“No, no. I don’t mean literally.” He wraps both arms around me, his empty champagne flute on the bistro table in front of us. “Figuratively. Would it be so bad to pretend for one night that we really are married?”
I look askance at him. What in the world is he talking about? Is he serious? “You’re a weird guy. Next you’ll be saying you want to roleplay being stepsiblings.”
“Noooo, I definitely do not think so.” His hand tightens in my hair. Every strand pulls against my scalp, and if I were with anyone else, I would think he’s doing it subconsciously. Yet this is Ian. My boyfriend. The man I’ve spent many nights with being tied up and made to submit. Sometimes I get to tie him up too. I’ve got a feeling that’s not happening tonight, though. “I thought about it a lot last week. How much I wanted to make love to you as your husband. Even though I knew it was going to end soon... ah, I guess this whole thing has me tripped up too. I didn’t think I would be so affected by it, but I suppose I enjoyed thinking of you as my wife for a week. Who knows when I’ll have that chance again?”
“But nothing changed between us.”
“Isn’t that the point?”
I shake my head. “I don’t get you. I never knew you felt so strongly about getting married... let alone to me. I thought you were content with the way we were. Are.”
“I am. That doesn’t mean we can’t evolve eventually.”
“How is getting married evolving?”
“Katie, you’re getting hung up on all the wrong things.” He kisses my forehead. “Are you trying to tell me that you didn’t think of me as your husband at all this past week?”
“Well, I...” Didn’t I? Sometimes the thought occurred to me. I would be feeling his mouth on me, his tongue slipping here and there as he brought me pleasure, and I would think Well, it’s kinda weird to think this is technically my husband. All we did was sign a piece of paper. What right does that thing give me to think of any man as my husband?
Do we need a piece of paper at all?
I’m sitting here, freezing in the warm night. Freezing because I’m finally realizing that my brain, my logic has been approaching things all wrong this past week. My logical side always knew that the legalities were temporary. We would get an annulment and go back to normal, in that we had nothing to share in our bank accounts or investments. That was the whole reason for the rush, right? Well, that and because the idea of being married made me want to vomit for so many personal reasons.
What I didn’t do, however, was listen to my emotional side. That piece of crap I am always ignoring because it does such a great job of making me feel like this. Like a mess. It was my emotional side that made it so difficult being in a relationship with Ian to begin with—because my logical side was so convinced that he and I would never work out. Emotions say: Jump in his arms and be carried away on an ocean of love and lust! Logic says: Girl, what are you doing... you’re better than this, and you need to love yourself before you love some jerkface rich guy who makes you feel like a queen and worships your body every time you make love.
If I let go of my logic and listen purely to my emotional side... what does it say? Does it urge me to make a fool of myself and tell Ian that I will love him forever? That one day we’ll show the whole world how much we mean to one another? Or does it get scared? Like a dog during a thunderstorm, hiding in the closet and wanting nothing to do with anything until the storm passes?
It’s a terrible mix of both. Based purely on emotion, all I want to do is waste my life here in this man’s arms, kissing his stubble and rubbing the damned crotch of his pants. Can I do that forever? Can I stop time and make that happen?
Can I do that while calling him my husband... and not feel weird about it?
I feel the light fuzz on his cheeks and chin. I look into his eyes, or as well as I can in the Nevada twilight. I even let go of my insecurities. Or at least I don’t think about them for a whole five seconds, which is a miracle if you are me.
“My husband,” I say, with the straightest face I can muster. “I love you.”
His sweet smile makes me melt inside. Especially when he tucks my hair behind my ear and lets his fingers linger on my skin. I shiver, and I feel like he’s seducing me for the first time all over again. Be still, my fluttering heart. “I love you too, my wife.”
When we kiss, it’s like every barrier ever built between us has come crashing down, and no longer am I a guarded, lonely woman who wanders this earth with a chip on her shoulder. A chip given to me by the earth I traverse, true, but does that mean I can’t ever let it go?