“I’d forgotten it completely. Until just now.”
“Maybe you knew yourself a little better than you thought. And—I don’t know—maybe I did too. We just couldn’t see it.”
“If we’d both realized what we felt back then,” Sadie said softly, sounding far away, “that evening could’ve ended with the two of us in a bathroom stall, with my hand over your mouth, ruining your perfect makeup just to keep you quiet.” Then she gasped, as though she’d shocked herself. “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—that’s a remarkably specific fantasy checkbox, isn’t it?”
Anne got out a sound that might’ve been “uh” or maybe “um,” and despite herself, she remembered how good she’d felt in thatsatin gown, how much she’d gotten off on being the center of everyone’s attention while walking through that lobby. Sadie’s eyes had been on her, too, but not Sadie’s hands. Not Sadie’s palm pushed over Anne’s mouth in some barely concealed public place while Anne whimpered, both of them knowing that she was too desperate for it to control herself.
A sharp, sudden pulse between her legs shrieked for attention. She grabbed one thigh with her left hand, nails digging in hard to distract herself, and breathed. In and out. In and out.
“Anne? Are you all right?”
“I will be in a second,” Anne said roughly. “Just—driving a car on the freeway at seventy miles an hour and trying extremely hard not to think about your checkbox.” Absolutely no more on that subject, unless they both wanted to compromise Anne’s ability to operate heavy machinery.
Thankfully, Sadie let her recover without another word.
In about another mile, the ache had blessedly faded, and its absence made room for a question Anne had been holding onto. “You said earlier you were too frightened to even imagine I could feel the same way about you. Why, if it was so easy for you to realize you weren’t—ah, only attracted to men? What terrified you so much about the possibility of me reciprocating?”
A hesitation, a long one, that grew.
Anne realized, with an accompanying lurch of unease in her stomach, that she’d stumbled across a question Sadie didn’t want to answer. That couldn’t be a good sign.
“I owe you complete honesty,” Sadie said finally. “So I’ll begin with the most relevant fact: About four hours ago, you proposed to me.”
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t minimize what you did. Youproposedto me,” Sadie continued, ignoring Anne’s stammered dissent, “informed methat the proposal was entirely platonic, and then five minutes later, gave me a kiss that transformed my entire body into an erogenous zone. Which I think we can both agree is somewhat incongruous with your stated intentionsvis-à-vischasteness. Correct?”
“Correct,” Anne conceded, not entirely steadily.
“Between that and some other unsubtle clues you’ve been darting my way tonight, I think it’s reasonable to assume we’re now putting sex on the table. Not literally, though. My back doesn’t much care if the rest of me’s obliging.”
Thank God it was getting dark. Easier for Anne’s facial reactions to be unobserved. “No sex on a literal table. Fine by me.”
“What, in a bed, then? I’m going to make you say it outright, Anne.”
How could Anne tell Sadie what she wanted with any certainty when she wasn’t positive which direction was up anymore? But staring straight ahead, she could see her desire shimmer through the windshield, immense and growing by the minute. Far too big, now, to be crammed back into the smallest, deepest place inside her.
Anne had to face forward. No turning around. Not even if it meant she’d lock herself out from the only world she’d ever known.
Slowly, she managed, “I think I would like a bed.”
“I appreciate your candor. So the offer you’re now making me, as it currently stands, is a physically intimate and monogamous lifelong commitment. Do you still want to stand by your earlier argument that this is somehow different from what I had with Fred?”
Anne thought she understood the problem now. “I’m not Fred, Sadie.”
“You told me that before, too. At the same time you told me that what you want would be nothing like a marriage. Thiswouldbe like a marriage, and I don’t care how many times you say it wouldn’t be, because that’s exactly what you’re asking me to have with you. My second marriage. With the one person whose presence in my life helped pull me out of a truly horrific hurricane of grief. I’ve never told you how bad I got the year after he left. Didn’t want to scare you off.” A little, thin laugh. “Hal was the only one who really knew.”
“I know it was hard,” Anne said softly. Sadie’s liveliness had the uncanny effect of making her seem more open than she really was. Behind that excitable exterior lay a woman who kept her cards close to her chest. Very few people who knew Sadie perceived that, but Anne—who understood needing privacy—did. “And I knew you didn’t want to talk about the details. So I didn’t push.”
“No. That’s never been your style. You took me to the Getty instead. And started our two-woman book club. And taught me that the best way to pick up tiny shards of glass is with a slice of Wonder Bread.”
“The only thing it’s good for.”
Sadie didn’t let the conversation divert. “The one reason I grew around that grief was because I had you. But if you ever decided to leave me, too”—Sadie’s voice caught and shook—“I honestly don’t think I’d survive it a second time.”
“Sadie, the reason I’m not Fred doesn’t have to do with marriage, all right? I’m not Fred because I could never leave you.” Anne gripped the steering wheel, hard. “I can’t live without you. I meant every single word of what I said this afternoon. When I thought you were leaving me for New York… If you weren’t near me, I honestly don’t know if I could get up in the morning. I’m never going anywhere. I think I’m actually incapable of it.”
From the passenger seat, Anne heard quiet sniffling sounds.