They were all adults now, and no one really cared what or how much he drank, with one exception: Megan’s brother, Tim. Chris knew he was not on the wedding guest list, but Alan must have invited him to the bachelor party anyway. It seemed that neither he nor Megan could pass up free booze.
Chris didn’t know if Alan had tipped him off, but Tim actually looked in Chris’s cup and sniffed it to see how much and what he drank. If beer didn’t fill the cup to the brim, he topped it off. The one time Chris had covered his cup with his hand, Tim poured a beer right over it, letting it splash over his fingers and onto the carpet. The guy was so intent on seeing him sloshed, he wondered if it had something to do with Megan and the fact that despite her interest, she and Chris had never gotten together.
To make matters worse, if someone made a toast, he foisted a shot on Chris. He found it difficult to say no when the toast honored him. Even so, a few hours into the party Chris had sipped so slowly, filled enough glasses with ginger ale, and thrown enough shots into houseplants that he was by no means drunk. Still, enough alcohol had passed his lips that he knew he shouldn’t drive home. He could stay longer while the alcohol wore off, but Tim would be there forcing more on him. Around midnight, he called Rebecca and asked her to come get him. Given the hour, he hated to ask her, but she didn’t live far away. Besides, he hadn’t seen her in three days, and he missed her.
A half hour later her car pulled up outside. He had already said his thanks and goodbyes even though only about half the guys had left. It had been a good chance to catch up with some friends that he probably wouldn’t have time to talk to at the wedding, and at least no stripper or lap dancer had shown up. He was grateful Alan had honored his wishes.
Chris rushed out the door to meet Rebecca so she wouldn’t have to come in. He had told her it was smoky, and she wouldn’t like it, but he also didn’t want his fiancée in a room of drunken men. They were decent guys, but why invite trouble?
She stood outside of her car under the diffused light of the street lamp. He could see only her silhouette. Every last curve looked like it was carved in relief. From across the yard he couldn’t make out what she was wearing, but whatever it was, it looked tight and clingy and unlike anything he had ever seen her in before. Before his imagination had a chance to take over where his eyes had left off, she reached into the open window of her back seat and pulled out a long, sleeveless shirt, which she stretched over her head and then pulled down over her hips. Drat.
“Hey, there,” she said. “How bad off are you?”
At that point, he had come under the soft light of the street lamp, too, and could see she wore some kind of stretchy black exercise clothes under the shirt. He thought she must be cold, given the cool spring night.
“Not so bad. I just don’t want to take any chances by driving.” He couldn’t take his eyes off her. “You look like you’ve been exercising.” Maybe that’s why she didn’t appear to be cold.
She looked down at her clothes and her long ponytail bobbed up and down. “Oh, yeah.”
“Isn’t it kind of late?”
“It’s never too late to exercise when you’re having your wedding dress altered the next day.”
He shook his head. What was she worried about? She was perfect, and the dress would look perfect, too.
“I stayed late at work trying to get things organized for when we’re on our honeymoon, which made my dinner really late. I wanted to let my food digest, and so, I was exercising at midnight. At least until you called.”
“Sorry I interrupted you.” He moved in close to her, bent his head and kissed her. Wow. Maybe it was the buzz he had going or maybe it was the feel of the slippery spandex pants his hands grazed on the way to her waist, but only one word described that kiss: hot.
She pulled away and laughed. At him? “Let’s go. You can hang out at my apartment until this stuff wears off. You smell like a distillery, by the way.”
“Does it turn you on?” He was joking. Sort of.
She let out a sharp laugh. “Hardly. I call first dibs on the shower because it’s mine, and I’m sweaty, but you’re up next.”
She opened her apartment door with her key, and they stepped into the dark entryway. Rebecca kicked off her shoes, and turned on a lamp. Her apartment smelled fresh and clean, and he sniffed the cheap cigar smoke clinging to his clothes and skin. He still couldn’t keep his eyes off her and wished she had never thrown that shirt on over those slinky clothes. The loose-fitting shirt had arm holes so large that when she sat in the car, the insubstantial fabric couldn’t hide the sports tank she had on underneath. He bet it felt as smooth as her pants. He tried to shove his hands in his pockets to keep them out of trouble, but they were full.
He lifted a small sample bottle of liquor out of each pocket. “I almost forgot. Alan gave me these. He said Jamie promised them to you.”
She took one of the small dark bottles from his hand and read the label. Then she laughed. “I forgot all about these. Jamie promised me I would love chocolate liqueur.” She screwed the top off one and sniffed it. “Do I drink it straight?”
“You can. Or you can mix it.”
“I’ll try it straight.” She lifted the little bottle to her lips and winced as if she were anticipating an awful taste. A couple seconds later, she lowered the bottle and said, “That’s not bad. It’s smooth and yummy.”
Chris grinned.
“Do you want a sip?”
“No thanks, I’ve had enough, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” She finished off the small bottle herself. “I’ll save the other one.” She set it on the counter.
She undid her ponytail and ran her hand through her hair as she sauntered toward the bathroom.
“I’ll be out in a few minutes.” She gave him a devastating smile.
Maybe it was the racing of his heart interacting with the depressant quality of the alcohol, but he felt almost woozy.
The water in the bathroom ran and the door shut. He walked over to her small computer desk and shook the mouse. Selecting the music playback app, he logged himself in and selected one of his favorite playlists. Some soft rock music played. He took a seat on the couch, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. Three weeks from tonight, he would be a married man. The wedding and the reception would be over, and they’d be on their way.
He started to drift off when she called to him from the shower.
“Chris, could you put out a towel for me? I forgot.”
“Sure.” His voice sounded a little groggy and raspy. Darn cheap cigars. He entered the bathroom, the steam hitting him in the face, and retrieved a towel from the cabinet beneath the sink.
“So, do you sing in the shower?”
She hesitated and then said, “I guess that’s for me to know and you to find out.”
He grinned. Coy. He liked it, and it was the closest he’d gotten so far to getting her to sing. He looked down and noticed Rebecca’s clothes laid on the floor—a pile of spandex pants, athletic socks, and a sports tank topped with discarded lace and satin strung together with bits of red fabric. He’d bet those panties were the product of this morning’s lingerie shopping with Abby. He had a hard time not envisioning Rebecca modeling it all for him.
He flung a clean towel over the rail outside the shower.
“Thanks.” Her voice was muffled by the running water.
Inches away from him on the other side of the curtain, Rebecca was naked. He imagined her pulling her fingers through her wet hair as she rinsed it, water running down her …he cleared his throat and gave his head a little shake. He should leave. He had put out the towel like she’d asked. He should leave, but he didn’t have the will to do it.
“You’re right about me needing a shower, too. Craig passed around these stinky, cheap cigars.”
“Well, it’s all yours as soon as I’m done.”
He didn’t know where the next words came from. He didn’t even think them; they just flew out of his mouth. “I have a b
etter idea. And it will save water and time.” He yanked his shirt over his head, and added it, his jeans, socks, and underwear to the pile on the floor.
“What’s that?”
He peeled back the shower curtain and stepped into the shower with her.
Stunned. That was the only word for her reaction. Her eyes darted up and down as if she didn’t know where to look. She wrapped an arm around her midsection as if it could cover her exposed skin. He placed his hand on her wrist, withdrawing her protective arm, and before she had a chance to say anything, his lips were on hers.
Chris had never experienced anything so sensual in his life. The herbal smell of her shampoo. The feel of her velvety wet skin under his fingertips. The sound of the shower as it pattered on their bodies and the curtain. The taste of chocolate liqueur on her lips. And most of all the sight of her. Rebecca, wholly and completely as God had made her—utterly beautiful.
By the time they had emerged from the shower he knew how the night would end. He couldn’t conceive of anything other than taking her in his arms, laying her down on her bed and making love to her. If any contrary thought niggled its way into his brain, it quickly died of neglect.
He led her to her bedroom where he dragged his hands through her still damp hair, and she communicated nothing but her desire for him. He couldn’t sense the slightest bit of hesitancy in her eyes, her touch, or on her lips. The music from the other room poured in, its relentless beat and frantic rhythm driving him. He couldn’t have chosen a more fitting soundtrack if he’d tried. He’d listened to this song dozens of times and never noticed its eroticism. The singer’s ardent falsetto was tinged with a gentle desperation as he sang of lips, love, and crashing waves. A nebulous sense of inevitability permeated both the music and Chris’s mind.
Rebecca breathed heavily against his face, and moving her lips against his cheek, she asked, “Dave Matthews?”
He hadn’t even thought of it. A low laugh rumbled through his chest as he clasped each of her hands in his, pinning them above her head as she climbed back onto the bed. He leaned down to kiss her neck as he answered. “Yes, Dave Matthews.”
It felt so good, so true, and so right.
Until it didn’t. He didn’t know how long they lay there together, but when he held her in his arms, her head resting on his chest and her arms wrapped around him, the depth of his feeling for her and what they had shared overcame him. He kissed her head and squeezed her, smiling at the contented sigh she released. He studied his arms protectively around her, and as his heart rate returned to normal, his gaze settled on his hand.
It had been near perfect. Better than he had expected in every way. With one glaring exception. And then it hit him with full force. His bare hand. His wedding band (and its smaller companion) resided in a small bag at the back of his sock drawer, where it would remain until his wedding day, when he would wear it as a sign of his love for and fidelity to Rebecca. The night would have been perfect. Save for one thing—Rebecca wasn’t his wife.
She must have felt him tense because she lifted her head to look at him.
“I know,” she said, and the regret that hung in her tone told him she understood completely, and she shared his guilt.
After a few moments of silence he blurted, “I have to go.”
Rebecca seemed startled as he pulled himself from her embrace and sat up. She looked pained as she sat up, too, pushing her damp hair behind her ears.
“I know it was wrong, Chris. I regret it, too, but please, please stay with me tonight.”
“I can’t.” He didn’t like being short with her, but he would suffocate if he didn’t get out of her apartment. He grabbed his clothes off the bathroom floor and dressed. Rebecca, still not wearing anything, followed him out to the living room.
“Please, Chris. Please don’t leave me tonight. I need you here. Stay with me.”
“Why, so I can wake up in the middle of the night and feel you next to me, and repeat everything that just happened?” He hated how angry his voice sounded. He had to get out. Now.
“No. No, I just feel—”
“For God’s sake, Rebecca, put something on, will you?”
She looked down, suddenly shamefaced, and tears sprung from her eyes. She covered her mouth as a sob escaped. And instead of taking her in his arms, holding her close, and comforting her, he turned and ripped the quilt from the back of her couch and tossed it to her. He headed for the door, nearly tripping on a pile of wedding presents amassed in the entryway. It was the middle of the night, he was half drunk, and he had no idea how he would get home. He only knew that he couldn’t stay there.
***
Rebecca had known from the sudden quiet that something was wrong. For the last half hour, Chris had done nothing but tell her he loved her. He couldn’t stop saying it. Then he grew silent, and she knew he felt it, too—the guilt.
What should have been a beautiful expression of their married love was, in hindsight, a stark contrast. It was a sin. Rebecca felt conflicted—sorry that they had offended God, had betrayed their convictions, and given in so easily to temptation—did they even try to resist? But yet she felt loved—more than that, cherished. She had no idea that Chris could be so tender yet, at the same time, so passionate. She shuddered when she recalled the feel of his hands on her bare skin. She thought she’d be nervous on their wedding night, but from the moment his lips had touched hers in the shower she hadn’t felt even a twinge of anxiety, only a compulsion to keep going, to give herself completely, finally, to the man she loved.
She glanced at her nightstand and noticed the basal thermometer lying there. She and Chris had been learning a natural method for spacing children, and she had been recording her waking temperature each morning and charting her fertility markers. They were ready for a baby right away, but based on the suggestion of another couple at their parish, they decided it would be easier for them to learn the method now rather than later while she breastfed a baby. She jumped from the bed and quickly opened the drawer, unfolded her chart and studied it. Suddenly their utter lack of control after all these months made some sense.
She was ovulating. No wonder her resistance was so low. He drank a few too many beers, and there she slunk around in poorly-concealed Spandex, reeking pheromones. She drank that bottle of liqueur. She even invited him into the shower, albeit to put out a towel, but still. So many bad decisions. Why couldn’t she have stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel herself? What was a wet bath mat compared to your immortal soul?
She had to call Chris. Maybe he wouldn’t be so hard on himself. She called, but he didn’t answer. She texted and got no response. Six messages and more than fifty hours later, she still hadn’t heard back from him.
24
Fool to Think
Tuesday morning, Rebecca opened the door to Abby and her kids. “We’re dropping off a couple of wedding presents. Somehow they keep ending up at my house. Probably Aunt Maggie’s fault.” She wrinkled her brow and looked Rebecca up and down. “I thought you’d be at work.”
“Home sick.”
“Okay, kids. Back up.” Abby shooed her children behind her and switched the baby to the arm farthest from Rebecca.
Rebecca sighed. “Come in. It’s more of a mental health day. I’m not contagious.”
Giving her sister a wary glance, Abby motioned for her kids to step in and followed them as Rebecca closed the door behind them. Rebecca went to the bookshelf and retrieved a new puzzle she had bought for the kids’ next visit. “Why don’t you guys take this and work on it at the kitchen table?”
Ricky plucked it out of her hands and made a beeline for the other room, Emma on his heels.
Rebecca took the baby from her sister’s arms and kissed his chubby cheeks before hugging him tightly. Tears threatened to spill out of her eyes.
“What are you making? It smells heavenly.”
“Oh, there are macaroons, marble cheesecake brownies, and there’s a lemon Bundt cake in the oven
now.”
“What the heck, Rebecca? Are you having a bake sale? Because if you eat all that you’re never going to fit in your wedding gown.”
The tears fell at the mention of her wedding.
Abby took the baby back, sat on the couch, and waited for Rebecca to join her.
“So, do you want to tell me what’s got you so upset that you’ve resorted to maniacal baking?”
Rebecca wanted to use an innocent-sounding euphemism: “Chris spent the night” or “Chris and I slept together,” but Chris had neither stayed nor slept. Could she say they “made love?” That’s how she had thought of it at the time, but in the light of day when she hadn’t heard from him since, she wasn’t so sure. Only one honest answer came to mind, and she blurted it out.
“Chris and I had sex.”
Abby took a hard look at her. “And it was that bad?”
“Abby.” She knew Abby’s opinions on premarital sex all too well. In spite of that, she had hoped Abby would be supportive, not laugh it off.
“Cause I always imagined he’d be good in bed.”
The blood drained from Rebecca’s face. Here she sat, her heart riddled with shame, hurt, and fear and the best her sister had to offer was either to make light of the situation or, even worse, admit she lusted after Chris.
“Abby, he’s my fiancé. He’s going to be your brother-in-law.” As she said it, she half-wondered if that was even true anymore.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t bring home a guy like him and not expect me to wonder. What’s the big deal anyway? The wedding’s in three weeks.”
“You don’t get it at all. I thought you and Joel waited.”
“We did. It was more his thing than mine. We had already done everything but that anyway. He wanted our wedding night to be special. It wasn’t such a big deal to me. What happened?”
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