Limits (16 page)

I watch him drink from the wineglass Cece hands him, and I turn it so I drink from the same place. Which is tricky, with our wrists bound, but I want that. I want to bind myself to him in every way, even the tiniest ones.

Cece wraps the empty glass in a white napkin and places it near Adam’s foot. He raises his leg and drops his foot down, smashing the glass with an explosive burst.

“Mazel tov!” the crowd shouts, cheering and clapping.

Enzo taps Adam on the shoulder just as my husband is about to lean in to kiss me. My brother shakes the
arras
—the thirteen gold coins given from a groom to a bride in Mexico—into Adam’s hand, and Adam passes them to mine. I close my fist around them.

“I trust you,” he says, and I can read in his eyes that he means it. He means it with his entire heart. “I trust you with my life, Genevieve.”

“I won’t let you down,” I promise, my lips shaking with the weight of the words I’m saying.

“Can I kiss you?” He tugs me closer, drawing the silk rope around our wrists so tight, it bites into my skin.

“What have you been waiting for?”

The words are hardly out of my mouth and he has his mouth on mine, his lips pressed hot and sweet. I’m sure the crowd is cheering. I think Lydia promised to play music for us to walk out to. I’m guessing my family and friends want to congratulate us.

But all I can feel, all I can focus on, is Adam, his mouth so sure on mine, his body so close, his heart handed over to me with no regret, no hesitation.

I will make him happy. I will. There’s no other option.

“We maybe should have just sprung for the hotel room?” I say, looking around at the room I’ve lived in since I was a child. It seems even smaller now with Adam’s large frame in the doorway and his duffel taking up half of my full size bed.

“It’s fine. I mean, we’ll be moving into our own place tomorrow. It’s just one night,” he says, trying to reassure me that he isn’t the least bit disappointed that he’ll be spending his wedding night at his bride’s parents’ house. In a room that has a
snow globe collection and stacks of dog-eared romance novels with half-clothed couples on metallic covers.

“Yeah, it would have just been a waste of money, really. We’d have to stay all the way across town and get up even earlier to drive to the apartment...and...” I look up at him, his green eyes still bright in the dim room. I swallow and squeak out, “We’re just going to crash anyway, right?”

Adam nods, but looks less than sincere with his agreement.

I feel alien and exposed in the space I’ve known intimately forever, and now will never sleep in again. My nerves are jittery at having Adam in this space that holds all the raw ghosts of the girl he doesn’t know anything about: the girl I’m not sure I
want
him to know anything about.

“We could still go, though? If you want? We can find a hotel with a va—”

“Gen,” he says, taking a step inside the room. The room that once housed ponies and a secret stash of photos of Deo. The room that once had posters of boy bands tacked to the walls and has the same bed that I buried my face into when I cried over stupid boys too many times. The room that I’ll be sharing tonight with my
husband
. “It’s really okay. We’re both spent as it is. Let’s just call it a night.”

It’s my turn to nod. “Okay. I’m just going to brush my teeth. And change,” I say, awkwardly.

This is the man I married today. I should be able to strip this dress off in front of him without feeling nervous. Instead, I’m stealthily trying to dig a camisole and pair of shorts out of my dresser drawer to change down the hall.

It shouldn’t be so weird.

I like Adam. And, if I’m completely honest, I more than
like
him. There’s a part of me that’s dying to know what he’s hiding under all of those lab coats, a part that’s dying to touch him. But he hasn’t made a move, so I guess we’re just not there...
yet.

I brush my teeth, then debate whether or not to wash the makeup from my face. Adam’s never seen me without a full face of makeup.  I guess it’s too late for him to back off based on that, though. So, I pull my hair back into a sloppy ponytail and scrub the thick layer of wedding makeup off.

After I’ve changed, I tiptoe back down the hall to my room, hoping I don’t wake anyone else in the house. That’s all I need: a run-in with Mom on my wedding night. Mom and Dad were the ones who suggested Adam and I stay at the house to begin with, and said they’d stay out of our way. Lucky for them, this is probably going to be a wedding night that goes in the record books for having the least action.

I pause outside my bedroom door, which is now closed. Even though it’s my own room, I don’t know if I should knock, or just go in. I crack the door just enough to see Adam, in a pair of jogging shorts and white
V-neck t-shirt, sitting in the purple polka dot arm chair in the corner. Seeing him dressed down, not in a lab coat, or shirt and tie makes me finally get what he’s always mentioning about my outrageous outfits, how I look better when things are simpler. His feet are propped up on the matching ottoman and his eyes are closed. I clear my throat and his eyes flick open.

“Hey, sorry about that,” he says. He rubs a hand across cheek and then his eyes. “Guess I was more worn out than I thought.”

“That’s okay. I’m pretty beat, too.”

I pull back the blankets from my bed and slip my legs under the familiar sheets. As awkward as this is for me, it has to be a thousand times worse for Adam, forced out of his element—the lab, where he knows exactly what’s going on and what to do—and stuck instead, in this house full of virtual strangers, with a wife he barely knows.

He watches me reposition the pillows behind me before asking, “Did you want me to turn the light off for you?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.” So polite. So timid. So not how I envisioned my wedding night.

He gets up from the chair and crosses the room. I can see the outline of his firm chest under his thin shirt, and wonder why I never really noticed how fit he seems to be.

He turns the lamp off I see his dark frame move across the room back toward the chair.

“Adam, you can come to bed with me. I mean, I know it’s my parents’ house, but we’re married now, so it’s okay. I mean, if you’d like.”

He doesn’t reply, but I feel his weight shift the bed as he slides in next to me.

“We are married now.” His voice is quiet, and I think I hear a smile backing it. My heart hammers so hard, I’m afraid he’ll feel it pulsing through the mattress springs.

The darkness acts as our safety net, our shield that stops us from crossing a line we aren’t ready to cross. It makes the conversation lighter. Easier.  

“Can you believe Enzo’s date?” I say, with a laugh, snuggling under the covers. “She was so hammered, I think before the wedding even started. She must’ve had a fifth of Patron on the way, right?”

Adam shifts onto his back, putting one arm behind his head, and chuckles. “Yeah, Enzo didn’t seem too happy with her toward the end of the night.”

I snort and, when I move my leg, it brushes his, hairy and warm. A hot, sweet need bursts to life low in my body, but there’s nothing I can do about it. “I don’t think he cared all that much. Maren told me she caught them going at it in Deo’s shop during the reception. Gross. Enzo isn’t known for his high standards in women, though.”

“Ah, I wonder if the caterer’s daughter would disagree with that,” Adam says with a conspiratorial laugh. He runs a foot along my calf. I’d think it’s just an accidental brush because the bed is so damn small, but the movement is slow. And he makes a soft sound in his throat. Like a hum of pleasure.

My scalp prickles. I have a hard time catching my breath, but I manage to ask, “What do you mean?”

He rolls onto his side, and when he smiles, the little bit of light from the moon shines in and catches the glint of his teeth. “I walked in on him and the blonde when I went to find my car keys.”
              “That little asshole!” I say, rolling to my side. Our bodies seem to pull to the center of the bed, towards each other.

Our laughter in the darkness feels freeing and good, and I feel bold enough to reach over under the blankets and hold my husband’s hand.

He makes that low hum again, and squeezes my hand, running his thumb over my knuckles and down each of my fingers. “It was a great day, though. You looked beautiful, Gen. You
are
beautiful.”

His sweet, sleepy words make me flush hot enough to kick the covers off my feet. “Thanks, professor. You looked pretty dapper yourself.”

His free hand caresses the side of my face with gentle pressure. “Thank you. For everything, I mean. You’ve turned your life upside down for a guy you barely know, and I won’t forget that.” His voice is low and has a rawness that feels so full of truth.

I rub my cheek into his hand and close my eyes tight, wanting the way I feel in this moment to draw out long into the night. “You have to stop thanking me, Adam. How could I not with that proposal...and that ring...and...
you.
”

“Goodnight, Gen.” He presses his lips to my forehead with a quick kiss, lets his hand slide from my face, disentangles our hands, then turns his back to me to fall asleep.

I want to tell him to roll back over. To kiss me. To make this a proper wedding night. But I’m so damn tired, and it feels right to settle in next to Adam for the first time ever and just sleep.

The dorms I lived in before Genevieve weren’t all that impressive, but I didn’t care. I was a college bachelor. My entire “kitchen” consisted of a hot plate, a medium saucepan, one fork, plate, knife, cup, and bowl, and so many takeout menus, they made a mini-Torah when they were all scrolled together. Oh, and chopsticks. I had a set of pretty nice chopsticks because Li, the guy who lived next door to me, actually finished his thesis program and went back to Shanghai. He gave some of his extra stuff, chopsticks included.

That was all funny, I guess, when I was a single guy. But I’m a married man now.

I look down at the plain silver band on my finger and wonder what the hell I got myself into. Marriage? Genevieve needed a man who could give her a nice house to live in. A man who could work a real job and bring in money so she’d have everything she needed.

She shouldn’t have had to deal with me and my sad chopstick collection.

I circle the parking lot of the dorms for married students. I didn’t even know they existed. They’re less uniform than the general dorms. I guess maintenance lets up on the yards so the couples can do their own things. Some are neat and lined with flowers and tall grasses. Some look nearly abandoned. Ours is the last unit on the end, unit 708.

“I like the door,” Genevieve says shyly.

“It’s very red,” I observe.

“I think red is a good luck color.” She hops out as soon as I pull in, running to the doorstep and using her key, fresh from the housing office, to push inside. I follow behind and grimace.

“It’s a shithole.” I look around the two room apartment. The first room is a tiny square. One half is supposed to be the living space, complete with a tiny closet. The other half is the dining/kitchen area. There is a wall of plain white cabinets, a stove, a refrigerator, and a small sink.

Genevieve is flicking on every buzzing fluorescent light on her way to the tiny hall that has three more doors. One leads to a cramped, dark pantry. One leads to a bathroom with a mildew problem. The last one is the door to the bedroom.

Our bedroom.

She stands in the middle and puts her arms out, turning in a full circle. “It’s big!” Her voice
echoes off the wall.

“Until you get things in it,” I point out. I open the two closets and look at the sad wire hangers swaying from the crossbars.

She heads to the window, opening the tattered blinds with her fingers and peeking out. “Adam. Look.”

I come over and see what might be this dingy place’s one saving grace. “The
AG department owns the land behind us,” I explain. That’s why we have cultivated gardens, neat rows of greenhouses, and some bird and butterfly sanctuaries. “This garden is supposed to be one of the best templates for a space that will attract honey bees.”

Genevieve turns to me and smiles, loops her arms around my neck and pulls me close. “Bees? How about birds? This is all very interesting. Tell me more, husband.”

My mouth goes dry. She slides up against me and I have a hard time swallowing. The night of the wedding, she fell asleep before anything could happen. The next night, we camped out at her parents’ house again after a day full of paperwork and running around. We haven’t been alone or energized enough to bother with sex.

Sex. With Genevieve.

My wife.

I kiss her gently on the lips and pull away, not ready for what that means just yet. “We have a ton of boxes to get in here. I guess we should get—”

“Hey, lovebirds! Are we interrupting anything?” Cohen’s voice calls out.

I try not to focus on how disappointed Genevieve looks and instead welcome her family.