They brought home four sandwiches wrapped in foil and a piece of wedding cake in a napkin. Annette had insisted. Milo had added a second napkin, which did nothing to stop the icing spreading across the first.
Evan carried both cases inside. Claire tried to take one from him, and he held it away.
“I know where it goes now.”
“You've become expensive.”
“I was promised pay.”
“And you've stolen the cake.”
“Payment in advance.”
He put the cases beside the desk while she unwrapped the sandwiches in the kitchen. There was ham in one, cheese in another, a third containing something she hoped was neither. She offered it to him as the mystery prize. He opened it and discovered cucumber.
“A terrible prize,” he said.
“You chose this life.”
They sat at the kitchen table, still dressed for the wedding except for their shoes. Claire had a mark on her ankle and a smear of someone else's lipstick on the back of her hand, acquired when Annette hugged her. Evan's hair had come loose at the front. She had been watching that happen all evening.
She started the file transfer and returned before he could finish the cucumber sandwich. He offered half. She refused on grounds of basic fairness. He ate it with mock resignation, then took a piece of cake without waiting for a plate.
It was nearly midnight. The house no longer seemed unsuitable for him. It seemed to have been waiting for a second person to occupy the kitchen chair, making the room less tidy and more itself.
“You were good,” she said.
“At carrying?”
“At people.”
He looked at her across the scattered foil. “So were you.”
“It's my job.”
“Today it looked like you liked it.”
She smiled. She had. She had liked finding Annette's hand beneath the table and the aunt laughing in a space they hadn't planned. She had liked having him near enough to call without thinking of the first photograph.
When he reached for the cake again, she took his wrist. He stopped.
“There's icing,” she said.
She rubbed it from his thumb with her own, then brought his hand closer and kissed the place she had cleaned. It was a small, deliberate thing. His face changed as he watched.
“Claire.”
“Yes.”
She stood and came around the table. He drew his chair back to make room. She kissed him without bending carefully away from the injured eye this time; the angle came naturally, and he didn't flinch. His hands moved to her hips, then up her back. She felt the tiredness of the day leave the center of her body while staying in her feet, an absurd contrast that made her smile against him.
“What?” he murmured.
“My shoes were terrible.”
“They're off.”
“I noticed.”
He laughed and pulled her closer. She sat sideways across his lap, which made the chair complain, and he said it wasn't the best one he had worked on today. She kissed him again to stop the comparison.
Upstairs she did not turn on the large light. The lamp beside the bed was enough. Evan paused in the doorway, looking at the room where she had cleaned his brow. The chair, the blue quilt, the window.
“Does this feel strange?” he asked.
“A little.”
“We don't have to.”
“I want to.”
She took his hand and brought him farther in. She wanted the person who had come home with her, the man whose laugh had escaped across the lawn, who had waited for her to choose. Nothing in the earlier image had promised this.
She unbuttoned his shirt. He lifted her top over her head, then held her face between his hands and kissed her slowly, as though the time they had spent making other people ready had given them patience for each other. She put her hands against his chest. The heat of his skin was astonishingly ordinary, available only here.
When he knelt to help with the fastener of her trousers, she laughed and said she could manage. He looked up and said he was developing a range of professional services. She drew him to his feet. It was easier to undress herself than stop wanting his mouth.
On the bed he touched her carefully at first, until she took his hand and made the pressure what she wanted. He watched her face. She let him. The attention did not feel like scrutiny. She could ask for more without explaining herself, and when he moved over her, she held him close enough to feel his breath change with hers.
Afterward they lay with the quilt pulled badly across their legs. One of his feet was outside it. Claire moved the quilt lower and exposed her own shoulder. He drew her toward him instead of trying to make the cloth do everything.
For a while she was happy without wanting to improve the feeling. She could hear his breathing, a car passing, the little noise of the house. He rubbed his thumb along her upper arm. She put her face against his chest and nearly fell asleep.
“What did you want her to tell me?” he asked.
Claire opened her eyes.
“Vivian?”
“At the hotel.”
The question had come into the room without warning, but not without reason. She moved back enough to see him.
“What Graham did.”
“She said she didn't know.”
“What she knows. What he said. Anything that would help.”
“Help who?”
She looked at the lamp. “You.”
He was quiet. His hand remained at her shoulder, though the movement had stopped.
“You wanted to give me something,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The answer seemed too exposed with their clothes on the floor. She had asked him to carry cases and come home, and he had done both. She had not needed to show him tomorrow to make him want her. Still, she had wanted to become the person who could bring it.
“I wanted you to feel better,” she said. Then, because that was only part: “And I wanted you to want me here.”
He looked at her.
“You're here.”
“I know.”
“You didn't have to give me her.”
Claire sat up. The quilt slipped to her waist. “I wasn't giving you a person.”
“What were you giving Graham?”
She looked back at him, stung. He was not trying to be cruel. That didn't stop the question hurting.
“An image,” she said.
“Of her. With me.”
She reached for the glass of water beside the bed, drank, and offered it to him. He took it and drank, keeping his eyes on the glass.
“I thought I could keep the good part,” she said. “The meeting. The chance to talk. Without letting him interfere.”
“You let him into it.”
“Yes.”
He set down the glass. She waited for a verdict that he did not give. He pulled the quilt over his legs and lay on his back, looking at the ceiling.
“I still want to know,” he said. “I haven't become reasonable because I spent a nice day with you.”
“I didn't ask you to.”
“I know.”
She lay down again, leaving a little space. After a moment he turned toward her. His fingers touched her waist, lightly. He waited until she turned toward him. She moved closer.
He put an arm around her. She found a place for her knee between his and lay awake until his breathing slowed. The water glass stood on his side of the bed.
Before she slept, she said, “The day was good.”
“It was.”
He kissed her hair, and she let that be the last thing for now.