Chapter 24: The First Night

He opened the door in an old T-shirt and sweatpants, reading glasses still on, a book in his hand with his finger holding the place. He looked at her and didn’t say anything, and he didn’t move out of the doorway either.

“You said take the night,” Rachel said.

“I did.”

“I took it.” She checked the clock on his nightstand over his shoulder. “It’s eleven-oh-six. I’m done.”

“That was fast.”

“I’m efficient. It’s on my résumé.”

He took off his glasses. He folded them, slowly, and set them and the book on the dresser by the door, and she watched his hands do it and thought she might actually die standing in his hallway in Tessa’s sweatpants.

“Say it again,” he said. “So I know.”

“I want this. You, not the room.” She swallowed. “And if you make me say it a third time I’m going back to bed.”

He reached for her then, but he stopped with his hand an inch from her face and waited, and she understood he was going to keep doing that. Asking. She leaned into his palm herself.

* * *

His room was dark except for the park.

No curtains drawn, the whole wall glass, Central Park laid out black and silver way below, the lamps along the paths like somebody had dropped a string of pearls. The bed was huge and gray and very neat, and she had made it herself, eight months of Tuesdays and Fridays, hospital corners, and the thought of that made her laugh out loud right as he was kissing her neck.

He lifted his head. “That’s a first.”

“I made this bed. I’ve made this bed like sixty times.”

“Do you want me to unmake it?”

“Yes,” she said. “Badly.”

He kissed her the way he had in the elevator, but slower now, because there was no clock on it. His hands found the hem of her sweatshirt and stopped there.

“Can I.”

“You don’t have to ask every…”

“I want to.”

So she lifted her arms, and he took it off her, and then she was standing in his bedroom in a plain cotton bra from a Target in Yonkers, and for one awful second she thought about Chloe’s red dresses and silk robes, about the lace she didn’t own, about how she used to change in the bathroom with the door shut because Michael had once said, laughing, that she’d gotten soft.

Julian looked at her like she’d handed him something.

“Rachel,” he said, and that was all, her name, low and wrecked, and she stopped thinking about Chloe.

She pulled his shirt over his head herself. He was warm and solid and there was a scar along his ribs, white and old, and she put her fingers on it and he said, “Bike. I was nine. I’ll tell you later,” and she said, “You better,” and then neither of them said much for a while.

He learned her like he was studying for something. That was the only way she could think about it. Where she liked his mouth, where she didn’t, the place at the inside of her wrist that made her breath catch, the spot below her ear that made her grab his hair. He paid attention. He asked, low, with his mouth against her shoulder, against her stomach, against the soft inside of her knee, Is this good, and here, and do you want, and she answered him, yes, yes, there, don’t you dare stop, until answering turned into just the sound of his name.

Nobody had ever asked her before. Eleven years and nobody had asked.

When he finally moved over her, he stopped again, braced on his forearms, his eyes on hers in the dark.

“Still yes?”

She put her hands on either side of his face. “Julian. If you ask me one more time I’m going to charge you.”

He laughed, and she felt it everywhere, and then he wasn’t laughing.

It was slow. It was so slow she thought she’d lose her mind, the long careful slide of him, his body settling into hers, a perfect fit. He kept his eyes open. So did she. She’d always closed them before, she realized, always, like she was waiting for it to be over, and now she couldn’t look away. His breath went ragged. Hers went higher. She dug her heels into the backs of his thighs and told him faster, and he listened, and the park went white at the edges.

When she came apart, she did it loud, and she didn’t care who in the building heard.

He followed her a minute later with his face in her neck and her name in his mouth like a prayer he’d been saving.

* * *

Afterward, she cried.

Not pretty. Hiccuping, wet. She didn’t know where it came from. The lawn, the locks, a week of concrete, a man who asked. All of it at once, like a pipe bursting.

“I’m sorry,” she said into his chest. “I’m sorry, this is so… this isn’t about you, I swear to God, this was great, this was like a ten…”

“I know.”

“Like a solid nine and a half…”

“Rachel.” His hand moved up and down her back, slow, steady. “You don’t have to make me feel good about it. Cry.”

So she did. He didn’t ask what was wrong. He didn’t tell her it would be okay or try to fix anything. He just held on, and when she was done he passed her the corner of the sheet to wipe her nose on, which was disgusting, and she loved him a little for it. Just a little. She’d deal with that later.

It was past one when she slid out from under his arm. He was awake, she thought, watching the ceiling, but he didn’t stop her. Her throat was raw. She picked up the white shirt he’d worn to the office, tossed over the arm of his chair, and buttoned two buttons and padded barefoot down the hall toward the kitchen for water.

The study door was open. A blue glow spilled across the hallway floor.

She almost walked past. Three nights ago she’d been on her knees on that rug till dawn, taping strips of paper back together. She knew where the tape was.

His laptop was open on the desk, screen awake. A document. A folder window behind it.

She wasn’t snooping. She was going to close the lid so the battery wouldn’t die. That was her story as she crossed the rug.

The file name sat at the top of the screen in plain black letters.

RACHEL MOORE HAYES: BACKGROUND.

Created: October 24. Last modified: November 4.

She stood there in his shirt and counted. October 24. Her first night in this apartment, the night she’d heard him on the phone with Owen at three a.m. Six days before the dinner. Six days before she’d stood in his kitchen with her hands shaking and told him your CFO is my husband, like it was news.