No Expiration Date

When I woke, Adrian was watching me.

His expression was focused, almost apprehensive.

"What?" I asked, my voice rough.

"I'm deciding how much you remember."

I considered.

"Unfortunately, all of the song."

He shut his eyes.

"Can we move?"

"No. You just fixed the door."

I got up to fetch water and something for us to eat. When I returned, he was sitting with the black jacket folded across his lap like evidence of a crime.

I set the tray on the bed and took the jacket from him.

"Let's start with the man who ruined my romantic gesture in college."

Adrian groaned.

"I was hoping we'd start with the hospital. That's the part where you like me."

"There's still time to change my mind."

He drank some water.

"I saw the flowers. You'd spelled out another guy's name. I arrived with a whole speech ready, and you were getting ready to give yours. I was angry."

"So you turned something romantic into an insult."

"Yes."

I waited for the excuse.

It didn't come.

"It was cruel," Adrian said. "I ruined something that mattered to you because I couldn't stand that it wasn't mine."

I fiddled with the napkin on the tray.

"I felt like an idiot. I thought you didn't respect me."

He nodded slowly.

"I know. Not that day. That day, I only thought about myself. Later, I knew."

I looked at his hands. They were clasped so tightly that his fingertips had gone pale.

I touched one.

"And Cole?"

"I thought I was proving he didn't deserve you."

"But I was the one who didn't get a choice."

"I know."

Adrian drew a breath.

"You could have broken up with him yourself. You could have stayed with him. I didn't have the right to buy an answer and call it protecting you. I won't do it again."

The apology didn't change what had happened.

It did change the feeling that I had to defend my side of the past alone.

"You really hurt me," I said.

"I would've been hurt too."

"You would've been unbearable."

A small smile appeared.

"There's evidence to support that."

I took a breath and let go of the crumpled napkin.

"Why tell me you didn't love me? After getting the marriage you wanted?"

Adrian looked at the tray.

"In the car after the engagement party, you asked if I was happy now that I'd destroyed your freedom."

I remembered.

I'd said a few other things too. None particularly generous.

"I was angry because you changed the plan."

"I know. But what I heard was that you didn't want to be there. I thought it would be easier if you didn't have to carry my feelings too. Two years. An arrangement. No love for you to reject."

He gave an embarrassed laugh.

"Then you kissed me, and I forgot half my decisions."

"Only half?"

"The rest disappeared over the following months."

We sat quietly.

I could see the crooked logic. I could even understand the fear. The trouble was that I'd been living on the other side of it.

"When you said you weren't jealous, I was disappointed," I admitted.

Adrian looked up.

"You were?"

"Don't look like that. You haven't discovered a continent."

He shifted a little closer.

"Jamie."

My throat tightened.

I was excellent at making jokes when a conversation got too close. I'd spent my life thinking Adrian was impossible to understand, without noticing how much I hid behind a laugh myself.

"I agreed to marry you because I knew you," I said. "I was angry about a lot of things. But when I pictured the house, it wasn't bad. I knew you'd complain about my games and buy the right food. I knew you wouldn't leave me alone if something went wrong."

Adrian seemed to have forgotten breakfast.

"It wasn't love yet," I continued. "But it became love. I started saving the last piece of cake and thinking about you at work. I wanted to come home. When you left, I kept looking at that door like it had personally insulted me."

He laughed softly. His eyes were wet.

I caught his face before he could look away.

"I love you, Adrian. The man who cooks well, loses at video games, and asks stupid questions so he can stay in the room a little longer. I even love the man who screams behind the door, although I have some reservations about that."

A tear landed on my fingers.

"You heard that?"

"Everyone must have heard. I think the neighbors are going to send a bill."

He laughed, caught me around the waist, and buried his face against my neck.

I waited.

His shoulders relaxed slowly.

"I love you," he said at last. "I've loved you so long I don't know how to explain it without sounding a little unwell."

"Try for merely inconvenient. That's your specialty."

Adrian lifted his face.

"I've loved you since before I knew how to do anything useful with it."

I kissed him.

This time it wasn't a challenge or an answer he had to decode.

When we separated, I pointed toward the drawer where we kept our copy of the agreement.

"I want to stay married. Without a countdown."

He looked at me with a beautiful seriousness.

"So do I."

"And I want you to talk to me before acquiring any more musical instruments."

"Can I keep the violin?"

I hesitated.

"With lessons. Somewhere soundproof."

His smile grew.

The following afternoon, we returned the rented instrument. Adrian chose a teacher but booked his first lesson for two weeks later. He needed to recover, sleep, and learn to make decisions without a jealousy crisis serving as his consultant.

Elliot sent an apology through Sophie. I accepted the message, kept my distance, and asked her not to put us in contact. Adrian listened beside me.

He didn't take the phone from my hand.

When I hung up, he simply linked our fingers.

That evening, we played on the couch. He lost three times.

"There's something wrong with the controller," he announced.

"We can share our problems honestly now."

"Fine. You're annoyingly good at this."

I gave him a kiss as a reward.

He put down the controller.

"I think I finally worked out how to win."

"Don't get excited. The prize is always the same."

Adrian looked at me, then at the ring on my finger.

"It's the one I wanted."

I couldn't find a joke to answer that.

So I kissed him again.