Page 117 of Thin Ice

Beck speaks again. “Noah, your turn. Same question—state a fear you’re carrying in this relationship right now that you don’t usually voice.”

He breathes once before speaking. “I’m afraid that I’ve never been good enough for you and the kind of relationship you deserve, that my failures will become too much for you and you’ll finally leave me.”

My heart wrenches in my chest, and the desire to turn around and comfort him is strong, but I resist. This exercise is proving harder than I ever expected it to be.

“Reflect back what you heard, Quinn,” Beck says.

“I heard you’re afraid that you’ve never been good enough for me and you’re afraid I’ll see the real you and leave you.”

Noah’s breath turns choppy, his body moving against mine as he sits in the words I just expressed.

“Does that reflection feel complete, Noah?”

I feel him nod, muscles in his upper back flexing.

“Use your words to tell her.” Beck’s stern command makes both our muscles tense.

Noah clears his throat. “It does.”

There’s another pause where Beck allows us to sit in our feelings before he asks a new question. We go back and forth on different prompts for a time; some are about what we need more of in our relationship, and both of us express our desire to find more time together and work on our daily communication.

I mention that we need to find a couples therapist to talk to when we get home, someone who can help me speak when I feel like I can’t and to give Noah more ways to work through his panic and fear of failure.

We’re both a bit tenser by the time Noah finishes reflecting on my comment over therapy, and Beck has us take a few calming breaths before we continue.

“Now we’ll move on to something a little lighter. Noah, you can go first. Share one hope or dream for your relationship.”

Noah and I both relax, grateful for the subject change.

“My hope is that we can explore more together”—I swear I hear a smile in his tone as he speaks—“not just intimately, but in our daily lives, too. I don’t want to stop the progress we’ve made here or become complacent but find new ways to learn about each other.”

My pulse quickens, and my cheeks warm as I respond. “I heard that you want to explore our dominant and submissive natures more, that you don’t want our lives to get boring again and you want to find new ways to keep our relationship interesting.”

Noah replies before Beck asks him to. “That sounds about right, Sunshine.”

“Quinn?” Beck asks.

I turn my attention toward the man who started off as our mentor but has become much more than that. I’ve been wanting to bring him into this exercise, but he’s carefully crafted every question to be about us and our growth here. He’s been doing it all week, and we’ve let him because we made a promise to him that Noah and I would work on our marriage while we were here. But I want to be truthful about my hopes for the future.

Nerves ratchet up in my belly, and I hope this doesn’t backfire on me.

I keep my eyes on Beck, not looking away while my breath stays synced with Noah’s. “My hope is that the relationship we’re building with Beck doesn’t end tomorrow, that the three of us continue to see each other and explore where the future takes us. Together.”

Noah stops breathing, and his body turns so he, too, is looking at Beck.

“This exercise is about the two of you, Quinn,” Beck says tightly.

“But it’s also about you,” I say.

“I agree,” Noah adds.

We both shift our positions so we can all look at each other. I’m a little surprised that Noah agreed so readily, but now I see that was dumb. The two of them have a connection I won’t ever be able to understand—just like Noah and I share our own connection and I now share one with Beck.

“I hear that you’re on the same page as me?” I smile at Noah.

His eyes are gentle as he takes my hand in his. “Very much so.”

We both look at Beck. The exercise we’re doing has clearly gone off the rails, but that’s been a common theme for us this week. And we’re both staring at the incredible reason why: a beautiful man I didn’t plan to fall for, much less take that fall alongside my husband.