Page 56 of Fox
We walk closer to the water.
The Cumberland from here is not the river you see from downtown, all glass-reflected skyline and tourist boats. From here it is wide and brown, indifferent and old, doing what it has always done, long before there was a city named after anything.
We find a low spot by the water, a fallen tree, and we sit—Fox with his elbows on his knees, me with my face turned up to the late afternoon light, which is the long gold kind that makes everything look like it was decided on with care.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Yes.”
“What was I like?” I keep my face up to the light. “Before. What was I like to be married to?”
I can feel his gaze on me, but I don’t face him; I can’t.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I finally have the courage to ask him and find out what he says.
“Honest,” he replies. “You were always honest. Even when it was inconvenient.”
Not anymore, not now. I’m not honest now, Fox.
“You made everything the best version of what it could be. Dinner, the house, the garden. You never did anything halfway.” He cups my cheek. “I didn’t tell you enough that I noticed.”
I absorb this and his touch.
“Were we happy?”
“Yes.But…not as much as we should’ve been.” His voice shifts, goes quieter. “That’s entirely on me.” He pauses. “I’m going to do better, sweetheart.”
You already are.
He just gave me a truth—a small revelation I hold close.
20
LIES AND KISSES
LUCY
We kiss in the kitchen.
Fox is cleaning up after dinner. He reaches past me to get to a cabinet—and when he pulls back, he is right there, and I am right there, and the distance between us is nothing.
He looks at me.
I look at him.
And then...Iclose the distance, a decision I make approximately half a second before I do it. Not enough time to stop it.
He kisses me back—not urgently, gently, not taking but receiving.
His hand comes up to my face, my jaw, and I feel the tenderness in it, the attention, and something in me that has been a closed fist for weeks starts to—not open but consider opening. Which is dangerous enough.
I pull back.
He lets me.
We stand in the kitchen looking at each other. His hand is still on my jaw. I can feel my pulse, which is telling me things I don’t want to hear.
“Fox,” I murmur.
