by Noelle Adams
She shouldn’t be feeling this way. It wasn’t what their marriage was about. And it would soon start to get in the way of what was most important.
Gabe’s door was shut when she walked past it, but light was visible through the crack.
She suddenly realized that he would never come to her room. He’d told her from the beginning that sex was a standing offer, but it was clearly always going to be in her court.
If she wanted sex, she was going to have to ask for it.
If he’d made a move on her, she would have responded. No problem. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to knock on his door.
She wanted to. A lot. But maybe it would be better to use tonight to reorient herself to reality. To priorities.
Her life had always had clear priorities. A clear purpose.
And what was behind this door—maybe waiting right now to see if she would knock—just wasn’t it.
Eight
A few evenings later, Lydia was standing in the church fellowship hall again, watching the chaos around her.
It was the first joint rehearsal of the adult and children’s choir for their songs at the Christmas Eve service, and it had slowly spiraled out of control.
It had started with everyone sitting quietly in seats, but that was an hour ago. Now the kids were running all over, and the adults were split into six or seven groups, conversing about everything from sports to children’s costumes for the yearly pageant, which would be happening on this coming Sunday evening.
Jessica, who had been nominated as the organizer for the Christmas choir, was desperately trying to line the bigger kids up for their recitation of the nativity account in the Gospel of Luke.
Lydia had been annoyed at first, since she liked things to run efficiently and quickly, but now she was closer to laughing.
Ellie was up with the bigger kids, waiting quietly in line as she’d been instructed. Since she was all by herself and Jessica was trying to round up the rest of the kids, Lydia walked over to stand next to the girl.
“Do you have your verse memorized?” she asked Ellie.
Ellie nodded. “Dad helped me with it this morning.”
“Maybe you’ll be able to practice if everyone will get in line.” Glancing around, Lydia decided that, if more of the parents would help with crowd control, things would move smoother. Poor Jessica couldn’t do it on her own.
“They’re all crazy,” Ellie said, observing the kids running around soberly. “I wish they would get in line.”
“Come on now,” Jessica said, more loudly than she was wont to speak. She was holding her rounded belly. “Everyone get in line so we can go through this one time!”
A few kids meandered over toward the line, but otherwise there was little effect—other than a few parents calling out for their kids.
Lydia met Jessica’s gaze, and they shared a dry, resigned smile.
“I wish they would line up,” Ellie said again.
She was starting to sound a little frustrated, and Lydia felt a wave of intense sympathy. She knew very well how it felt to want something to happen when people wouldn’t cooperate. In response, she used her most resonant voice and boomed out, “Everyone age six to ten line up over here immediately!”
Her voice carried loudly all through the fellowship hall. There was an immediate silence in the aftermath, and then a soft ripple of murmurs as the kids started to move into place.
Jessica laughed and mouthed, “Thank you,” and Lydia felt a silly swell of pride at having accomplished such a feat.
Ellie moved closer to her and whispered, “That was really good.”
Lydia grinned down at her, recognizing real appreciation on the girl’s face for the first time.
Ellie actually smiled back and kind of pressed herself against her side.
Lydia put her arm around the girl with an unexpected wave of affection.
Without conscious thought, she glanced up and over to the far side of the hall, where Gabe was working with a few other people who were constructing the backdrop of a stable for the pageant.
He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and he was looking over at her and Ellie at the moment. Their gaze met for a few seconds, and she had no idea how to understand the expression in his eyes.
But it made her feel even warmer, even deeper somehow.
It also made her feel rather uncomfortable, so she distracted herself by turning away and helping Jessica get the kids lined up in the right way.
It felt like Gabe might have still been watching her, but Lydia didn’t glance over to check.
***
About a half-hour later, the rehearsal had broken up, after they’d rather sloppily gone through the entire program once.
Not everyone had left immediately, and some of the kids were running sprints back and forth across the fellowship hall as the remaining adults were putting the room back in order.
Lydia was helping to move chairs back around the tables so it would be ready for adult Sunday school. In the process of turning around with a chair in her hands, she jerked to a stop when she saw a toddler wobbling toward her.
Micah was right behind the little girl, and he scooped her up before she ran into Lydia.
“Sorry,” he said, grinning in his warm, charismatic way. “Once she started to walk, she just won’t stop.”
“She gets around really well. She wasn’t even walking at Easter.” She smiled at the pretty, blue-eyed girl. “Hi, Cara. You look very pretty in that red sweater.”
Cara hid her face in Micah’s shirt.
“She’s still really shy,” he said, giving his daughter a little hug. “According to Alice, she needed some Christmas outfits, so we bought her all kinds of stuff.”
“Oh, yeah.” Lydia glanced over at Ellie, realizing that the girl would probably want something to wear for Christmas too. She hadn’t even thought about it. “Gabe and I should look for something for Ellie, I guess.”
“If he’s like me, the idea might not even cross his mind.”
She sighed. “It hadn’t crossed my mind either.”
“How are things going with Ellie?” Micah looked genuinely interested—and sympathetic in a way she appreciated.
“Okay. They’re getting better. It’s hard, you know, but she’s a really sweet girl.”
“You seem to be getting along really well.”
“Really?” Lydia perked up at the thought that an outsider might have thought she wasn’t a complete failure as a stepmother.
“Yeah. Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’m very good at it.”
“It’s probably harder because she’s older, but she seems to like you okay.”
Lydia felt even more optimistic. Maybe things were getting better than she’d realized. “I hope so.” She glanced around, realizing she hadn’t seen Micah’s wife this evening. “Where is Alice?”
“She’s working at the library this evening. They’ve finally been able to give her more hours.”
“Oh. Good for her.” Lydia smiled, remembering all the years when Micah had seemed so lonely and lost—even in the midst of his very active social life. She was so glad that he seemed to be happy now.
In response, she reached over to give Micah a friendly, one-armed hug.
“What was that for?” he asked, appearing genuinely curious.
“Nothing. Just that you did really well getting Alice.”
He laughed. “You don’t have to tell me that.”
His eyes moved over her shoulder, and Lydia turned automatically to see what had distracted him. She jerked in surprise when she saw Gabe was standing right behind her.
She dropped her arm from around Micah and said, “Oh. Hi there. Are you ready to go?”
“Pretty soon.” Gabe wasn’t smiling—at her or at Micah. “Ellie is still playing.”
Lydia saw the girl evidently trying to give instructions to two boys in arranging the chairs a certain way. She chuckled. “It looks l
ike she’s starting to make friends.”
“Yes.”
Gabe’s voice seemed unnaturally cool, and he put his hand on her back as he stood beside her, moving her farther away from Micah without Lydia even really noticing it.
Lydia looked up at her husband in surprise, but he wasn’t looking at her.
“How are you liking the house?” Micah asked, obviously trying to be friendly.
Gabe arched his eyebrows. “It’s fine.”
She frowned at him, afraid that Micah would think he was being rude. “We really like it,” she told Micah. “It’s wonderful.”
She looked up at Gabe, hoping he’d add more to the conversation. He didn’t, though. He just watched Micah with a look that appeared almost challenging.
She was baffled by his mood, when he’d seemed in a perfectly fine mood earlier. And she hadn’t seen anything happen this evening to justify such a decline.
Evidently sensing the conversation wasn’t going anywhere, Micah said he needed to get Cara home to bed and said goodbye with another friendly grin.
Lydia told them goodbye, and Gabe just nodded.
With a frustrated inhale, Lydia turned to glare at him. “Why were you so rude?” she asked in a low voice.
“I’m not aware of doing or saying anything rude.” Gabe was looking at her now, and he definitely wasn’t happy.
Her lips parted. “You were all cold and off-putting. Micah is a good guy, and he’s going to think you don’t like him.”
“I’m sure my impressions are of no interest to him at all.”
“What the hell, Gabe?” Her voice was still low, so no one else would hear. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Why do you assume something is wrong with me?”
“Because I know you, remember? This is not how you normally act. What happened? Did something happen? Micah is a good guy and a friend of mine, so I’d appreciate it if you’d at least be polite to him.”
His eyes narrowed, and she felt a familiar tension radiating off him—the kind that told her he was angry. “You’ve now told me he’s a good guy at least four times. Continually telling me isn’t going to change my impression of him.”
Lydia gaped, suddenly hit with a realization, an answer that explained almost everything about Gabe’s strange mood. It was just such a ridiculous idea that she could barely process it.
“What?” Gabe demanded, after a minute, his shoulders stiff and his gaze still cold.
“Are you jealous?” she whispered, leaning forward to speak even softer than she’d been before. “Are you jealous of Micah?”
“Why do you sound so surprised? You’re my wife, for whatever reason we got married, and I don’t think any husband would appreciate watching his wife embrace another man in front of the entire church.”
She was almost choking on the shock and disbelief. “It was just friendly! Obviously, it was just friendly. We weren’t embracing, and no one watching would have thought so—except for you. You must be crazy to think…” She trailed off, too surprised to even finish the thought.
“I must be crazy to think what?”
“That there’s anything but friendliness between me and Micah.” She put her hand on his chest and leaned toward him so she could speak into his ear, just to be sure no one else could hear. “Gabe, seriously. Micah is married. He’s crazy in love with Alice. He’s never had any real feelings for me, even when we were dating in high school. And I have absolutely no feelings for him. How can you even think I would…I mean, I’m your wife. Don’t you trust me at all?”
She got more and more upset as she continued, until her voice cracked on the last words. He’d told her three months ago that he could never trust another woman with his heart, but it was only now that she was understanding what it meant.
It meant he might assume that she would cheat on him with the first man who passed by.
And it hurt. For some reason, it hurt a lot.
“Yes, I trust you,” he murmured thickly. His mouth was about three inches from her face now. “I don’t think anything is going on between you and Micah.”
“But you just—”
“I don’t think you are doing anything. Why should I assume you don’t want to?”
They stared at each other for a tense moment, and she felt so emotional that she held onto his shoulders. “Because…because I don’t,” she whispered at last, telling him the truth—as she always did when she had no idea what to say. “I don’t.”
“You don’t?”
“No. You’re my husband. And that…means something to me.”
As she said the words, she realized how true they were. No matter how practical and non-emotional their marriage, she had no interest in any other man. The idea of wanting someone else wasn’t even on her radar anymore.
Evidently, the words got through to him because she saw his expression break for just a moment. “It means something to me too.”
She suddenly realized that he felt the way she did. Maybe he’d just realized it too.
For a moment, they seemed to completely understand each other.
She wasn’t sure who moved first, but she ended up pressed tightly against him, his arms around her, holding her against him.
And it felt good. So good. Like he needed her, like he was offering strength and taking it both.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured into her ear. “I know I need to work on trusting you.”
“I hope you do,” she said, pulling away. “I can see how it might be hard, but I hope you can. I’ll do everything I can to live up to your trust. I hope you believe me.”
He tightened his arms again. “I want to.”
It was something. It was enough—at least for now. It made Lydia feel safer, warmer, closer to him than she’d ever been before.
When they finally pulled apart, Lydia felt strangely self-conscious, embarrassed in a way she rarely was. She noticed a few people were watching them, and she couldn’t help but wonder what they thought had just happened between them.
Ellie was on her way over, her cheeks brightly flushed and her hair messy.
“Are you ready to head home?” Gabe asked, sounding natural again, although he kept a hand on Lydia’s back.
“Yes.” Ellie looked from one of them to the other. “Are you fighting?”
“No. We were just hugging. You don’t fight and hug at the same time, do you?”
Ellie narrowed her eyes in a look that was eerily like her father. “I don’t know. You guys do.”
Lydia couldn’t help but smile. When the girl was right, she was right.
***
A few hours later, Lydia hesitated in the hallway outside of Gabe’s bedroom.
They hadn’t had sex since the first time. She’d talked herself into thinking it would be simpler that way.
But she really wanted to spend the night with Gabe tonight. And not just because her body wanted it.
It felt strange, though. To want it so much. She wasn’t in the habit of acting on feeling. She’d been practical and reasonable all her life.
So she stood for a few minutes before she summoned up the will to make a move.
She really wasn’t sure what the move was going to be until she saw herself knocking on his door.
She was breathless when the door swung open and Gabe stood in front of her, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers.
“Sorry,” she said. “Were you in bed?”
He just stared at her with those heavy-lidded eyes.
“It’s fine if you’d rather not, but I was wondering if you want to…to—”
She was still getting the words out when he suddenly reached out for her and pulled her into a hard kiss.
Her mind thrilled with his obvious passion, and both her heart and her body reacted as he pulled her over to the bed, laid her down, kissed and caressed her into arousal, and then sank into her body.
She wrapped her arms around him and hung on as they started to move together rhythmically, both
of them wordless, breathless. He wasn’t quite as urgent this time, and her body was worked up into greater heights of pleasure, but she wasn’t quite there when he fell out of rhythm and came with hoarse grunts of release.
She didn’t have time to be disappointed, since she loved the feel of his relaxed body on top of her. And then he started to kiss his way down her body until his mouth had settled between her legs.
It didn’t take long for her to cry out as her body shuddered through a more intense orgasm than even last time.
He was smiling as he raised himself back up to the pillow, and she had to admit that she was smiling too.
“Thank you,” she gasped, settling into the crook of the arm he wrapped around her. Her whole body was deliciously relaxed.
“What for?”
“Well, you did something really nice down there, you know.”
He chuckled. She could feel it all through his body.
“I just mean I appreciate you making sure I got there too.”
She wasn’t looking at his face, but she could feel that he was still smiling. He brushed a kiss into her hair. “Evidently, when it comes to sex with you, patience is not my virtue, so I figure better late than never.”
She giggled. “Definitely better late than never.”
They lay together for a while, and Lydia found herself wondering what it would be like to share a room, a bed, with him. There was something nice about lying against him like this, even though the sex was over.
But soon they would be spending a large portion of the year apart, so she really needed to not get in the habit of it.
To distract herself from fuzzy thoughts, she murmured the first thing that entered her head. “It’s kind of strange being married.”
She felt him tilt his head to look at her face. “What do you mean?” He sounded almost wary.
Worried he’d misunderstood her random comment, she rushed through an explanation. “Nothing bad. I actually like it more than I thought. But it just feels kind of strange sometimes. I was thinking I wouldn’t ever get married, and then here we are, in bed together.”
“What’s wrong with that?” He still sounded confused, almost cautious, as if he were expecting her to say something that might hurt him.
