40

claire

Daniel has been running indoors since it turned cold, on a treadmill he keeps in one of his spare bedrooms.

“I’d rather run outside,” he says. “But I’m not a big fan of falling on the ice and breaking my leg.” He usually runs early, but he had to work late last night and had just rolled out of bed when I arrived at twelve.

“Slacker,” I said, when he opened the door and I noticed his sleep-tousled hair, wrinkled T-shirt, and pajama pants.

He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, and I’m still tired.”

He’s had time to eat breakfast and read the paper and now he’s on the treadmill. I brought my laptop today and the whir of the machine, and the cadence of his footsteps, mixes with the sound of my computer keys clicking. When he finishes his workout he walks into the living room, chest bare, wearing only athletic shorts. He’s drying his face off with a towel and swigging from a water bottle.

I watch the rise and fall of his chest, lightly sheened with sweat as he stands a few feet away from the couch, still breathing hard. His shorts are hanging low on his hips and I can see the top of the V muscle that extends from his lower abdomen down to his hip flexors as well as the trail of hair that starts near his navel and runs downward. A scar, two inches to the left of his belly button, puckered and silvery, catches my eye. I can’t tell how long it is because it disappears down the front of his shorts.

I get up and walk toward him. Looking down, I lean forward to get a better look and say, “What happened?”

“Knife,” he says. “I learned the hard way not to take away a man’s cocaine before making sure he’s completely disarmed.” He takes another drink. “Rookie mistake. Never made it again.”

“Oh,” I say, and without thinking, without even stopping to consider my actions, I place my hand flat against his skin and trace the scar with my finger, imagining the knife piercing him. The wound ragged and bleeding. He stands perfectly still, unflinching, as I touch him. “That must have hurt.” My hands are cold and the warmth of his skin sends a wave of heat across my palm. It travels to other parts of my body and even though I know I should move my hand, should stop touching Daniel immediately, I don’t seem to be able to.

Daniel looks at me, his eyes heavy, half lidded. “It was a long time ago,” he murmurs. Grabbing my wrist, he moves my hand away and takes two steps back. “I’m going to take a shower,” he says.

Embarrassed about what I’ve done, I say, “Okay.” I sit back down on the couch and try to concentrate on my work while Daniel takes an incredibly long shower.

Later, when it’s almost time for me to leave, I ask Daniel what his plans are for Christmas. “I’ll go to my parents’ house on Christmas Eve. I have to work on Christmas Day.”

“I wish you didn’t have to work on Christmas Day,” I say.

“It’s okay. I’d rather that someone who has a family gets the day off.” He says it matter-of-factly, but I can’t help but wonder if it bothers him. I’m sure the holidays meant something else to him when he was married.

“Will your brother be in town?” Daniel has a younger brother named Dylan. He told me once that they’re not close.

“Who knows with Dylan?” Daniel says, sitting down beside me on the couch. “That’s just one of the many reasons we don’t get along.”

“What are some of the others?” I ask. Maybe it’s because I’m an only child and always fervently wished I had a brother or sister, but I don’t understand discontent between siblings. Chris is always squabbling with one of his sisters. It perplexes me.

“He’s really smart. Brilliant, even. Charming when he wants to be. He scored off the charts on some IQ test back in elementary school. He had a ton of behavioral problems, but it turned out that he was just bored. They gave my parents the option of letting him skip a grade, but they decided not to because they didn’t think he was mature enough. Even now as an adult, he’s very socially inept.”

“What does he do for a living?” I expect Daniel to tell me that Dylan is a brain surgeon or an actual rocket scientist.

“He does nothing. He has three advanced degrees but no desire to actually find and hold down a job. He’s so worried about making sure his boss and coworkers know how smart he is that he’s a horrible employee. He has a tendency to quit before they can fire him, and believe me, eventually they all would have. The only reason he’s gotten away with his lifestyle for so long is because he refuses to put down roots anywhere. He lives frugally, crashing on friends’ couches, and rolls in and out of town whenever he feels like it. Most of the time we don’t even know where he is. It upsets my mom. She already worries about me, because of my job, and it’s not fair that she has to worry about him, too.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Well. We’re used to it by now. What about you? What are your plans for the holidays?”

I tell him that we’ll split the time between my family and Chris’s. “He’ll be home for a week.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Daniel says, but he doesn’t look at me when he says it. “Kids will be happy about that.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Do you think you can go out for dinner some night before everything gets too crazy?” he asks.

“Sure. My parents want to take the kids for the weekend soon, to give me a break. We could do it then.”

“That would be great,” he says. “Just let me know when.”

41

claire

A week before Christmas, I drop Josh and Jordan off at my parents’ house and drive to Daniel’s.

The sound of music greets me when he opens the door—something by Coldplay—and he smiles when I cross the threshold. When I shrug out of my coat he looks me up and down slowly, and smiles.

“Whoa,” he says, whistling appreciatively. “Where have you been?”

His compliment puts a smile on my face. I’m wearing a black pencil skirt, very high heels, and a tightly fitted, feminine version of a man’s white button-down shirt. “I went to a holiday open house today. One of my bigger clients. Very swanky. Champagne in the afternoon. I had half a glass.”

“You look very nice,” he says softly.

“Thanks.”

“How long has it been since you ate?” he asks.

I glance at my watch. It’s a little after six thirty. “A while.”

“Should we go now?” Daniel asks. “I know it’s early, but we’ll probably be able to get a table somewhere without too much trouble. I would have made a reservation, but I wasn’t sure what time you’d need to eat.”

I’m glad he didn’t make a reservation. That would have made this feel too much like a date. And it is certainly not a date. But how would I feel if Chris went out to dinner with a female friend? It suddenly occurs to me that there’s a good chance that Chris is going out to dinner with a female, maybe a coworker, someone on his team. He’s never mentioned it, but I’ve never asked. This possibility simultaneously consoles and worries me.

“Bella Cucina?” I ask. I’m in no mood for a crowded, noisy chain restaurant.

“I was going to suggest that,” he says, smiling at me.

Daniel is wearing a black V-neck sweater. He’s paired it with jeans but they’re nice jeans, dark, not the faded and worn kind that he prefers. He grabs a coat and helps me back into mine and we drive to the restaurant. The light dusting of snow that meteorologists have been excitedly predicting all day has started to fall and after Daniel parks the car he extends his arm for me to hold on to so I won’t slip in my high heels. “Maybe I should have insisted that I drop you off at the door again,” he teases.