sat down, I could barely move. I should honestly go to sleep.”

“I don’t mind. It’s called ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’.”

Caro wrinkles her nose, and it’s criminally cute. “Explain.”

There’s a bit of wine left in the bottle, so I split it between our glasses.

“It’s when you know you should be in bed. But you’ve been really busy all day doing the things you have to do, so you stay up late doing the things you want to do.”

“Do you do that?”

“All the time.”

“What do you stay up late doing?”

I know her question is totally innocent, but I feel my cheeks heat, flushing red like the wine coating the inside of my glass.

“Oh my god,” she cries, covering her eyes with her hands.

I laugh. As much as I’m embarrassed, her mortification is adorable, and I can’t help but puff up my chest a bit knowing what she’s imagining. It only takes me two seconds to recall the way her body felt mashed against mine this morning.

I clear my throat, turning the page of a magazine simply to give me something to do with my hands. I read the headline on the next page.

"Survey Says: 'Ass Man' or a 'Boob Man'? Find Out How to…” I falter, glancing at Caro’s gleeful expression.

She smirks, pointing at the magazine. “Please,continue.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Keep Him Glued to Your Curves…"

I think I’m redder than before. I’ll never open a women’s magazine again.

The base of Caro’s empty wine glass clinks against the coffee table as she sets it down. “Which one are you?”

“What?”

“Are you a boob man, or an ass man, Berg?”

“Stick around and find out which one catches my eye?”

Her mouth pops open, and I drop my forehead into my palm.

“That was really inappropriate. I’m sorry.”

---