“And?” Jenner looks on eagerly.
“We had sex.” Though I’m not sure sex really covers what happened that night. When I glance Jenner’s way, he looks back blankly. “We did the dance with no pants. Knocked boots—got jiggy with it.”
His expression morphs into a mask of sympathy. “It really has been a long time, hasn’t it? Did you keep your bonnet on? I bet those bloomers of yours really turned him on.”
“What do you know about women’s underwear?” I throw the dish towel at his head, relieved the conversation has lightened.
“I know enough to not want to get into them,” he answers, folding the cloth into a neat little square. Swiping up the wine bottle, he turns it upside down and begins shaking it like a bottle of ketchup.
“What are you doing?”
“This one must be broken,” he says, sending me a look. “Non-friction fiction is not supposed to leave out the good bits.”
“You seriously want me to describe my son’s conception to you?”
“You know, I just changed my mind,” he replies, lowering the bottle back to the table. “Straight sex takes all the fun out of it.”
But there was nothing straight sex about that night. Roman touched me in ways I’d never been touched before. Or since. It was so much more than tab A fits into slot B. I felt like he’d touched my soul somehow, that I’d touched his. Afterward, we talked and laughed, drank the rest of the champagne, and touched some more. I found myself telling him things I’d never told anyone else. That night, I laughed more than I had that whole year. When he’d eventually drifted off to sleep midsentence, I found myself watching him until the sun flared on the horizon.
God, he was so beautiful. On the outside, at least.
“I guess I must’ve dozed off at some point because later, I came to with a jolt.”
“And he wasn’t there?”
I shrug but don’t answer, leaving it open to Jenner’s interpretation. I guess I’m not lying, not really. Roman’s hand was on my shoulder, but the face I was looking up into wasn’t the same as the one from the night before.” Pushing away the recollection and refusing to think of what was to shortly follow, I swipe up the towel again, depositing it in the drainer.
“That’s . . . harsh.”
“I got over it.” At least, I told myself I would, that it was just one night out of my life. And then, within three months, I’d realised neither of those things was true. But that’s not to say I didn’t get over him. Because I did. I am. I have to be.
“What an asshole. A good-looking asshole,” he amends.
“Like Nana always said, pretty is as pretty does.”
“You got an annulment, though. You can do that in Vegas, right?”
“Right,” I repeat, grabbing his glass from the table and turning back to the sink. Maybe it would’ve been easy if I’d been thinking straight, but I was kind of busy trying to sort through the tiny shards of my shattered heart and self-esteem. After what happened later that morning, I couldn’t tell anyone what I’d done. I felt so ashamed of my foolishness that I didn’t breathe a word to a soul. Not to April in the days that followed, not Nana or my sister in the months to come. And by the time I had enough money and wits about me to get back to Nevada without alerting anyone, the time for annulment had long passed. But what did it matter, I’d decided? I was never going to marry. Well, I was never going to marry again. Let the issue be his. I might even have entertained the thought once or twice of him marrying someone else before finding his cute little bigamist’s ass in jail.
“This is all such a headfuck.” Coming up behind me, Jenner slides his arms around me, resting his chin on my shoulder.
“You should try being in my head,” I say with a sigh.
“Seeing him again must’ve been such a shock for you.”
A shock? Try a whole heap of them. There was the shock of seeing him, the kind that turned my legs to rubber and my heart to arrhythmia. There was the shock of how my body reacted to him, the nostalgic kind of yearning for him to pull me closer. Then there was the shock of his reaction to our son, which was also a wake-up call. But the things I’ve said and done since that night, there is no coming back from.
As though sensing my need for reassurance, Jenner’s arms tighten.
“It’s getting late,” I say, patting his hand.
My friend straightens, then reaches for his keys. I grab the wine bottle and follow him to the back door.
“What happens now?” he asks, pausing there.
Outside, clouds obscure a waxing moon, a scant breeze barely rustling the leaves of the nearby treeline. I’m glad to see the lights of the pixie house are off as my eyes are immediately drawn there.