“Thank you,” Kingsley said. “You know, I didn’t make this decision lightly.”
“No. Of course you didn’t. It’s just—”
“What?”
Søren shook his head. “Nothing. St. Bart’s is beautiful, I hear. We’ll try to visit, if I can.”
If.
That word was a bucket of ice water over his head.
If.
Not when.
If.
St. Bart’s wasn’t a long drive away. St. Bart’s wasn’t the sort of place one went for a weekend getaway. You could only get there from New York by flying. Not an easy trip for a small-town priest under a vow of poverty. And if he did come to visit—if—where would they go to be alone together? A hotel? It felt tawdry and sad already.
“I’ll visit you,” Kingsley said.
“Of course.”
Another Of course and Kingsley would scream. Was that all Søren could say?
“Will you tell Nora or should I?” Kingsley asked.
“No, you can tell her when you’re ready to make the announcement. I’d only ask you to wait for a few months. This summer, when it won’t hit so hard. Not the holidays.”
Was this a punishment, telling Kingsley he had to break the news to Nora himself? You want to go, you get to tell her the bad news, not me. Unfair, he knew. It was Kingsley’s secret to tell, not Søren’s. That’s all he meant by that, wasn’t it? How terrifyingly fast the doubts were creeping and crawling their way into his brain…
Was Søren already pulling away from him? Shutting him out? De-vesting in their relationship and silently reminding himself, Now I remember exactly why I chose Nora over you, and why I’ll do it again.
“She’ll understand, too,” Søren said. “But she will be disappointed. She wanted to be part of the baby’s life. She’s an only child. No nieces or nephews.”
“She can visit anytime. You can, too. I know it’s not so easy for you to—”
“We’ll be fine.”
We’ll be fine.
Who was we? Was “we” Søren and Kingsley? Søren and Nora? Søren and Kingsley and Nora? All of them? Would they be fine?
An hour ago, he’d felt secure enough to ask Søren the sort of personal questions he wouldn’t have dared even think of asking six months ago. Now he couldn’t even bring himself to ask who he meant by “we,” and who would be “fine” when they were gone.
“I should be going,” Kingsley said. “See you soon.”
“Of course.”
The door waited for him. He’d have to open it and walk through it to go downstairs to leave the house to get into his car to go home. Easy enough, and yet he stood there.
He wanted to kiss Søren goodbye, but he didn’t want to risk trying to kiss Søren goodbye and being rejected. Or worse, receiving a tepid kiss. How had a decision that had seemed so simple in theory become so painfully, impossibly difficult?
“If I don’t see you before Christmas, I hope you have a nice one,” Kingsley said.
A nice one? Was he talking to his lover or a salesgirl at Tiffany’s?
“I’m sure it will be fine. You, too. Have a nice time in New Orleans with Juliette.”
“We will.”
He opened the door. Might as well just do it, like ripping off a bandage. And then he remembered the gauze and tape on his hip and how he had a perfect bloody letter S there that Søren had carved into him, claiming him. He would not let this get between them. He wouldn’t. He’d let so many secrets and lies, and his stubborn pride, get between them before. He wasn’t a kid anymore, but a grown man with a child on the way. He would not be a coward.
“What were you about to say?” Kingsley asked.
“I didn’t say anything,” Søren said. He still sat up in the bed, sheets to his hip and his beautiful body suddenly out of reach.
“You started to, a minute ago, and then you stopped yourself. What were you going to say?”
Søren gave a little smile, a cold little smile. “The wrong thing. Trust me.”
“I want to hear the wrong thing.”
“You don’t, I promise—”
“I do. Didn’t we just say no more bullshit between us? Didn’t we? Or did I imagine that?”
“Kingsley, I know you’re—”
“What were you going to say?”
Søren met his eyes. His stare was icy and cold. “I was going to say, ‘Don’t do this to me again.’”
Kingsley lifted his chin, stood up straighter. “You were right,” he said. “That was the wrong thing to say.”
“I tried to warn you,” Søren said.
“You knew I was in love with you for years and you—”
“I know. I know, Kingsley. Of course you have to go. Of course you do.”
Kingsley nodded. “Of course.”
And with that, he left.
There was no kiss goodnight. Of course there wasn’t.
Third Movement
January Minuet
Minuet:
A slow, stately ballroom dance for two.
Chapter Twelve
January 5th and it was seventy degrees at ten in the morning. And, as if it couldn’t get any better than that, Kingsley was having some of the better sex of his life, even if it was vanilla.
The window to their rented pied-à-terre on Conti Street was open, and a clean morning breeze blew into the bedroom, caressing Kingsley’s naked back so lightly that chills rose all over his body. He was on his hands and knees, braced over Juliette, who lay on her back under him, thighs wide and eyes closed, a little smile on her beautifully full, soft lips.
“What are you smiling about?” he demanded, punctuating the question with a gentle thrust. She was so warm inside, warm and slick and so incredibly tight—thank you, pregnancy—that he could have stayed inside her all day.
“Just happy,” she said, and slowly opened her eyes. “Very, very happy.” Très, très content.
Kingsley was also très, très content. How could any man in bed with this woman not be content? He felt like he was young and in Paris again, in bed with this glorious woman in their elegantly simple—and simply elegant—apartment on the second floor of an old French Quarter double gallery home. Every morning they were making lazy love on the old creaking brass bed, the pale green shutters thrown open to let in the scent and sounds of city life—coffee, laughing voices, and the thick wet heat of Louisiana.
Juliette was wearing a short cotton nightgown that covered her growing stomach but left her long dark arms and chest bare. He covered her with a thousand soft kisses. Her shoulders, her collarbone, the valley from the hollow of her long throat to between her full breasts. Had they ever had so much vanilla sex in their lives, the two of them? She, who adored being on the receiving end of rough and possessive sex as much as he enjoyed being on the giving end? But there was no risking the baby. Now it was slow. Now it was soft. Now it was lazy and tender, not wicked and rough. Her hands were resting lightly on his shoulders, not tied to the bed. Her legs, hooked over his calves instead of strapped to the footboard, thighs forced open wide.