But most of all I wanted to ask Momma.

We pretended for a long time that it wasn’t happening, that we weren’t holding hands. We just went on searching for random facts in the books with each of our free hands, while the hands that were joined, they were like their own independent beings or something. They were something different.

But it didn’t stop my heart from beating out of control, my brain unable to grasp any of the words inside the heavy library books.

And then all of a sudden Matthew was sitting closer and I didn’t remember it happening. I didn’t remember it happening at all, but suddenly, his leg was pressed up against mine, and his hip was touching mine, and suddenly we were reading from the same book while the other had been set aside. A book on engineering, whatever in the world that is. I couldn’t have made heads or tails of it even if I tried, but I didn’t try because I couldn’t think of anything other than my hand pressed in between Matthew’s hands, or what it sounded like when he turned his head toward mine and softly said my name.

Claire.

Matthew said it like a whisper, my name. I could feel the breath emerge from his lips more than I could actually hear my name.

I turned to look at him and he was so close. He was right there. Breathing on me. Noses all but touching.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to do: lean in or pull back, the other way. But I knew, in my heart, what I wanted to do, and so I leaned in to Matthew and settled my lips upon his lips, lips that were coarse and dry, but also tender and delicious, I thought, as a tongue slipped through those lips and into my mouth and I felt everything inside me turn to goo.

I knew then what was happening to me: I was in love with Matthew.

His tongue disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared, his lips withdrew from mine. He pulled away, though he didn’t let go of my hand, his eyes darting across the pages of that engineering book until he uttered some stupid facts, nervously, about kilometers and watts, though I had no idea what it meant. I had no idea what any of it meant. I could hardly hear his words. I could hardly stop thinking about his lips and his tongue and his hand.

The way he tasted.

The way he smelled.

After that, when Matthew and I went to the library, we weren’t so consumed with those books and finding meaningless facts in the pages to share with one another. We’d sneak down whatever vacant aisle we could find, and there, hidden from the world by those tall, tall bookcases, Matthew would press his lips to my lips, would slide his tongue into my mouth. His hands would hold my hands, sometimes, but sometimes they would stray, they would wander away from my hands and to my face, my arms, my chest, between my legs, slipping cold and unsure up under that bright orange sweatshirt and into the sole bra Joseph had given to me.

CHRIS

I pass through Chicago on the way to Denver for a meeting with a potential client. Face-to-face meetings are big in the world of investment banking; we have a quota for our firm, how many meetings we’re to attend each month. Twenty. That’s what our CEO says. Twenty face-to-face meetings with clients. Skype won’t do. FaceTime doesn’t work. Even though I’m eight hundred miles away, giving presentations to try to entice potential investors to purchase shares of an IPO for another client, I’m to pop into the office for the client meeting, then catch up in Denver with Tom, Henry, Cassidy and the rest of the crew later in the day.

I take the first flight out of LaGuardia at 6:00 a.m., landing me in Chicago at 7:28 a.m., local time. The meeting is at nine, barely enough time to gather my luggage from baggage claim and catch a cab to the Loop.

The client meeting goes exceptionally well. They usually do. Apparently I have some charm I don’t know about, a tender face that makes people want to put their trust in me. It’s the reason I’m usually at the forefront of meetings with potential clients. It has nothing to do with an impressive MBA or the years of experience I have tucked beneath my belt. It’s all about my smile, and the boyish good looks my mother swore would get me in trouble someday.

I have an afternoon flight out of O’Hare, to the Mile High City; not enough time to go home, shower, shave, change out of the rancid suit jacket I’ve worn for days—though I’ve managed to short myself on clean socks and underwear, and my lucky tie, for this never-ending trip to hell and back. I put in a call to Heidi, never thinking in a million years that she’d do me this favor, and yet she does, she packs a spare bag of clothes and offers to meet me at an Asian grill for a quick bite.

It’s only been forty-some hours since I’ve seen Heidi, and yet there’s something different about her, something casual, something that conflicts with the Heidi I left the other morning, asleep in bed, the overthinking, premeditative Heidi she evolved into somewhere along the path of our marriage. I see it in her step, as she walks briskly down Michigan Avenue, right there where the Mag Mile crosses the Chicago River, at the Michigan Avenue Bridge, completely unruffled by the hubbub of the city. There’s a bounce in her step, and she’s dressed in a dress, a stone-colored dress that just skims the ankle, surprisingly fitted and chic, not quite what I’m used to seeing on Heidi. She looks amazing. And yet, she’s got the damn baby strapped to her in one of those baby slings, and when I ask, “What the heck is that?” she tells me it’s called a Moby Wrap, as if this is the most normal thing in the whole entire world, her, wearing someone else’s baby like luggage.

“Where’s her mother?” I ask, searching left and right, up and down for the girl. “You didn’t leave her at home?” I ask. “Alone?” I’m prepared to go into some big diatribe about that girl stealing my big-screen TV, and how she was never, ever to be left unattended in our home.

But Heidi smiles kindly and says that she dropped her off at the library, on the way to meet me for lunch. That the girl wanted to check out a few books. Black Beauty, she says, and A Wrinkle in Time, tacking on, “The classics,” knowing good and well the only thing I read as a kid was the Wall Street Journal. She says that she thought I’d prefer it if Willow didn’t join us for lunch, a statement I can’t altogether argue with; I just happen to wish she’d left the baby at the library, too.

And then Heidi steps forward and kisses me, an impromptu kiss, that’s not too short and is entirely sweet, the kind of thing my Heidi would hardly ever do, not in public at least. Heidi is a strict opponent of PDA. She’s been like this for years, forever maybe, scowling when she sees some couple kissing on a corner or at the bus stop, even a quick peck, the have a good day kind of kiss normal couples share all the time. She presses close to me, the napping baby sandwiched in between, running her hands up and down my arms. Her hands are warm to the touch, vulnerable in a way that Heidi rarely is. Her lips press firmly to mine, decisively, and she whispers, “I missed you,” and as I draw slowly away, I know those words, those simple, golden words, and the desiring tone of her voice will stay with me all day.

We eat lunch. I order crab rangoon, Heidi the chicken pad thai. I tell her about my week; she tells me about hers. I apologize for the gazillionth time for missing her call last night, but unlike the seething voice mail she left me a mere twelve hours ago, this time she shrugs mercifully and says it’s okay. What I tell her is that I fell fast asleep, completely bushed from the week. I say that I had a beer or two—maybe three—with dinner, and I didn’t hear my phone ring.

I don’t tell her about drinks in the hotel bar; I don’t tell her about Cassidy proofreading the offering memorandum in my hotel room, alone. That wouldn’t be very sensible; in fact, it’d be downright dumb. I don’t mention Cassidy’s lissome frame or the profile of her breasts in the rust-colored dress, though still they’re on my mind, like some greedy little kid wishing for candy.