Extraits

“I like being close to you,” I whisper.

“I like being close to you, too,” he whispers back, gently putting his arm around me and pulling me closer.

“You always make me feel better. You’re a good husband,” I tease. But actually, it’s true. If I ever wanted to get married for real, I’d want to be married to someone like him.

“You’re a pretty good wife,” he teases back.

I turn toward him slightly, tilting my face up toward his, and he kisses my cheek.

“I can’t kiss you,” he says, in a voice so low I can barely hear him over the movie.

My happiness wilts. “Why?”

He stares at the movie, where Noah and Allie are bickering adorably. The muscles in his jaw twitch. I wait for what seems like forever for him to turn his attention back to me.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he finally says.

Avoiding my eyes, he brushes a few stray hairs from my forehead.

“Hurt me how?” I ask.

“Your mouth, baby,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt your mouth.”

The tone of his voice hints at reasons that go much deeper than that.

I move my tongue over my lower lip, enticed by how his darkening eyes fixate on my mouth.

“Then kiss me somewhere else,” I say softly, curling my fingers into the thin fabric of his shirt.

I grab the shopping bag with the silver gift-wrapped air fryer and enough food and toys to keep the bird living a life of luxury for at least a year, and hand it to my aunt. “This is for you, too. And can we not talk about death on Christmas?”

Smiling, she puts a floppy red Santa hat on my head, just like she does every year. “Why? I’m not afraid to die. I’m afraid to not live.”