Maybe Baby (14 page)

Now, though,
Niklas was in the room with me, smiling confidently and letting his presence take possession of my room. He gave me a perfunctory kiss and then declared he needed to shower and get rid of the airplane grime. He hated how dirty he felt after a flight, no matter how short it was in duration. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched him undress. This was his precursor to making love. He would let me drink in the sight of him naked, and it was a sight to behold. He had an enviable body, thanks to the hours he spent in the gym, never letting his weight fluctuate, always in control. Watching him strip used to be enough to rev me up so that I could think of nothing more than joining our bodies and giving each other pleasure. But I was sated. And he was invading what should have been my hideaway. He knew, he had to know—otherwise why would he come? Things between us had been strained for months, so why pick this weekend to surprise me?

But I pretended I was in the mood, because anything else would have roused his suspicions. I kept a smile on my face and tried to think saucy thoughts that didn't involve Mads. I was wearing a loose sweater and shorts, but was naked underneath. It was too hot for layers, even now in September.

"You're quiet today," Niklas noted as he draped his pants over a chair. He pushed his boxer shorts down and then kicked them aside. "Anything on your mind?"

"
Work," I said automatically. "I was up late last night working on some ideas for the launch."

"
Well, now I'm here, I'm hoping you won't have to work all the time."

"
No, nothing like that," I said. "I finished my meetings yesterday. Just need to nail the tag lines."

"
Should we call Anton and Ingrid?" he called out from the bathroom. He was already in the shower. I could hear water splattering against the tile walls.

"
I've already done that."

I stood up and went to the window. Instead of the previous day's pristine weather, the watery-gray sky was thick with clouds. Soon, it would rain. Was Mads out walking? Was he meeting friends now? I knew so little about him. That was what scared me. I'd memorized the cartography of his body: the pale lines of scars on his hands, the small black-inked tattoo on the inside of his left arm, the thin scar on his stomach from an appende
ctomy, the puckered burn mark on his right shoulder that was a remnant from when he tried to steam away wallpaper and the steamer leaked on him. I knew these things. I had no clue where his workshop was, or who his friends were. I knew he had a cousin called Ragnar who lived in Malmö, but his life away from the time we spent exploring and enjoying one another's bodies was a mystery. 

Niklas's
singing in the shower shook me out of my thoughts. I knew so much about him. He was, essentially, an open book for me to skim at my leisure. Niklas Lundqvist had no real secrets from me. I knew which schools he'd attended, I knew who his friends were, knew even where he ordered his custom-made shirts. I'd sat through dinners in Uppsala with his father's side of the family and gone to France with him to meet his mother's relatives. I knew he was afraid of spiders, even though he thought therapists shouldn't be afraid of something so trivial. I knew he cried sometimes in his sleep. I knew he was secretly worried Jesper was too much of a slacker, and too easily led astray by Siri. And he worried Siri traveled in too fast of a crowd, but he didn't know how to put a stop to it, or if he even could. And there were times when he could elicit from me a tenderness that caught me off guard. I didn't think of myself as someone capable of being so affectionate. Yet, there were moments when I simply had to catch sight of Niklas bent over a conference paper, his dark eyebrows knitted together in concentration as he chewed on the top of a pencil, and I couldn't stop myself from going to him, draping my arm across his shoulders and leaning in to him or sliding into his lap and distracting him.

He emerged from the bathroom wrapped in one of the thick, fluffy hotel bathrobes.
"Now, I feel like a new man."

"
Good."

"
Should we make an appointment at the clinic?"

"Why?"

"I want to find out more about this sperm donor idea of yours." He lay down on the bed and then patted the spot beside him. "Come here. Let's talk about it."

I went over to him. "I thought you didn't want to do it."

"If I say no, what are you going to do?" He slid his hand up and down my back in slow, easy strokes.

I shrugged. "I hadn't thought that far."

"I know you, Laney. After five years, I think I know you well enough to say you would go ahead and do this without me." Niklas kissed the top of my head. "You're pretty stubborn sometimes."

"I'd rather do this with you than without you," I said softly, even though I wasn't sure if it was still what I wanted. I'd always imagined that any child I had would be the perfect mix of us, but that was never going to happen.

"So let's go to this clinic on Monday before we head back. We can rebook our tickets so we fly back on Monday evening."

"I can't do that," I said quickly. "I have an important meeting on Monday morning, that's why
I'm flying back tomorrow afternoon."

"So now work is more important than our future fa
mily?" His hand dropped away from my back.

"This isn't fair, Niklas."

"I could go myself. I'll talk to this... what was her name again?"

"Ida," I said, trying not to sound too cautious.

"Of course. Ida. And then she can let me know what's what, and how we'd proceed. And the cost, of course. Did she say how much it would cost?"

"It's fairly steep," I said, trying to figure out in my mind what number would be too high even for
Niklas's blood. "If I remember correctly, it's going to cost us at least 40,000 Danish krone."

"Well, that's a number we can live with," Niklas said with a shrug. "We've spent more on a weekend in Paris."

"Couldn't we come back some other weekend and arrange a meeting with her?" My voice betrayed the panic building in me. "It's not as though we have to rush. I've got the files. I'll need to send them back soon and make a decision, but I don't think we need to really do anything until we've decided."

"Have you changed your mind?" Niklas asked.

"No, no. I just don't think it makes sense to rush it this weekend, when we could come back next week, or the week after next." I said quickly. "We could even have a Skype call from Stockholm with Ida and she could explain everything."

Neither of us said anything for a while. Niklas let out a long sigh and watched me evenly. His fingers toyed absently with my hair. I inched closer to him. I didn't want us to argue. Even if his intrusion had put a damper on my weekend, I didn't want us to argue.

"I know something's not right between us, Laney." He finally said. "I know there's something else going on with you."

I couldn't deny it. Of course, I couldn't. "Niklas."

"Just get it out of your system, babe. And come back to me." I heard the quiet desperation in his voice and it scared me. He didn't know what he was asking me to do. If he knew, he wouldn't want me to do this.

"I can't."

"You can. If you still think we can have something together, then you can. I don't want us to fall apart."

I didn't know what to say. How could I want to leave him when he knew me this well?

"Just... do whatever it is you need to do. But come back to me."

I squeezed my eyes shut tight. I was crying already. I didn't deserve him. Not now, maybe not ever. Because even as he was giving me a green card to fuck around on him, I was still thinking about what I could have with Mads. And it didn't involve going back to Niklas in the end.

We took a cab from the hotel to Anton and Ingrid's house in
Husum, a cozy residential neighborhood just twenty minutes from downtown Copenhagen. Visiting them there always made me wish I could have their life. They were both teachers. Ingrid taught art at a local elementary school and was a freelance illustrator, and Anton taught English and math at a high school in Nørrebrø and commuted by bus or bicycle every day. They had three children—all daughters—who were so calm and friendly, especially when compared to Niklas's kids. Whenever we were around them, I wondered what Niklas and Karolina should have done differently so that Jesper and Siri wouldn't have turned out so rude.

Anton greeted us with hugs and said, "Come on in, it's a mess, as usual." He always said this, but the house was never as messy as he intimated. He led us into the kitchen where Ingrid was just taking the salmon out of the oven. I shooed Anton and Niklas out of the kitchen, saying I would help Ingrid.

We brushed cheeks quickly, and then I began pulling plates from the cabinets. "Sorry we just sprang this on you. Coming over, I mean," I said as we began bringing the food out.

"Laney, you know you're always welcome here. Doesn't matter how last minute it is."

Anton and Niklas were out in the garden, drinking beer from the bottle and smoking. The only time Niklas ever smoked was when he was around Anton. Maybe it was because Anton looked like the laid-back, free spirit Niklas always claimed to be. Anton was lanky with wild curly hair and hipster glasses. There was a languidness about Anton that Niklas sometimes tried to emulate. Maybe it came from growing up in California and being a surfer. Anton never took anything too seriously, and whenever Niklas was around Anton, it wore off on Niklas.

"Where are the girls?" I asked Ingrid. I'd only just noticed how quiet it was. I'd set the table for seven, but maybe it was just the four of us.

"They're out. They're at that age now. They'll be back later." Ingrid set the fish at the center of the table. "Oh, we can take away two of the place settings, then."

"Who else is coming?" I collected two of the place se
ttings. It was always a toss-up with Ingrid. She didn't believe in planning ahead when it came to dinner. If Anton invited an extra person, she took it in stride. Niklas could never deal with that sort of spontaneity. If we'd already decided that only Eddy and her boyfriend were joining us for dinner, and I suddenly wanted to add two extra people, he'd dissect my reasons for the new additions and get stroppy about having to pick up more food, when there was more than enough. Afterwards, even if he'd enjoyed the evening, he’d complain and find more reasons to question why the new additions were necessary. It wasn't worth the bother.              

"Anton invited a friend of his to join us. He figured you two wouldn't mind."

"No, that's fine with me. Is it Adam?" Adam was also American. He lived across the street from them and was a teacher at the local community college. Niklas didn't like Adam. He thought Adam wanted to sleep with me, but Adam was gay. He always mistook Adam's enthusiasm for hanging out with Ingrid and me as a latent desire to be with us sexually. Sometimes, it made me wonder just how good a therapist he really was.

"Adam's in the States again. His sister's getting ma
rried," Ingrid said as she stacked two of the plates. I uncorked a bottle of white wine and set it in the wine chiller. "I don't think you've met this guy. He's a new friend of Anton's, but I think he's a good egg."

The doorbell rang, and Anton came in from the yard and answered. I was just putting the flatware on the t
able when I heard the voice from behind me. I turned quickly. Standing there, holding a bottle of red wine was Mads. I glanced quickly at Ingrid, but she was oblivious to my attempt at eye contact. Mads hadn't seen me yet. He was laughing with Anton and speaking Danish. Why had I never noticed how tall he was? He was taller than Anton by a good three or four inches. Niklas was just coming in from the garden. He went forward and introduced himself, and then gestured at me. That's when Mads turned and saw me.

I tensed inside. Everything in me wanted to run to him, throw my arms around his neck and greet him with a long, deep kiss. I wanted to feel his lips against mine, and the pleasure of his arms encircling my waist. But I couldn't. Not now. And panic was taking hold inside me. What if I said the wrong thing? What if Niklas figured out that Mads and I knew one another already? Or if he recognized him from the Copenhagen Cryo files? I opened my mouth to speak, but for the briefest of m
oments no words came to me. What was he doing here? I was happy to see him, even if I couldn't be with him, but I was scared of making a mistake. I rushed forward and shook his hand, "Nice to meet you."

He gave me a puzzled look but went along with the charade.

God, was Fate playing tricks on me?

We all moved back into the dining room and chose seats. Niklas had a possessive arm around me, and was using a chummy voice I had never heard from him b
efore. I moved away and pulled out my chair. Mads sat directly across from me. He was staring at me, not bothering to hide anything. Under the table his knee brushed against mine. Images of the previous night flashed through my mind.  The life I'd imagined with him shimmered tantalizingly between us. I blinked quickly and it vanished without a trace. Mads looked away from me and turned to talk to Anton, but the pressure of his leg kept me tethered and unable to ignore him or even pretend I didn't want to be near him.