“I love you, too,” he says. “In case it wasn’t obvious.”
“It is,” I say. “I know.”
He undresses me with an intention that hasn’t been there in a long time. Usually when we have sex, we don’t do a lot of mood-setting. We’re not particularly imaginative, and we’re always pressed for time. The sex David and I have is good — great, even. It always has been. We work well together. We communicated early and often and we know what works. David is thoughtful and generous and, although I’m not sure I’d call us ambitious, there is a certain competitive edge to our lovemaking that never lets it feel stale or boring.
But tonight is different.
With his right hand, he reaches forward and begins to unbutton my shirt. His knuckles are cool, and I shiver against him. My shirt is an old, white button-down J.Crew. Boring. Predictable. He’ll be met with a nude bra underneath. Same old. But what’s happening here tonight feels anything but.
He keeps unbuttoning. He takes his time, threading the silk knobs through their eye slits until the whole thing comes undone at the waist. I shimmy my shoulders until it’s off and falls to the floor.
David puts one hand on my stomach, and with the other he threads a thumb into the seam of my skirt. He holds me in place as he unzips it. This is less of a slow burn. It comes off in one swoop, falling into a puddle at my feet. I stand up and step out of it. My bra and underwear don’t match. They’re both Natori, although the bra is nude cotton and the underwear is black silk. I dispense with both and then push him down onto the bed. I lean forward over him, my breast grazing the side of his face. He reaches out and bites it.
“Ow!” I say.
“Ow?” He puts both hands on my back and runs them down slowly. “That hurt?”
“Yes. Since when are you a biter?”
“Since never,” he says. “Sorry.”
He reaches out and kisses me. It’s a slow and deep kiss, meant to recenter us. It works.
David is working on his shirt — his hands on the buttons. I put mine over his and stop him.
“What?” he asks. He’s out of breath, his chest straining.
I don’t say anything. When he tries to stand, I put my hands on his shoulders and nudge him back down.
“Dannie?” He whispers.
I answer by guiding his hand to my stomach and then down, down until I feel that concave spot that makes me inhale. I hold his hand there. He looks at me — first confusion, then recognition dawning as I press his hand back and then forward, back and then forward. I take my hand away from his and grab on to his shoulders. He’s breathing along with me — and I close my eyes against the rhythm, his hand, the incoming collapse that is mine, and mine alone.
Afterward, we lie in bed together. We’re both on our phones, looking up venues.
“Should we tell people?” David asks.
I pause, but what I say is: “Of course. We’re getting married.”
He looks at me. “Right. When do you want to do it?”
“Soon,” I say. “We’ve waited so long already. Next month?”
David laughs. It’s a sincere laugh, guttural — the kind I love from him. “You’re funny,” he says.
I put down my phone and roll to him. “What?”
“Oh, you’re serious? Dannie, you’re not serious.”
“Of course I am.”
He shakes his head. “Not even you could plan and execute a wedding in a month.”
“Who says we have to have a wedding?”
He raises his eyebrows at me, then squints them together. “Your mother, mine. Come on, Dannie. This is ridiculous. We’ve waited four and a half years, we can’t just elope now. Are you kidding? Because I really can’t tell.”
“I just want to get it done.”
“How romantic,” he deadpans.
“You know what I mean.”
David sets his phone down. He looks to me. “I don’t, actually. You love planning. That’s like… your whole thing. You once planned a Thanksgiving down to pee breaks.”
“Yeah, well…”
“Dannie, I want to get married, too. But let’s do it the right way. Let’s do it our way. Okay?”
He looks at me, waiting for an answer. But I can’t give him one, not the one he wants. I don’t have time for our way. I don’t have time to plan. We have five months. Five months until I’m living in an apartment my best friend wants to buy, with the boyfriend she wants to buy it with. I need to stop this. I need to do whatever I can to make sure it never comes true.
“I’ll be a planning machine,” I say. “It’s all I’m going to focus on. How does December sound? We can have a holiday wedding to match our holiday proposal. It’ll be festive.”
“We’re Jews,” David says. He’s back on his phone.
“Maybe it will snow,” I say, ignoring him. “David? December? I don’t want to wait.”
This makes him stop. He shakes his head, leans over, and kisses my shoulder blade. I know I’ve won. “December?”
I nod.
“Okay,” he says. “December it is.”
December.
Chapter Eleven
I have a giant case dropped in my lap on Thursday. One of our biggest clients — let’s just say they revolutionized the health-food store — wants to announce an acquisition of a delivery service company on Monday, before the markets open. David and I were supposed to go home to Philadelphia and tell my parents the December plan in person, but it’s never going to happen this weekend.
I call him at eight, while crouched over piles of documents in the conference room. There are twelve other associates and four partners barking orders and containers of empty Chinese food surrounding me. It’s a war zone. I love it.
“I’m not getting out of here this weekend,” I tell him. “Even to come home to sleep. Forget Philly.”
I hear the TV on behind him. “What happened?”
“Can’t say, but it’s a big one.”
“No shit,” he says. “Whol—”
I clear my throat. “I’m going to be sleeping here for the next three days. Can we do next weekend?”
“I have Pat’s bachelor party.”
“Right. Arizona.” They’re going to drink beer and practice target shooting — neither of which David has any interest in. I’m not even sure why he’s going. He barely sees Pat anymore.
“It’s fine,” he says. “We’ll just call and fill them in. They’ll be thrilled either way. I think your mom was starting to give up on me.”
My parents love David. Of course they do. He’s a lot like my brother, or what I imagine he’d have turned out to be. Smart, calm, even-tempered. Michael never got in trouble. He was the one making chore charts when we were kids, and he did model UN before he even learned to drive. He and David would be friends, I know they would. And it still stings me that he’s not here. That he won’t ever be here. That he didn’t see me graduate or accept my first job, hasn’t been to our apartment, and won’t get to watch me get married.
My parents bugged David and me incessantly during the first two years of our engagement to set a date, but less so now. I know how much they want this for me, and themselves. David’s wrong — at this point, they’d probably be fine with City Hall.
“Okay. My dad might be in the city next week.”
“Thursday,” David says. “I’m already taking him to lunch.”
“You’re the best.”
He makes a noncommittal noise through the phone. Just then, Aldridge walks into the room. I hang up on David without saying goodbye. He’ll understand. He used to do the same thing to me all the time at Tishman.