by Noelle Adams
“I couldn’t believe when I heard Paul was getting a job and settling down,” Mike said, grinning at Emily after a pause in conversation. “But, now that I see you, I finally understand his reasons.”
Paul rolled his eyes.
Mike was about thirty but still had a baby-face that he tried to hide with ever-present stubble. He slanted a taunting look at Paul. “Maybe if I settle down, I can find myself a pretty wife too.”
“Wouldn’t do any good,” Paul said. “None of the pretty girls would want you.”
Emily laughed at his comeback, but her laughter sounded a little forced. He scanned her face closely, noticing again how white she looked and hoping she was actually going to enjoy this.
When she saw him observing her, she murmured hoarsely, “I must have been insane to want to do this.”
“You’ll be fine. It’s just the first step off that seems so hard.”
She nodded a little jerkily. “Don’t let me chicken out at the last minute.”
“I won’t. I know you want to do this.” He didn’t say any more, since Mike and Russ were right there, but both he and Emily knew what he referred to.
When he saw her hands twisting restlessly together, the sight bothered him. Responding to an inexplicable compulsion, he reached over and covered them with one of his.
It was only intended to be a brief, supportive gesture—since he understood her nervousness and felt bad for her—but Emily clung to his hand with one of hers and wouldn’t let it go.
So, quite unintentionally, Paul ended up holding hands with her for the few minutes until the plane was in position.
Mike seemed to find the hand-holding hilarious, if his mocking looks were anything to go by. He no doubt believed that Paul was showing himself to be a clichéd, sentimental sap after all.
There was absolutely nothing Paul could do to clarify the matter. He couldn’t tell Mike the truth about his marriage, and he couldn’t even pull his hand away from Emily’s the way he wanted, since it seemed rather heartless to deny her the support she needed.
Paul, however, felt very awkward, sitting there and holding her hand as they waited to jump out of a plane. There was a strange clench in his chest that he didn’t like and didn't understand.
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before Mike went to open the door, letting in a familiar blast of wind. “Ready?” he asked with a broad grin.
Emily gave a little whimper, so soft Paul barely heard it, but she didn’t hesitate as she and Russ moved into position in their tandem gear. She gave Paul one last look over her shoulder.
He supposed he should have been able to think of something comforting and inspiring to say, but he couldn’t think of anything. So he just nodded and smiled. Said, “I’ll see you on the ground, and we can cross it off the list.”
She smiled back at him, and then she and Russ were jumping.
Paul stared at the open door of the plane where Emily had just disappeared. Now that he was no longer distracted by her, he felt the familiar, almost painful pounding of his blood.
Mike had been looking down at Russ and Emily and counting seconds since their jump, but now he looked up at Paul with a grin. “Still remember how to do this?”
Paul ignored that and moved into position.
“I’ll be right behind you. So, if you freak out, no worries. I’ll come and rescue you."
Paul gave that comment the sneer it deserved. Then he stared out into the vast emptiness of the sky, felt the blast of wind against his face, experienced the familiar dizzying sensation of being completely out of control, nothing to hold onto, on the edge of death.
He used to crave this feeling like a drug.
He jumped, realizing something had definitely changed. He had unfinished business in his life. He had real responsibilities. He had someone who depended only on him.
And he didn’t want to die anymore.
* * *
Paul stared at his computer screen and tried to focus on the email he was supposed to be writing. He was still experiencing the effects of the adrenalin rush from skydiving earlier in the day, however, and he just couldn’t seem to concentrate.
He was half-exhausted and half-wired, and neither feeling made it easy to work.
He was looking blankly at the screen, with unmoving hands poised over his keyboard, when he heard a tap on the door to his home office.
He spun the chair around and saw Emily peeking in. He couldn’t help but smile at how hesitant she looked, as if she were afraid he was hard at work instead of desperately trying to type out a single word. “What’s up?” he asked her, gesturing her to come in.
“Sorry to bother you,” she began, peering at his computer screen out of either curiosity or anxiety about disturbing his work.
“No bother. I was mostly just spinning my wheels. How are you feeling?”
“Great,” she said, beaming at him with that bright Emily-smile. She was wearing well-worn jeans and a casual, wine-red top that had a neckline a little too low for his liking. “I still feel kind of buzzed. How long does it take to come down from the adrenalin?”
“It depends. But I guarantee, when you drop, you’ll know it.”
She laughed, and he could still see the lingering thrill from the jump in her eyes.
Emily had been out of her mind with excitement after skydiving. When he’d first seen her after they’d both reached the ground, she’d launched herself at him in the fiercest hug he’d ever received. She’d sustained the exhilarated high all the way home, demanding that Paul drive faster and that he switch his boring music to something much wilder and louder. Paul had run on the treadmill when they’d gotten home—since he knew exercise helped to even out his body chemistry—and Emily had taken his advice and gone for a swim, since she said rather heatedly that she hated running in place.
Since then, he didn’t know what she’d been doing.
“Anyway,” she continued, looking a little hesitant again, “I didn’t know if you were hungry or anything, but Ruth was nice enough to make me a lasagna to warm up, and it’s just about done. I didn’t know if you wanted to have dinner with me or just work or if you needed to go out or…whatever.”
Paul stared at Emily for a moment, wondering why she thought he might need to go out. It wasn’t like he was going to date other women while he was married to her, and there was little else that would pull him out on a random Tuesday night.
“You don’t have to,” she added hurriedly, when he didn’t immediately answer. “Ruth made it for me to be nice, since I was telling her it was my favorite when I was younger.”
“I’ll join you, if you don’t mind. I usually just lose track of time and end up grabbing something before bed.”
“That’s a terrible habit,” she chided, as they left the office and walked together toward the kitchen. “And how can you forget about dinner?”
The truth was Paul was usually alone, and so he’d gotten out of the habit of keeping a normal schedule. He would eat something at the computer or standing in the kitchen. Until he’d married Emily, he’d almost never sat down at home just to eat.
“Oh, God, it smells good,” she murmured throatily, closing her eyes as they entered the kitchen. “Ruth was so sweet to make it for me. Did you know that both of her sons are chefs?”
“No,” Paul admitted, wondering how Emily somehow knew more about the woman who cleaned his apartment and stocked his pantry than he did. “In Philadelphia?”
“Yeah. She told me where Johnny was, but I didn’t recognize the name of the restaurant. But Sammy’s at Gino’s. They have the best Chicken Marsala there. Apparently her sons want to open a restaurant together. They just don’t have the money yet to pull it off.” While she was talking, she puttered around the kitchen, pulling out a fresh baguette from the bread cubby and sorting through produce in the refrigerator. “Did you want a salad?”
Paul looked in the oven and saw the lasagna was hot and bubbly. He realized he was ravenous. “Sure.”
While Paul worked on the lettuce, Emily diced tomatoes and cucumbers. Then she grated parmigiano reggiano as he made a simple vinaigrette. Their salad was done by the time Paul pulled the lasagna out of the oven.
When he saw Emily pull out two plates and set them out on the kitchen bar, he suggested, “We can eat on the terrace if you want. It’s a nice evening.”
Emily seemed delighted by this suggestion and immediately piled up the plates with forks, knives, napkins, and placemats to take outside. He grabbed the salad and bread and carried them out to the wrought-iron table on the large terrace. While Emily set the table, he went back to the kitchen. He’d been going to get the lasagna, but he made a detour into the wine closet. Without thinking, he grabbed a decent bottle of Chianti—not very expensive, maybe forty dollars—since that was what he normally paired with lasagna.
But when he walked out of the closet, he could see Emily on the terrace through the glass doors. She was lighting the candle in the glass hurricane and smiling as she admired the effect.
Paul went back into the closet and got a much better bottle of Chianti.
He’d grabbed two wine glasses in one hand when she came back in the kitchen. When she looked at him curiously, he showed her the bottle of wine. “Good?”
Her mouth twitched irrepressibly as she read the label. “Looks great.”
Drawing his brows together, he studied her face. He couldn’t tell if she was just brimming over with pleasure or if she was laughing at him for some reason. “You can choose something else if—”
“No,” she interrupted, her face transforming with a wide smile as she picked up the lasagna with two hot pads. “That looks perfect. Thank you. Now let’s eat. I’m starving.”
Pleased that she approved of his wine choice, he followed her out to the terrace.
Paul enjoyed dinner more than he could have expected. Ruth had outdone herself with the lasagna. Emily seemed particularly impressed with his vinaigrette, saying she was never using salad dressing out of a bottle again. The evening was crisp and pleasant, and the sun was setting in pinks and oranges behind the cityscape.
They talked about skydiving. Then about what Emily wanted to do next from her list. Then Emily gave him advice on how he could better decorate the terrace, including twinkly lights on the potted trees.
The only flaw in the dinner was that he kept noticing Emily’s cleavage in her too-low neckline. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was the aftermath of the adrenaline, but he was having much more trouble than normal keeping his eyes from lingering there.
When they finished eating, they sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, looking out at the view. Emily gave a long, pleased sigh, and something unusually husky in the sound made Paul’s body give a hard clench of interest, much stronger than any physical response to her he’d experienced before.
Startled and unnerved by his reaction, he picked up the wine to pour out the rest of it and hopefully distract himself from reactions he shouldn't be having. He’d had about three glasses of wine, so he knew Emily must have had much less, even though he’d topped off her glass several times. He started to pour most of the rest of the Chianti into her glass.
Then he noticed her lips were twitching again as she watched him.
He finally realized what she found so funny.
“Damn it,” he choked, jerking the bottle back, “You shouldn’t be drinking this!”
Emily burst into a delicious ripple of uninhibited hilarity. “I was wondering when you’d notice,” she gasped after a minute, evidently trying to control her laughter but failing miserably.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, embarrassed and unsettled by such an obvious gaffe. What the hell had he been thinking?
“I wanted wine with the lasagna,” she explained, her lovely face glowing with her attempts to suppress her amusement. “And you were so cute serving alcohol to a minor.”
Paul glared at her, deciding she was having far too much fun with his mistake. But his glare—which had intimidated many over the years—just made her laugh even harder.
He couldn’t hold onto his resentment for long, not in the face of her transparent amusement. He hadn’t heard her laugh so uninhibitedly since her father had died two years ago, not even when she’d been skinny-dipping in the lake.
She must have seen his face softening because she looked at him with something warm and almost fond in her eyes. “After all, I had champagne on our wedding day, so it’s not entirely unprecedented.”
“But that was in France,” he muttered. “Where it wasn’t illegal.”
He’d started drinking when he was fourteen, and it had been a lot more than a glass of wine with dinner.
Emily was different, though.
She burst into another ripple of laughter and reached over to pat his hand. “Seriously, Paul. How much chance do you think there is that I’ll take up binge-drinking or fall into a lifetime of alcoholism?”
Her voice was light, almost teasing, but her words reminded him of a reality that he’d let slip from his mind for the last hour. He felt a heavy sinking in his gut as he recalled that she would never reach legal drinking age at all.
Emily met his eyes, and her laughter transformed into something poignant and aching. “Thank you, Paul,” she murmured. “The wine, the whole meal was really…special to me.”
He nodded, not having any idea what he should say. He just picked up the Chianti bottle and split what remained between their two glasses.
Apparently, Emily didn’t need him to say anything. They sat in silence, looking at the sunset, until the wine was gone.
* * *
Paul tried to work again after dinner, but he kept getting distracted. Eventually, he gave up on work completely. At nine-thirty he left his office with several sheets of printed paper.
He wandered the apartment until he found Emily in the media room.
She was curled up in a corner of the sofa, covered with a cashmere throw, and she was wearing pale blue pajama pants and a little white camisole with lacy straps, one of which was slipping down her shoulder.
She smiled when she saw him. “I should be reading Shakespeare, but I gave up.”
Paul glanced at the television screen and recognized Casablanca. She was only a few minutes into it.
“I’ve never seen it,” she explained. “It’s not on my list, but it seems like something you should see.”
He sat down next to her on the couch. “I can’t believe you’ve never seen Casablanca.”
“So says the ultimate patrician. Clearly, I’ve lived a very plebian life.”
Her tone was wry, but he didn’t like the sentiment, and he shot her a disapproving look.
“What do you have there?” she asked, gesturing toward the papers in his hand.
“See for yourself." He handed them to her with a pleased smile, looking forward to her reaction.
He wasn’t disappointed. It took a minute for Emily to scan over them, but then she gave a little squeal of excitement. “We can go to Egypt to see the Pyramids? So soon?”
He nodded and was about to respond, but then Emily threw herself at him in a hug.
She was evidently quite a hugger, since, in their short time together, she’d hugged him more than anyone ever had except his mother. Paul wasn’t sure what to do with such open, unconstrained displays of affection, and her first hug had made him feel too awkward to enjoy. But the more she hugged him, the more he liked it.
He hugged her back, breathing in the herbal scent of her shampoo and the feeling of warmth, closeness, fondness that her simple embrace conveyed.
After a moment, however, he became aware of the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her soft breasts were pressed up against his chest, and her camisole seemed to be tissue-thin.
Paul pulled away from her gently, making sure to kee
p his eyes from slipping down to see how much of her breasts were visible through the thin material.
She beamed at him, completely unaware of the inappropriate detour his mind had taken. “I didn’t think we’d be able to go so soon!”
He forced his brain back to the topic at hand. “There’s no reason why not. I’ve made all the arrangements.” He recovered the itinerary he’d put together and held it out for her see. “We can go to New York on Friday—it’s less than a two hour drive—and spend the day there on Saturday. We can do the Empire State Building, since that was on your list.”
She curled her lip. “Don’t scoff. I was twelve and that seemed exciting.”
He chuckled. “I’m sure it did. I did some research, and there’s a production of Henry V running that’s supposed to be excellent. It’s the entire play, so it’s long, but it might be more fun than reading—”
His explanation was interrupted with another hug.
Torn between amusement and concern over his body's responses, Paul was briefly paralyzed, not sure whether to hug her back or pull away.
She didn’t seem to notice. “I can’t believe you’re doing all this for me. Thank you so much.”
He shrugged off her gratitude and tried to refocus on the itinerary.
When they finished going over it, Emily set the movie to begin again and they watched Casablanca together, since Paul wasn’t getting any work done anyway.
After it was over, Emily turned on the news.
Paul glanced over at her a few minutes later and was surprised to find she was asleep, curled up in a little ball on the couch.
She looked young and incredibly innocent, with the intelligence, humor, and tenacity in her eyes concealed by her closed eyelids. Her lashes were long and thick, fanned out against her smooth skin. The outline and shading of her nipples was clearly visible through the thin, white cotton.
Her arms were bare, and it was cool in the room, so he pulled the cashmere throw farther up to cover her.
Paul had spent most of his life lashing out against everything he hated about the world, searching for anything that might numb him against wounds that wouldn’t heal.
He had no practice in focusing on someone else. And, despite his vast experience, he hadn’t really lived—anymore than Emily had.