Page 14 of Dirty Husband
Her eyes close as she sips. They burst open. Fill with surprise. "Oh."
Again, I motion for her to sit.
This time, she does. "I shouldn't have assumed."
I sit next to her. Place my hand over hers. "I know what you think of me."
Her brow furrows. She drops the glass in my palm. Places her hands in her lap. "I'm not marrying an alcoholic."
"Understood."
"That's it? Understood."
I nod.
She stares into my eyes.
I stare back.
"Six years ago—"
"You proved how much it matters to you."
Her brow softens. Her eyes go to the floor. "So why didn't you… no, it doesn't matter. You're sober now."
I nod, even though it's not a question.
"For how long?"
"Thirteen months now." I got out of rehab a year ago. I've been in New York for a year. But I've barely spoken to her.
"Congratulations." Pride slips into her voice. Just barely. "That's quite an accomplishment."
"I'm not going to offer a cliché about taking it one day at a time."
"One woman at a time, the last I heard."
"You've heard things?" I ask.
"Your name travels fast."
"And what have people said?"
Her guard drops. The tension in her shoulders eases. She shoots me thatreallylook. Her classic when we were kids. When she couldn't believe the things my family did. Or bought. "I guess you're living in a cave."
"The straw bed is particularly uncomfortable."
"And it makes a mess of your hair." She pretends to pick something out of my hair.
I shrink back, reflexively.
Her eyes turn down. "Oh, I—"
Fuck. I'm past this. I am. "It's fine."
"Don't want me messing up your style?" she offers.
I nodof course. But it hangs in the air. That tension. I flinched when she tried to touch me. I'm going to offer to fuck her senseless, but I flinch when she tries to touch me.
