Page 29 of Give In

“Completely,” she says, and she means it. I can tell she means it because Clover’s face is not built for anything other than the truth. “She’s not as frightening as she thinks she is.”

“No,” I say. “She’s not.”

“She said you were married to your work.” She says it lightly, watching my face. “That you were very attentive at first.”

“She wasn’t wrong that I worked a lot,” I say. “She was wrong about most of the rest of it. I dove headlong into my work when it became clear she’d married me for all the wrong reasons. There was no amount of trying on my part that would fix any of that.”

“I figured as much.” She looks up at me and gives me a dreamy smile. “Juniper told me about the books.”

I look at her. “What books?”

“Leo’s books from when he was a kid. The ones you bought twice.” Her voice is careful. “So you could follow along when Leo held the phone up to the page.”

I am quiet for a moment. Leo told Juniper that. Juniper told Clover. I find I don’t mind. I find I would like Clover to know things about me, the real things, the ones that don’t make it into the version of yourself that you present to the world.

“He knew,” I say. “He never said anything.”

“Of course, he knew,” she says softly. “He’s your son.”

We dance for a moment without talking.

“I owe you a conversation,” I say.

“You were going to have it last night before we were interrupted.”

“I was.” I look at her face, at the amber in her eyes, catching the reception lights. “But I think you were right to postpone it until after the wedding.”

“Oh, you do?”

I nod. “I think if I had said everything I’m going to say… If I’d said those things to you last night, you would have decided on reasons why not to believe me.”

Her mouth opens slightly, and then she nods. “I very well may have.”

“I spent most of today watching you from across various spaces and trying to be patient.”

“How’d that go?”

“Terribly.”

She laughs, that real unguarded laugh, and I feel it everywhere. “Okay,” she says. “Have your conversation.”

I pull her slightly closer, close enough that I can speak without raising my voice above the music. “Last night I told you this thing between us wasn’t something I was willing to walk away from. I meant it. I mean it now more than I did then, which I wouldn’t have thought was possible twenty-four hours ago but apparently is.” I watch her face. “I know what this is, Clover. I knew on the plane. I knew before I knew your name.”

Her big brown eyes fill with tears.

“I know we live in different places and I know we come with a family situation that nobody would have designed on purpose. I also know that I am significantly older than you.”

“I wouldn’t say significantly,” she interjects.

“And I know that your job history suggests you have a complicated relationship with commitment, no offense⁠—”

“Some taken,” she says, but she’s smiling.

“—and I don’t care about any of it. Not in a reckless way. In the way of a man who has enough years on him to know the difference between a thing that’s complicated and a thing that’s wrong, and this is not wrong. This is the least wrong anything has ever felt.” I stop. I look at her. “I love you. I would’ve told you last night. But I’m not sure you would’ve believed me.”

The tears spill over. She lets them.

“You know what I keep thinking about?” she says.