“Can you pour me some more?” Cara asked, and I saw that she’d put on a baggy t-shirt that just skimmed the tops of her thighs. I glanced away as quick as I could so I wasn’t staring at her exposed thighs.
“Yeah, sure. Give me your cup,” I said and she set it on the counter and got more creamer.
“What are we gonna do today?” Cara said. “I mean, besides nothing.”
“We can do nothing. Or we can go out and take a walk, or go to the aquarium or something.” Honestly, I didn’t want to leave the house, but being in such close quarters with Cara was scrambling my brain and making it hard to breathe.
“Ugh, I don’t want to go anywhere. That means I have to put pants on. Do you want to just look at furniture online?” That sounded like a good plan.
“We can pick a couch,” I said.
“Solid plan. And we don’t have to worry about food because we have a fridge full of leftovers. Best day ever. Even if it’s not a legit honeymoon.” That comment snagged in my brain.
“Well, we wouldn’t have a real honeymoon. You do know what people do on honeymoons, right?” I asked. She couldn’t possibly be suggesting that we should go somewhere and... do what people did on honeymoons.
“Oh, I know. But can you imagine going somewhere and staying in a fancy hotel and everything? I can’t remember the last time that happened. We were probably kids, right?” I thought back. I couldn’t really remember many trips I’d taken as an adult. Just a few short ones, nothing major.
“Well, once we have the money, we can go somewhere. Where do you want to go?” I’d go anywhere with her. We’d have a good time anywhere.
“I get to pick?” Her eyes lit up the way they had yesterday. She’d been glowing and I wanted to bring that back. I wanted to make her look like that every single day.
“Sure,” I said. “Pick a place and plan the whole thing and we can pay for it with the money. We can have a friendymoon.” I was all over inventing new words lately.
“Oh, I’m excited now,” she said, gulping her coffee down. “Something else to plan.” Now her eyes were glittering in a maniacal way, and I was having regrets.
“What have I done?” I said, pretending to wail in despair.
“Mwahahaha,” Cara said, pretending to do an evil laugh and failing miserably. She was too cute to be evil. Or maybe that was part of her master plan. Be so cute that no one would suspect that she was evil.
“Pretty soon we’re going to have spreadsheets on the fridge and wall-papering everything. I’m doomed.”
“I don’t love spreadsheets that much,” she said, but I gave her a disbelieving look.
“Okay, fine, I would live in a spreadsheet if I could.”
I snorted, because it was true.
Fourteen
We spent the rest of the day arguing about where we were going to go for our trip. Turned out that I did have opinions about locations for our vacation.
“There are too many things that can kill us in Australia. No way. I am not being attacked by a giant spider-kangaroo-wombat,” I said, and Cara burst out laughing.
“I hate to break it to you, but there is no such thing as a giant spider-kangaroo-wombat, and if there was, then it would be fucking adorable and awesome and I would want to take pictures with it.” I groaned.
“No, Cara. No. We are not doing that.” She made a huffy noise and crossed Australia off the list of places to visit.
“There are so many other places that have less things that can kill or maim us,” I said.
“You know that people are hit by cars in Boston every single day, right?” I did, but that was different.
“At least those cars aren’t being driven by giant poisonous spiders.”
“They aren’t in Australia.”
“Maybe they are. How do you know? You’ve never been there.” I grinned at her and she shoved me away and threw a pillow in my face.
“You’re impossible.”
“Your impossible wife,” I said, emphasizing the word. I had no idea what it was about that word, but I loved the sound of it. I enjoyed saying it and thinking of myself as Cara’s wife. Technically, I was. I had a shiny marriage certificate to prove it. In two weeks we needed to get a certified copy made at City Hall and then the paperwork for the withdrawal notarized. And then the money would be wired to my brand-new bank account just for that purpose, minus some that was going to a savings account for tax purposes. Fuck that. Who wanted to think about taxes? I mean, other than accountants, and maybe not even them.