“Happy anniversary!” said Felicity. “How many years?”
“Seventy-two. We moved here when I was expecting our first baby. We had eight of them,” the woman said proudly.
Felicity grinned. “That’s a lot of years and a lot of babies.”
“Tell me about it,” muttered Edward. But he patted his wife’s knee. “How’s the hip, Clara?”
“A little rusty. I’ll just rest a minute.” She looked back and forth from Felicity to me. “Are you two married?”
Felicity and I exchanged a look and tacitly agreed we would not lie to this little old couple.
“No,” I said.
“We’re just very close friends,” added Felicity.
“It’s so much harder these days,” Clara said with a sigh. “Especially for women. The list of things my daughters and granddaughters wanted to accomplish before they got married was a mile long. But finding love is an accomplishment too. That’s my two cents.”
Edward looked at us. “She’s got two cents for everything.”
“I’m ninety-three. I’ve saved up a lot of pennies,” said his wife indignantly.
“Well, I think you’re right.” Felicity smiled at the old lady. “Finding love is an accomplishment.”
“Holding onto it isn’t easy either,” Clara went on. “People make such a fuss about weddings these days, I think they forget that after the white dress and the I do’s, there’s a whole lot of hard work ahead. But that’s just my two cents.”
“See what I mean?” said Edward under his breath.
“Anyway, I think the best marriages are the ones between two close friends,” said Clara. “That’s what I was trying to say. Those are the ones that last, because you already know each other so well. You get along with each other. You appreciate things about the other person that you might not if it was just S-E-X all the time.”
Felicity tried not to laugh. “Yes, I know what you mean.”
“Of course, if you can have both,” Clara went on enthusiastically, “that’s really the best of both worlds. If you can find that close friend that you love and trust, and the S-E-X is good too, that’s when you know. Right, Eddie?”
“Right.” He patted Clara’s knee again.
“Because one might fade, but the other? Never. That’s my two cents.”
Edward sighed.
“Thank you,” Felicity said. “And happy anniversary.”
That evening, we wandered the streets of Little Italy, ate pizza, drank wine, and bought souvenirs for my nieces and nephew. We had fun, but I noticed that Felicity was quieter than usual.
“Everything okay?” I asked her as we turned back the covers and slipped between the sheets.
“Yes. I’m just tired.”
“Are you too tired for S-E-X?” I pulled her closer to me.
She laughed. “No.”
But she didn’t kiss me, or sling a leg across my thighs, or slide a hand down my stomach.
“Hey.” Rolling to my side, I propped my head on my hand and looked down at her. “What’s going on?”
She played with my chest hair, her eyes focused on her fingers. I noticed she’d put the ring on before coming to bed. “I keep thinking about that couple. Seventy-two years.”
“That’s a long time.”
“I think about your parents. My dad and Frannie. Your sister and Neil. Even Winnie and Dex—you can just tell they’re going to be together forever.” She looked up at me. “How do some people get so lucky, and others just . . . don’t?”
“Born under different stars, I guess.”
“I guess,” she said sadly.
“Hey, listen. Our stars might not come with seven-plus decades and eight kids, but they’re not so bad.”
She tried to smile. “No.”
I wanted a real smile back on her face. “What do you say we do this every year?”
“Do what?”
“Meet up for a weekend in New York—or anywhere else in the world. I’ll pick you up in a jet, we’ll rent a hotel suite, eat at fancy places, see shows, go shopping, or even better, avoid people and do nothing at all. Just . . . be together. Like this. You and me.”
“That sounds nice.” But there was no smile.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
I didn’t believe her, so I did my best to distract her with my mouth and my hands and my cock—I knew exactly how to kiss her, touch her, make her body arch beneath me. I knew what would make her gasp, what would make her sigh, what would make her cry out again and again. I knew how to bring her right to the edge and pull her back, and I knew when she’d had enough of the game and needed the release. I knew the taste of her, the scent of her, the sounds she made when I was so deep inside it hurt. I knew how it felt to have her fingernails rake across my back and her fists tighten in my hair and her body clench mine as I lost myself inside her.