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I’d tried.
I didn’t know if that counted for anything, but at least if I had to explain this to Halley one day, I could honestly say I’d tried. But all my efforts amounted to nothing. I couldn’t put the genie back in the bottle. I stared down at Lily. Her naked body was only half covered by the soft blanket I’d pulled over us in the night. She was curled against me, her hair spilling over the arm I kept around her. She had one arm hooked around my chest. My shoulder was her pillow. I could feel her light breathing skittering across my clavicle. Her leg was draped over mine, golden against my paler skin. I pulled the blanket up higher, though I’d never seen anything as beautiful as the length of her body wrapped around mine.
The movement woke her. I felt her eyelashes flutter open before she raised her head to blink sleepily at me. “Good morning,” she whispered.
“Good morning,” I said.
We stared at each other as the sleep slowly faded from her eyes and a shadow of concern took its place. “Do you remember what you said?”
I nodded slowly.
“And you’re not trying to take it back?” she demanded.
I shook my head. “No, I’m not trying to take it back. But–”
“No buts.” Lily settled her head back on my shoulder. Her limbs tightened around me. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I called Laura later that day to tell her Lily wasn’t coming after all.
“You’re in trouble, old pal,” Laura said.
“You don’t know the half of it,” I said and hung up.
I hated myself for not having the strength to make her go, but after last night, I’d given up. Whatever had dragged us together was inexorable. The only thing to do now was to let it run its course and hope it let go before we completely fucked up each other’s lives.
* * *
After that night, we began spending every free minute together that we could. I kept thinking that it would get old. I would get bored. We would have nothing in common. The age difference would widen between us like a canyon until we couldn’t remember what the hell had brought us together in the first place.
But that never happened.
It wasn’t just about the sex, though I was enjoying teaching Lily everything I knew. She was smart. Mature. We weren’t as different as I had assumed. Granted, she hadn’t had to grow up as fast as I did and raise a child while doing so, but she’d had to work harder than most of her peers to afford college. It bred in her the same sense of distance from her friends–even her best friends.
But we never mentioned Halley directly. Not to each other. Not even when the topic of having children inexplicably came up. In retrospect, I couldn’t remember how it had come up. Lily had been talking about where she wanted to live after law school–she was second guessing the big city now that she had had a taste of LA. It wasn’t where she wanted to raise a family.
I stiffened. We never talked about the future like this. We were lying in bed, me propped up against the pillows, her curled up with her head on my thigh. I’d been stroking her hair, but now my hand stilled.
She rolled over to face me. “Could you see yourself having more kids?”
I jerked my shoulders noncommittally. It would have been easier if I could’ve said hell no, but the truth was, I didn’t know. Maybe. I couldn’t say that to Lily though–it would have opened up an avenue that neither of us was ready to go down. “I used to think about it,” I said finally, “what it would be like if I’d met the right person and had a kid at the right time. Not when I was a kid myself, you know. When I wouldn’t have to hustle so hard and could have enjoyed it more.” Then I changed the subject.
Aside from these brushes with the future, Lily and I lived completely in the present. We had our own world. After we left the office, we went to my place. We didn’t care that we spent all of our time in a two-thousand-square-foot box on top of the sky, not as long as I could touch her whenever I wanted–however I wanted–without worrying that someone from The Walker Agency would see us. We ordered take out from all over the city. In addition to educating her about the various sex positions that existed, I was introducing her to the culinary delights the city had to offer. In her world, TGIFridays was a good meal. I was determined to change that.
“I don’t want to get used to Sushi Zo though,” she protested, laughing, one night. “Because one day I’ll go back to TGIFridays, and I won’t be able to enjoy it.”
“Good,” I said, handing her chopsticks. “You shouldn’t.” But though we were both still smiling, something had dimmed between us. Lily had done what we tried never to do–talk about the future.
My friends were the only ones who knew about us–as far as I knew, Lily hadn’t told anyone. Initially, they’d treated it like a joke. Increasingly, I saw them trade concerned glances when I left happy hour early to get back to her.
“It’s getting pretty serious between you two,” Garrett said as carefully as he could, which for a crisis manager, wasn’t all that fucking careful. I knew exactly what he was getting at, and I had to fight to keep from scowling at him.
“Sex and takeout is serious now?” I asked, putting on an unconvincing smirk instead. I was trying to fool someone that this thing with Lily wasn’t actually getting as serious as he seemed to think, even if it was only myself.
Four versions of skeptical expressions stared back at me. My friends could always see through me, and they took sadistic pleasure on calling me on my bullshit. Normally I appreciated it and returned the favor with equally sadistic pleasure. Today though, I felt my smirk drop into the scowl I’d tried to avoid.
“Fuck off,” I said, signaling for the check.
