“Hey,” John said, squeezing her foot. “Don’t talk about my wife that way.”
That had been their most impulsive move, although it also felt like the most deliberate thing they could’ve done. “Hey,” John had said one morning while they were waiting for their café order. “Do you realize that today is the twentieth anniversary of when we first met?” Micah’s tea was still hot by the time they’d come up with the idea and booked a quick weekend tripto Vegas. They’d found a twenty-four-hour wedding chapel that boasted the Strip’s best Elvis impersonator, and were married before the clock struck midnight. Micah didn’t know if the middle-aged man wearing a crooked wig and a too-tight white jumpsuit was thebest, but then he’d crooned a pretty decent “Can’t Help Falling in Love” while Micah and John slow-danced under a ceiling dotted with twinkle light stars and she’d thought it was all perfect, actually.
She still got a thrill, seeing the ring around John’s finger when his hands were on her like this, when he was playing guitar, when they were at the sink doing dishes together, when he reached for her first thing in the morning when they woke up. She couldn’t believe he was hers, that she got to live this life.
She rubbed her foot in his lap, gratified when she felt him getting hard beneath her.
“Steve’s going to be here in fifteen minutes,” John said. Their old bandmate had agreed to record drums on their songs—he’d been charmingly excited about it, had said a lot about how good it was to have a musicsceneagain, as though two people could possibly be a scene.
“I can be quick,” she said.
He’d gotten up from his chair to lean against hers, his hands braced against the arms of the chair as she tilted her chin up for a kiss.
“I know you can,” he said, kissing down her jaw. “And it certainly would be one way to get you warm…”
“See,” she said. “These are healthy choices. Don’t you want to make healthy choices, John?”
But just as she’d started to pull him down onto her, theyheard the doorbell from upstairs, followed by Steve’s distinctive shave-and-a-haircut knock.
“Fuck,” John said.
“Why does he use the doorbellandknock?” Micah said. “I never get it.”
“No idea,” John said. “For a drummer, he also has the worst fucking timing. But we can’t just leave him out in the cold.”
She wrapped her hand around the back of his neck for one more kiss, then pushed at his chest. “Go,” she said. “We survived all those years of will-they-won’t-they sexual tension, I suppose an extra few hours aren’t going to kill us.”
“Says you,” John said, but he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. And then he went to answer thedoor.
