Page 95 of Hushed

“Uh-huh,” he says. He kisses the back of my neck and works his leg between mine. I settle into the embrace.

My phone lights up on the nightstand. It is not the family chat. I reach over and turn it face down.

“So…you met my family,” I start, because I don’t know how to bring up the elephant in the room.

“They’re great.” Levi’s voice sounds sleepy. “Do you think they like me?”

“I think they do. I mean, they don’t really know you.”

“And they probably think I’m a self-centered, ungrateful asshole. Thanks, Momma.”

I sigh. Here it is. I open my mouth to tackle it.

“Plus, I think I embarrassed myself while you weren’t in the room,” Levi admits, which effectively hijacks what I was going to say.

“I’m sure you didn’t. Although, why did my brother tell me bravo?”

“Bravo with that sound that sounds like a pig grunting. What does that mean? Like, ohn.” He grunts at the end. “America, ohn?” he says, in the worst French accent ever.

“Oh! That. Okay, that I can explain. The word is hein. It’s spelled H-E-I-N. But this is French, half the letters are only suggestions anyway. It’s kind of a multipurpose word. Like if you told me you were getting married, I could say, Bravo, hein? And that would mean, Good for you. Although if you say it in the wrong tone, it could also kind of mean, Well, that’s a shock! But if you did something really rude, I would comment with hein, too.”

“Like what?” he asks sleepily.

“Like if you bumped into me and said je m’excuse. That literally means I excuse myself. I would say, T’excuses, hein? Like, get a load of this guy! Because what you should have done is ask for me to excuse you. So what did you do?”

“Oh, no, that’s a completely different problem. You were in the kitchen and I was praising your mom’s gravy recipe and I think I said something wrong in French because there were a lot of red faces. And it was in the best French I could use without having my phone handy.”

“Oh, no.” I cringe in the darkness and crane my neck to look back at him. “I don’t like where this is going. Tell me exactly what you said, word for word.”

“I can’t remember exactly, but I said that I am very proud of my kitchen. I never use preservatives in the kitchen.”

“Oh, no,” I say.

“And everybody goes red-faced, and your mother asks me if I would like to eat some more, and I said—”

“Oh, dear God, no.”

“And I said, Non, merci, je suis plein. And your brother almost fell out of his chair and your mother whacks him on the back of the head.”

I can’t help it. I am trying so hard not to laugh I think I could actually pee myself. The laughter breaks out of me anyway. “Oh, no.”

“What did I say?”

“First, you told my mother that we bareback in the kitchen.”

He sits up. “What?”

I turn to him. “A préservatif is a condom, so yes. You told my mother that we go condomless in the kitchen. And then when my mother tried to give you food to shut you up, you informed her…” I cover my mouth with my hand.

“That I was full.”

“That you were pregnant,” I finish. “Which explains why Michel told me bravo.”

“How did that word become pregnant?!?” he shouts.

“Bravo,” I say, giggling. “I mean, you did say you wanted a lot of kids. We’re starting early.”

“I think that’s what your brother said. Between gasps for air. Oh, he did say bravo, hein.” He grabs his phone off his nightstand and snaps a photo of me.