Page 23 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

She asked me to distract her from the worst day of her life.

“Wow,” she whispers again, quieter this time.

SEVEN

LENNON

The thingabout really good sex—and I am going to need a minute to process the fact that I finally know whatreallygood sex feels like—is that it turns your brain off completely.

Not numb. Not checked out like a night of mindless TV.

Off.Like a light switch.

There’s this amazing quality of silence that comes after something intense just happened, full of peace and full body relaxation and relief and?—

I’ve never had that before.

I didn’t know this was a thing thatcouldhappen. I thought it was just a thing people say, like how they talk aboutseeing starsorlosing track of time—technically possible but mostly metaphorical. Or just aspirational, not an actual event thathappenstorealpeople inreallife.

And yet here I am.

Really.

I’m lying on August’s chest, which is warm and solid and still slightly damp from the shower and the little workout we justperformed with each other’s bodies as we chased simultaneous climax, and my brain is?—

Buffering.

Attempting to reconnect to normal cognitive function after whatever that was.

I listen to August’s heartbeat slow down.

I think about nothing.

I haven’t thought aboutnothingin years. My brain doesn’t do nothing. It spirals about seventeen things simultaneously and calls that rest.

But right now, in the warm wreckage of this completely insane night, I am thinking nothing and it feels like floating. But like I’m floatinginsidemy body, notoutof it, if that makes any sense?

After a while I become aware that I’m tracing the lines of the gargoyle on August’s chest. Just following the ink with one finger, not thinking about it, the way you’d follow the grain of wood on a table. I don’t stop when I notice. I just keep going.

“You’re quiet,” August says.

“My brain turned off.”

A pause. “Is that good or bad?”

I consider this with the seriousness it deserves. “I genuinely don’t know. I’ve never experienced it before.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment.

Then: “Yeah. I get that.”

I tilt my head up to look at him and he’s looking at the ceiling, and there’s something in his face that’s?—

Well, it’s different from how he’s looked all evening. Like, earlier, sure he looked unruffled. But more like he’s the kinda man who’s made peace with most of the things you have to make peace with to get through a day.

Right now, though, there’s something quieter in his face. Like he’s genuinely at rest and nottryingto look at ease. He justis.

He notices me staring.