A Much Worse Version

Adrian looked at the bat.

"Were you expecting someone?"

I lowered my improvised weapon.

"You. Apparently I got your cousin from an indie band."

His hair was styled like Elliot's. His jacket was almost identical. A small stud gleamed in his swollen, red left ear.

The smell of alcohol reached me before he did.

"Do you like it?"

I stared.

He tugged at his sleeve, smoothing a crease that wasn't there.

"Is it bad? I can change."

"Adrian. What's going on?"

He held up a finger, asking me to wait, and retrieved a case beside the couch.

He opened it.

There was a violin inside.

I thought of Nora. I thought of the noise. I thought of the number of bad decisions it had taken to make this moment possible.

Adrian tucked the instrument beneath his chin with terrible concentration.

"I'm still learning."

The first sound brought my shoulders up to my ears.

The second appeared to be arguing with the first.

On the third, Adrian stopped himself.

He looked at the bow.

"It was different in the video."

I carefully took the violin and laid it on the couch.

"Stop."

He attempted a laugh.

"I need more time. You can pick another song."

"I'm not asking you to play anything."

"I know."

His face crumpled so quickly that I forgot the urge to laugh.

Adrian caught my shirt between his fingers.

"I know it isn't the same."

"The same as what?"

"Him."

We looked at each other in the middle of our living room.

I'd spent the day trying to rescue a product launch. My husband had spent it trying to turn himself into a music student.

"Are you dressed as Elliot?"

He didn't answer.

He didn't have to.

"Oh my God, Adrian."

"I tried to talk to you. You said I could leave."

"I asked you to tell me why you were crying."

"And then you said we could end it."

I scrubbed a hand over my face.

He knelt to retrieve something that had fallen from the case. Didn't find it. Stayed on the floor, holding my hand, and looked up.

"Don't take our home away."

The request was so simple that it left me with nothing to say.

"Get up."

He obeyed badly, stumbling. I caught him around the waist and steered him to the couch.

Adrian pulled me down with him. I ended up sitting sideways, trapped between his arm and a cushion.

"I can learn what you like. You just have to tell me."

"I like breathing. Loosen up a little."

He did immediately.

A tear slid down his face.

"I don't want to hit that kid. I really want to, but I won't. You'd stop talking to me again."

The absurdity of the first part couldn't hide the pain in the second.

"You think I'm going to leave with him?"

"There's always someone you like. I only have to wait, and somebody else comes along."

His voice thinned.

"And I stay."

I looked at his hand over mine. His ring was still there, the one he'd presented on the terrace like emergency identification.

"This marriage didn't just happen, Jamie. I talked to my mother. I said maybe our families could suggest it. Without pushing you. If you said no, that would be it."

My chest tightened.

"It was your idea?"

He nodded.

"You'd blocked me. I didn't know how to get near you anymore without being told to disappear."

"You could have started with an apology."

Adrian lowered his eyes.

"I could have."

That disarmed me more than any excuse could have.

I stayed quiet, waiting.

He let go of my hand to open his jacket.

"I did something else."

A small dressing covered a spot on his chest beneath a deeply cut tank top.

The antiseptic.

My hand touching him that morning.

I closed my eyes.

"Please tell me you didn't get a piercing because you thought I needed another shiny object on you."

"You like shiny things."

"I also like good knives. I don't want you to become a cutlery drawer."

Adrian sniffed.

I started to laugh.

I couldn't help it. I was tired, worried, moved, and sitting beside the most ridiculous man in Massachusetts.

He tried to join in, but a sob interrupted his laugh.

I cupped his face.

"You don't have to turn into another man."

He looked at me as though I'd spoken a language he knew but hadn't heard in a long time.

Then he ruined the moment.

"I can sing too."

"You don't need to."

He'd already started.

"I've got a house, I've got a job, a loyal heart for you. My husband's out at parties, and I'm home feeling blue."

My mouth fell open.

Adrian slapped his thigh to keep time.

"I've got shoulders, I've got savings, I can cook a decent meal. If you leave me for a fiddler, it's ramen till next year."

"Stop."

His mouth closed immediately.

His eyes went enormous.

I rested my forehead against his for a moment.

"The song. Stop the song."

He exhaled.

His fingers tightened in my shirt.

I looked at the violin, the jacket, the tear-swollen face.

There was no company reputation in that room.

Just my husband, making a disastrous attempt to be chosen.

"Adrian," I asked softly. "Are you jealous?"

He nodded so fast that his nose bumped mine.

"Very."