Page 20 of Brother in Law with Benefits

"Six months?"

"About the time I started realizing I'd married the wrong person for a very complicated set of reasons." She shrugs, no self-pity in it. "Your timing was actually decent, for the record. I needed to figure that out on my own."

"Didn't feel decent from where I was standing."

"No, I imagine not." She tilts her head. "Where were you standing? After. When you left."

"Baghdad. Then Kabul. Then half a dozen other places." I run my thumb along the rim of my mug. "I told myself it was theright thing. That you were my brother's wife, and anything I felt was—" I search for the word. "Inconvenient."

"Inconvenient." She says it like she's testing the weight of it. "That's one word for it."

"Not the right one."

"No," she says. "Not really."

We sit with that. The refrigerator hums.

I notice the way the kitchen light catches the pale gold of her hair where it's come loose from its knot, and the tired shadows under her eyes that somehow make the rest of her face more striking rather than less, and I think, not for the first time, that there's something about the specific combination of exhausted and unguarded that suits her somehow.

"Can I ask you something?" she says.

"Yeah."

"What do you actually want? From this. From—" She gestures between us. "Whatever this is."

The honest answer is too large. I've been refusing to look directly at it, the way you don't look directly at the sun, not because you doubt it's there but because you know exactly what it'll do to you if you do. Burn you.

"I want to not be eight thousand miles away," I say.

"You're not right now."

"I know." I hold her gaze. "I want thenowto matter."

She's quiet for a moment. Then she uncurls her legs and leans forward slightly, elbows on the table, close enough now that I can smell that same clean, warm scent I noticed on the porch three weeks ago, closer now, more familiar, more dangerous for how familiar it's gotten. "It does matter."

I reach across the table. My hand finds hers. Her fingers are warm from the mug, and she turns her hand over and links her fingers with mine.

We sit like that.

It's almost nothing. It's a significant amount.

"Grant." Her voice is soft now.

"Yeah."

"When you leave—" She pauses. "When you go back. I need you to know that whatever happens between now and then, I don't regret the dance. I never regretted it."

"Even when you should have."

"Even then." She meets my eyes. "We don't get to choose the wrong timing."

I stand up. Don't let go of her hand. She stands too, and we're close. Close enough to feel the warmth coming off her.

I lean down.

Her chin tips up.

"GRANT." Mom's voice from upstairs — sharp, unmistakable, the voice that could cut through any noise. "I NEED A GLASS OF WATER AND I THINK I'M GOING TO BE SICK AGAIN."