“It means—it means you are very brave, sweetheart. It means I love holding you in my arms.”
“I’m not brave at all,” she said in a wobbly voice, and Karim tumbled back on the bed with her because the only safe way to show her that she was everything he’d just said was to make love to her again.
There was nothing at all safe in telling her the truth—
That what he’d really said was that he loved her.
They sl
ept locked in each other’s arms.
Sunlight woke them.
Karim looked into Rachel’s eyes.
“Good morning,” he said softly.
Rachel smiled. “Good morning.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Wonderfully well. In fact …” She rose on her elbow and looked past him to the iPod docked on the nightstand. “Oh! It’s past seven. Ethan—”
“Ethan is fine.”
“But—”
“Really. I checked a little while ago. Roberta has him downstairs. She’s feeding him some unidentifiable yellow slop mixed with some equally unidentifiable white slop.”
Rachel laughed at her lover’s excellent description of strained peaches combined with rice cereal.
“He loves that slop,” she said
“Which only proves Ethan’s a baby. She says she’s going to take him to the park when he’s finished eating.”
“Then I’d better hurry and get showered and—”
“I’m a man of the desert, habibi.”
“Meaning …?”
“Meaning,” he said, looking very serious, “I understand things you do not.”
“Such as?”
“Water is a precious commodity. So saving water is an imperative.” His mouth twitched. “Therefore we must make the sacrifice of showering together.”
Rachel smiled. “And a lovely sacrifice it would be,” she said softly, “but if Roberta’s taking Ethan to Central Park …”