He finished chewing before he answered. “I suppose I’m not as entirely English as I might consider myself. My daughter’s middle name is Úlfhildur, that’s not exactly Jane or Anne, is it?”
“Oh my god, poor Emma!” I held my sides, I was laughing so hard. It didn’t help my cramps, but it felt so good not to be tense and guilty and relieved and confused all at the same time. “I can’t believe she still talks to you!”
“I think Úlfhildur is a beautiful name!” Neil protested with a chuckle of his own. He raised his voice over my hysterical giggling, and that only made it funnier to him, too. “I had a very nice piano teacher named Úlfhildur. She had the most enormous breasts; I wanted to pay them tribute.”
My face and abs both hurt. “That is not true!”
“No, you’re right, it’s not,” he confessed. “But it would be an amazing story.”
I felt a little bad for teasing him about what he’d chosen to name his daughter, but Emma Úlfhildur Elwood was such a tragedy of a name. “I shudder to think what you’d name a kid of ours.”
I need to refine that skill where you realize you’ve said something stupid before you say it. I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m sorry, that was so insensitive.”
“Not at all,” he responded easily, but it was polite, his entire demeanor instantly restrained.
All at once, that crushing sadness came back. Not at the decision I had made, but at the fact that Neil and I weren’t on the same page about it. That I might have caused him pain.
It was unfair that there had been no way to be fair.
My burger didn’t taste as good anymore. “I want to go to bed.”
Neil cleared up our food while I stumbled into my bedroom, trying to hold back irrational tears and failing.
When I got to my room, I stopped dead in my tracks. Holy shit. This would be the first night Neil and I spent together without having sex. We’d even fooled around the night before, mostly because we’d been so nervous and in desperate need of a distraction.
I straightened the covers a little bit before I slid into my bed. I dimmed the bedside lamp to its lowest setting and lay on my side, an arm under my pillow. I wanted to be sure to leave enough room for Neil.
He came in just a moment later and leaned over his bag, pulling up a phone charger. “Plug?”
I gestured to the nightstand. “You can just unplug my alarm clock. I’m not going to want to deal with it in the morning, anyway.”
I watched him silently as he went about the mundane task of plugging in his phone and taking out his contacts. He pulled his shirt over his head and took off his pants, coming to bed in just his boxers.
Millions of people in relationships were going to bed like this tonight. It was so... domestic.
This was weird, and it felt like too much to deal with. What the hell was happening?
“You know,” he said as he climbed in behind me. “It occurs to me that we’ve never done this before.”
“Go to bed without fucking?” I asked, and when I said it out loud, it sounded ludicrous.
“Exactly.” His arm fell across my waist, and I wriggled back, letting him spoon around me.
“I was just thinking that myself. It’s kind of... I don’t know.” I sighed, not exactly unhappy, but not entirely happy, either. “Is this it? Is this the night we become a boring couple? I’m going to bed in yoga pants.”
“I don’t think we’re ever going to be boring together.” He nuzzled my ear. “And I happen to think those yoga pants make your bum look fantastic. But it can’t be all paddles and orgasms, can it? No relationship ever is.”
“I suppose you’re right. I just hate admitting that we’re changing. That our lives are changing. I’m kind of afraid. I’ve never done this before.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” he asked, kissing my ear. “I’ve never done this before, either, because the circumstances of each relationship are different. I’ve never lived with and made a serious commitment to Sophie Scaife before. I have run away from you before, but I promise you, this time I’m not going to run.”
I nestled against him, choosing sleep over my out of control emotions. But it was far too quiet. “Can we listen to some music?” I asked softly. “I’m kind of used to falling asleep here to the sounds of Holli cackling at Workaholics.”
He leaned over me and snagged his phone, dropping it into my waiting hand. “You pick.”
“You trust me to look at your phone?” He might as well have trusted me to rifle through his dresser drawers. Phones were so personal.
“Use this power for good,” he said dryly.