Page 57 of Binding Their Hearts

“Thanks for the water.” Mapping his muscles, she tracked the tiny hitches in his breath.

“That was a big sigh. You wanna talk about it?” He settled into his waiting pose, but he captured her hand and massaged her fingers between his.

“Dunno.” Sunday evening dread would steal over her eventually, but this wasn’t quite that. “I thought the changes at work caused stress-ball Alice, but I’ve solved that one, and there’s still…” The side stitch struck again, and she shivered it away. “Something.”

“You solved the work stress?” He bowed his head and rubbed his cheek against hers in a teasing jostle. No wonder she called him puppy some days. “But that’s awesome. Epic. Cele-bra-tory.”

She half snorted before she let the giggle out. He’d pronounced it like the Monty Python bit on the migratory habits of swallows Nat had shared in their group chat the other day.

“Sure, if I hadn’t spent weeks being so—” She bit off the easy word, because Henry had appeared and he’d object to stupid, and Jay didn’t need self-defeating language from her when he was working on silencing his own internal critics. “Short-sighted. Like I have to do a hundred and fifty percent of what Ryan was. And I can’t let anything slip or push back when my teammates slack off, because they’re just ‘adjusting’ to me bossing them.” Tucking her feet up, she made space for Henry on the couch. “Total bullshit. They were taking advantage of the substitute teacher, and I let them trample me. That’s gonna stop.”

“An excellent insight, and yes, one worth celebrating.” Sitting properly upright, Henry tugged her legs across his lap. He traced the tops of her feet, following anatomical lines he could probably name. Portraits were all about bone structure, he said—surface perfection only possible when the underlying framework was sound. “But you sense a deeper unease?”

Unease was a polite word for it.

“Fear.” Oh yeah, the stitch in her side didn’t like that name. “I’m afraid.”

“Of moving?” Jay’s hands froze around hers. “Of marrying…?”

Me, maybe, or us, but he didn’t finish his question.

“I don’t…” She shook her head, hoping to rattle loose an answer like her dad used to conk the ancient TV into giving them a clearer picture when she was little. “Not of moving or getting married, exactly. Of…” All the years she’d fooled herself into thinking independence was happiness. Because letting her happiness depend on other people hurt too much when they changed. “Of losing those things. Losing the two of you and our life together. It gets me all worked up inside. Scared. Angry. And then I cause the thing I don’t want, because who wants to be around that?”

“Me.” Jay clasped her arm to his chest. His heart beat with a steady thrum beneath her palm.

“I as well.” Barely audible, Henry dug his fingertips into the arch of her foot with fierce strength. His touch loosened tension only noticeable once it had fled. “Self-sabotage is a coping mechanism. Any learned behavior may be unlearned when one has a secure environment from which to launch such explorations.”

“Shouldn’t I be there by now? With the learning?” Buck up and get on with it, that was how life worked. If life kept throwing her the same lessons, she must be awfully slow at figuring them out. Wriggling fingers and toes, she stretched and reveled in Henry and Jay’s holds at her wrists and ankles. “You’re my secure environment. You have been for a long while now.” At least for the five months since she’d moved in, if she didn’t count the months before with all the stress of sorting out how she fit. “I don’t want to push you away because my brain hasn’t caught up with my heart.”

“It’s not what you want—it’s just what you do.” In a flurry, Jay propped her up and slipped behind her on the couch. When he’d finished, his arms wrapped around her collarbones and his fantastically flexible legs pretzeled around her waist, he could’ve been the koala backpack she’d carried in elementary school. Comforting, all-encompassing—less furry, though. “Danny says reactions are like that. The trick is to learn what yours are and how to recognize them so you can clear a new route instead of taking the familiar path that goes where you don’t wanna go.”

She met Henry’s gaze, mirroring his gentle smile. In twenty years, their faces might have more lines and their hair more gray, but they’d still be sharing the look of Jay is fucking brilliant, and I’m so incredibly lucky that he loves me. The fear-stitch prodded with needle-like intensity. A lot could happen in twenty years.

“We have today,” Henry murmured, his eyes impossibly green. “Each day as it comes, Alice. You and I, we are planners. We have a vision; we map out the steps to reach it. But we must remain open to revision. Plans are knocked askew. The system may be sound even when small sections of the whole require fine-tuning. Some days, we fumble through the most meaningful proposals of our lives in the middle of a crowded restaurant rather than staging an elaborate event at a performance of the Nutcracker as Christmas Eve approaches.” Eyebrow cocked, he delivered a wry shrug with an off-center grin. “Yet somehow we go on, sans leaping sugar plum fairies.”

As she stretched out a hand, he folded her fingers in his.

“Not gonna lie”—Jay settled his chin on her shoulder—“that would’ve been pretty sweet.”

“Saccharine,” she teased, and Henry groaned.

“But.” Jay’s ribs flexed against her back as he breathed. “I like the way it turned out. Spontaneous. Faster. I have a long way to go with the therapy stuff, but I already know anxious is me. Not you”—he lightly bumped his head against hers—“you’re avoidant for sure. So you can keep pushing, and I’ll keep clinging. I’ll always scoop you back in.” He rattled her side to side, his ankles locked across her thighs. “And Henry will make sure we don’t all get into an unhealthy codependent pattern, because he’s the securest person I know.”

Hard to tell whether she should be offended or astonished by his logic. Tipping her head at an ungainly angle, she claimed his mouth for a kiss. He submitted with ease, letting her set the pace. The fear-stitch quieted.

“I do appreciate the vote of confidence.” Massaging her feet, Henry resettled himself against the back of the couch. “And I am delighted with how you’ve been applying yourself in therapy, my boy. Your dedication to self-knowledge is impressive.”

Alice added tiny dots of kisses to the parts of Jay she could reach, mostly along his jaw line. Henry could set aside his ego so easily. He’d been teaching Jay to recognize himself for five years, and Jay couldn’t hear the lessons until a stranger delivered them. That would sting, wouldn’t it? And she’d done the same, listening but not applying Henry and Jay’s advice to her troubles with the promotion. It had taken Leah’s breakthrough to open Alice to finding hers.

“Turns out I have lots to talk about.” Jay curled forward, giving her access to his cheek and ear, which promptly received kisses. “But I’m committed to being better—nope, to, umm, building healthier habits.”

“You are doing so beautifully.”

Henry’s praise sent a wriggle through Jay, and she shivered with him, the pleasure infectious.

“Because I’m committed to spending the rest of my life with you.” Jay squeezed hard around her, forming an inescapable tangle of limbs. “And someday Alice will stop being afraid of losing that.”

I hope so, her mouth wanted to say. Her mind played the 3:00 a.m. soundtrack of her little sister’s breathy snores against her shoulder and the fainter, uneven warble of Mom’s weeping when she thought no one could hear. “Being this happy is tempting fate. Something bad will come along and knock you down. It always does.”

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