“It’s late for lunch-” she said.

“I’ll come home,” I said.

The first time I’d met Gwen’s dad I’d been in a panic to impress him. I wore a tie. I bought new shoes. I brought flowers for her mother.

“Mum, Dad,” she’d said. “This is Morris.” It was such an announcement. “This” was Morris: newly a detective constable. New shoes. A tie that had been a despised Christmas gift.

Her dad had shaken my hand. “Gwen likes you,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re supposed to say how much you respect her,” he prompted.

“I do, sir,” I said. Nothing else would come out. What could I say to a dad? That I was hard all day thinking about her? That’s what everything came down to. Her prettiness, her love of animals, her kindness, her cleverness-everything I liked made me want her. That’s the way things are at that age.

The first time we’d done it, which had been a week after that dinner with her parents, I’d been too fast. I’d thought she wouldn’t see me again after that. I’d been drinking, and selfish, and stupid, and eager.

We got better matched over time. We were good together. We were.

Gwen stood at the door, waiting for me. “Oh, Morris,” she said, and started crying again.

I said, “She’s all right, you know. She’s all right.” And Gwen nodded. It really wasn’t the end of the world, was it? It really wasn’t.

“It’s just so early,” she said. “I thought we had years…”

“We have years,” I said, suddenly fierce. “We have years to be parents to a fine girl who’s becoming a fine woman, who’ll drive us crazy sometimes, and scare us sometimes, and make us proud sometimes. We have years of that ahead, so don’t spend all your energy on today. We have years, Gwen, we have years…” At that, she wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled herself tight to me. She almost lifted herself off the floor.

I didn’t know what to do with my arms. We’d been making love like usual, but we hadn’t embraced in a long time.

I put my hands on her back. “Oh, Morris,” she said. “I’ve missed you.”

I’d been away, that was sure. I just wasn’t certain I was entirely back.

“I’m sorry, Gwen, it’s been…” I didn’t know what it had been. Richard’s wedding?

She released herself and led me to the table. She’d set out sandwich fixings, and coffee. “I know yesterday was difficult for you,” she said.

I shook my head. “Dancing embarrasses me, but I wouldn’t call it difficult.”

She sighed elaborately but wouldn’t face me. “It was Alice,” she said. Why do people think I carry a torch for Alice? Has Carmen been pushing her ideas on Gwen?

“I don’t give a shit about either Alice, except in the most human, generic manner of wishing them both well,” I said.

She shrugged. We were at a stalemate again. The connection from the doorway was gone.

“Gwen,” I said, reaching across the table. “Gwen, I was never in love with Alice. I hardly knew Alice. I liked her, and I might have had something with her, but I didn’t. I had something with you.”

She ignored my hand. “I always knew I was second choice…” Shit. Where was this coming from? Sixteen years!

“All right, Gwen, all right. When I first met you, we weren’t serious, right? It wasn’t serious for you either. We were just having fun. And I thought about having fun with someone else too, with Alice. That’s ordinary. There’s nothing big there. So I tried to get off with her, and she said no. She said no. And you and me, we kept going on, and we became something, and here we are. This isn’t a contest with places. This is just… life. We went from not being together to being together. Here we are.”

“Yes, here we are,” she said. I wanted to eat to stop the talking but I couldn’t face food. She pushed on, “What can I do, Morris? Is there something I can wear or something I can do to make you look at me again?”

“What on earth would you wear?” I said, knowing it was incendiary as soon as it popped out. But what is it with women thinking how they dress is going to change something? “Stop crying,” I said. “Gwen…”

“Do you remember our first time?” she said. Great. One of my most embarrassing moments. “You made dinner at your flat, and we had strong red wine. I felt elegant, having wine instead of beer. I was nervous so I just kept sipping. I didn’t want the food because I was worried about garlic on my breath. I thought kissing the taste of wine would be nice. So I just kept drinking…” I’d just assumed she’d noticed that I’m a terrible cook. “I knew we were going to go all the way. I was-we knew, didn’t we? Without talking about it. We knew. Morris, I’d never felt so wanted. You were… wild about me. You were on me like…” She shook her head. She couldn’t find the best words. “You were so hungry for me. I’d never felt so perfect in my life.”

Dora interrupted. She’d pushed the door open with a hand full of shopping bags, and had heard the last sentences. “That’s disgusting, Mum. Keep it to yourself,” she said lightly. “Are you trying to corrupt me?”

Gwen pinkened. I jumped right in. “You don’t seem to need much help. What do you have a condom for?”

She froze. “Which one of you went into my things?”

“Not the point, Dora. Just tell us what’s going on.”

She put down the bags and joined us at the table, looking suddenly much younger. She stood holding the back of a chair, looking from one of us to the other. “Margaux and Spencer are doing it. They’ve been dating a year, right, and they think they’re in love.” She rolled her eyes at that, which made me glad. “So she gave one to me and one to Stephanie ‘just in case,’ right? She said it was great and we should be prepared. I put it in my drawer, ’cause what was I gonna do, carry it in my purse like an emergency tampon?” She rolled her eyes again.

I nodded. “All right. That’s a fine answer. In fact, that’s a great answer. I like that answer. But you can come to us when the answer is different too, all right?”

“Ew,” she said, and went upstairs.

I rubbed the back of my neck. Gwen tapped one finger on her cheek.

“Do you believe her?” she whispered.

“I do. I do,” I said. She nodded too.

“Oh, Morris,” she said, relieved and embarrassed, and still fragile.

“You were in a right tizzy,” I teased her.

“No more than you!” We laughed dodged-a-bullet laughs.

“Morris, I’m sorry. Maybe all this”-she said, waving a hand around-“is my fault. I’ve always felt like I was competing with what might have been, and then when Richard got engaged…” She shrugged. “I don’t know why that would have bothered me, but it did. It made me jealous. The newness of what they have. Their love is so… shiny. It’s shiny.”

“What, so their love is a puppy, and our love is an old, hairy, smelly, half-blind dog?” That made her laugh.

“We’re smelly old dogs,” she agreed.

“Aw, Gwen. You’ll always be one of those dumb yapping puppies to me.” I smiled hugely. She came ’round to my side of the table to swat me in the chest. I caught her wrists. “No, babe, no,” I said. “I’m a cop, you can’t get the better of me.” There we were, about to wrestle.

“You haven’t called me ‘babe’ in years,” she said, like she was going to cry again.

My phone vibrated. “Sorry,” I said. She knew my work-voice. It was Frohmann. I had to get to the station. She’d done something magic to get the bike owner’s name so fast.

“I’m proud of you,” Gwen said, seeing me out the door.

“I’ll be home tonight,” I said.

We kissed a kiss like we hadn’t since we were pissed on cheap wine and empty stomachs.