The Husband Habit by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

Author:Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

VIKING TIP SAINT-GERMAIN

He arrives in a drum of knuckles upon the door, exactly at seven o’clock, with a six-pack of pumpkin ale in sweating brown bottles under his arm, and high-end English crackers in cellophane and soft sausage imported from Germany in a canvas shopping bag from La Montanita Food Co-op.

He wears canvas cargo shorts, leather sandals, a long-sleeved cotton shirt in gray, with a curly indecipherable design stenciled on the front, casual and comfortable. A smile like a light going on in her chest. His hair is long enough to gel now, and he has done exactly that, pushed it up off his forehead and a little bit back. Makes him look younger. His cheeks ruddy and red from his time in the sun on his new job, she assumes. A vision of strength and good health. Expectation. Impulse.

His body spice wafts to her, blended with the cool evening air, delicious, with just a hint of soap and shampoo, shaving cream. He is recently clean, and still the underlying musk of him has diminished not even a little bit. For this she is grateful. Red Dog has expected him since she heard the truck crunch up the gravel driveway, and greets him with a huge, stupid grin and a wag that threatens to topple her. He’s good, Mommy! He’s good! Mommy knows.

“Vanessa,” Paul says with a big flash of slightly crooked white teeth. “Look at you! You look beautiful.” He pats the dog on the head and greets her with a string of baby talk that charms the dog and disarms her owner.

Vanessa has tried, of course, to look beautiful. But no harder than she normally would. Out of pride, she tells herself. Not to seduce. Not. Still no makeup other than a smear of clear beeswax lip balm, just the dark plain jeans and the dark red organic cotton tank top she thinks shows off her neckline, a black button-down open over it. A necklace, earrings, silver and turquoise, natural and native to the area. Sandals that are very much like his own. A bit of essential oil behind each ear, sandalwood, and unscented body lotion everywhere such a balm might be needed.

She greets him with a handshake when he tries to hug her, and reminds him of their friendship pact.

“Your pact, my self-control,” he says, respecting her wish for distance nonetheless. “But I’ll tell ya,” he wags his finger playfully and grins, “you said more with that refusal of a hug than you meant to.”

“What do you mean?”

“Real friends hug without issue,” he says, holding her hand still with his, connecting his gaze to hers.

“Whatever.”

He smiles at her. “If you really felt no attraction for me, you wouldn’t need to create artificial distance. We’d just hug, like friends do. Right? End of story.”

She pulls her hand away with some effort, and he lets her, with a slight chuckle. Undeterred.

“That was a loaded handshake, missy,” he says with a wink, “no matter how many ‘whatevers’ you give me.”

“Yeah, okay,” she says with a weak attempt at sarcasm.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.