Ten minutes later he let himself down, almost gently, on top of her, just lying on her and kissing her.
"Did you go on the pill yet?" he asked.
"No."
"Jessica," he moaned.
"Did you bring a condom?"
"No."
"Mitch," she moaned, her voice theatrical, like his had been. She giggled.
"What are we going to do?" he grumped.
"We're going to make sweet love," she said, spreading her legs.
"Without protection," he said.
"Uh huh," she sighed, reaching between them to find his stiff prod.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because that's how much I love you," she said.
It was Lulu's day off and she'd arrived at Kris' rental early, with Ambrose in tow. She leaned on the doorbell and heard a muffled shout from within. Kris opened the door with a frown, that turned almost instantly to a grin.
"To what do I owe the honor of this visit?" he asked.
"You've been lollygagging about finding a house," said Lulu. "Ambrose and I are here to help you choose one."
"I can live anywhere," he said, his face straight. "I lived in the bush for a whole week with no tent one time."
"Oh?" Lulu looked doubtful.
"I'm remembering more and more. I think I was just too tense before. Now that things have calmed down, I get little bits and snatches pretty often. Sometimes they don't mean much, but I spent a week in the bush with a couple of aborigines one time and I remembered a lot of that."
"Well we're not going to come visit you if you're living under a tree," said Lulu. "We have standards."
"What's standards?" piped Ambrose.
"It means we're picky, darling," said his mother.
"But you always tell me to stop being so picky," complained Ambrose.
"That's different. That's about how you eat. If Kris lived in a cave, you wouldn't want to go visit him would you?"
"A cave?
Cool!
" squealed Ambrose.
"There you go," said Kris. "I have his seal of approval."
"Well you don't have mine. Let's go."
"I'm writing," he complained.
"You can write later. We're going house hunting!"
They decided to use a realtor, simply because it was easier to find and look at houses. They were on their sixth one when Lulu snorted.
"Now look who's being picky," she groused. "You always manage to find something you can't live with."
"They're all nice," said Kris. "But I just haven't seen one I get excited about."
"What's wrong with this one?"
"I didn't say anything was wrong with it."
"You don't have to. I see the same thing here that I saw in all the others. You're just not interested." She frowned at him.
"It's too big," he said.
"It's only three bedrooms," she said tersely. "You can use one to sleep in and one for your office, or study, or whatever writers call the room they write in. The other one can be for storage or guests."
"Who's gonna come see me?" he said. "I don't know anybody."
"You know me, you dope."
"Yeah, but I sure wouldn't put you in the guest bedroom." He leered.
The agent, who was just as frustrated as Lulu was, helpfully pointed out the square footage - again - and tossed in a couple of other things that made this home "to die for."
"It would be expensive to heat," said Kris.
"No more than my place!" objected Lulu. "Mine is only a little smaller and this is newer. It's probably better insulated and all that stuff." She went to the window. "It's a good neighborhood, and it's close to both the school and the grocery store."
"You're thinking like a parent," said Kris. "I don't have kids."
"That doesn't mean you'll
never
have kids!" moaned Lulu.
"I can't have kids," he said.
"What?" She looked confused.
"The only woman I'd think about having a child with already has a little boy and doesn't want to have any more."
She put her hands on her hips. "Be serious," she said.
He looked puzzled for an instant, then his face went calm. "Look," he said. "I don't really care. Like I said, I can live anyplace. Why don't you just pick the one you like the best, and I'll buy that one."
"It's your house, Kris," she objected.
"How often do you get to pick a house like this?" he asked.
"Never," she said.
"Okay, so now you get to."
He had to talk her into it, but she finally broke down and told him which one she had thought was the best they'd seen. The real estate agent looked stunned when he said, "I'll take that one." She was even more stunned when she suggested they go back to her office to arrange for the financing and he said, "It's okay. I'll just pay cash. You just get the papers ready and I'll sign them when I give you the check."
Three days later, he had a new house. It took longer to move into it and redecorate than it had to buy it in the first place. He enlisted Lulu's help, asking her opinion on paint colors, and whether to change the carpeting or not. Then he had to go meet with the movers in New York City, while they packed him up and moved his stuff to Pembroke.
It was, all in all, two months since he had returned to Pembroke, when he went over to Lulu's house one afternoon. He had maintained the same routine with her they'd had earlier, and even still wrote at her house sometimes. He carried his flash drive with him everywhere, which meant he carried his unfinished books with him everywhere, too.
"I had a thought," he said, sipping the fruit juice she'd offered him. She was working on a web site and he'd been playing with Ambrose until it was time for his nap.
"Hmm?" Her attention was on the screen in front of her.
"Well, you know how you have to take Ambrose to Roslynn's every night?"
"Uh huh," she said, her fingers flickering over the keyboard.
"That's kind of inconvenient."
"Not really," said Lulu. "It's almost on the way."
"Well, okay, but childcare costs a lot."
"True," she said. "Aha! I just found the error in the code!"
"I'm not working a regular job," he said. "I was just thinking that if I adopted him, he could live in the spare bedroom and I could watch him while you're at work."
She looked over at him then.
"That's silly," she said. "You can't adopt him. He can't live at your house. He lives with me. What are you talking about?"
"Oh, nothing," he said. "Never mind. It was just an idea."
"Just a minute," she said. She turned back to the computer, hit several keys and switched the monitor off, before rotating to face him fully.
"What are you talking about, Kris?" she asked.
"It's just that I see how you're struggling to make ends meet," he said. "I could take some of the burden off of you if I took care of him. I wouldn't charge you anything."
"You must be having a relapse," she sighed. "If you think I'd just let him go off and live somewhere else, just to save some money, you need your head examined some more. He's my
son
, Kris."
"I know, but if I adopted him, he'd be my son too. Don't you think it would help if he had a father figure in his life more often than once or twice a day?"
"Of course I do," she said. "But if he comes to live with you, he wouldn't have a
mother
figure in his life anymore, you idiot!"
"Oh," said Kris, looking dejected. "I guess you're right." He seemed to think hard, and she looked at him with some concern, because he didn't seem to be thinking rationally. Then he brightened. "Well, I suppose I could let you both come live with me." He said it like he'd just thought of that. "I mean that would solve the problem too."
"You want me to move in with you?" Her voice squeaked.
"Well ... two
can
live more cheaply together than they can apart," he said. "Three, in this case, but you know what I mean."
"That's a pretty big step ... don't you think?" She looked uncertain.
"Yeah," he sighed. "I don't know what I was thinking. Moving in can end up badly sometimes. I mean just the term itself sounds so ... temporary. If you can just 'move in,' I guess that means you can just 'move out' again whenever you feel like it."
"Well ... yeah," she said, looking confused, and then her face smoothed out and she tilted her head, examining him. "This isn't like you. You're up to something."
"Me?" He put on such an innocent look that it was obvious it was contrived.
"What's going on?" she asked, her voice level.
"Nothing!" he said. "You're right. Moving in with me is definitely a bad idea."
"I didn't say it was a bad idea," she said immediately. "I just said it's a big step." She tilted her head the other way. "And what's all this stuff about adopting Ambrose?"
"Oh that," he said dismissively. "Never mind about that. I had in mind to ask you to marry me and it just seemed natural to offer to adopt him. But if moving in is such a huge step, you wouldn't even consider marrying me."
Her mouth opened, then closed. Her eyes got huge. Her face got red, until she suddenly remembered to breathe.
"You just asked me to marry you!" she yipped.
"No I didn't," he said calmly. "I said I was thinking about asking you to marry me."
She just stared at him.
"I remembered you said you weren't the marrying kind," he said. "So don't worry. I won't ask you to marry me, okay? I was just trying to help. That's all. I mean you saved my life and all. It's really the least I could do ... to help out with Ambrose I mean. And with him needing a father figure and all, I just thought maybe I could do that. It was silly. Just forget it."
"I can't just forget something like that!" she squealed. "You can't
do that!
"
"I didn't
do
anything," he reminded her. "I was just making suggestions. That's all."
"Kris!"
she wailed.
He held up a hand.
"Okay, I know a way to work this out. Let's say ... just for the sake of argument ... that you
were
the marrying kind ... and I
did
ask you to marry me and let me adopt Ambrose. How do you think you'd entertain that kind of question?"
"Kris,"
she moaned. "This isn't fair!"
"It's only conjecture," he said smoothly. "It's not like I'm
actually
asking you to marry me and let me adopt Ambrose. But if I
did
offer to do that, what do you think you'd say?"
"I don't know!" she squeaked. "I'd have to think about it, you dope!"
"Oh," he said. "Well, I'm hungry and I saw some peaches in the fridge. I'm going to go get a snack. Why don't you think about it while I'm gone ... you know ... as if it were real ... which it's not, of course, so there's no pressure or anything." He smiled. "You want me to bring you anything back?"
"No." Her voice sounded like that of a ten year old, who was very frightened. She was looking at him like he'd sprouted another head.
"Okay," he said happily. "Be back in a bit."
When he got back, she was standing in the middle of the room, several feet from where she'd been when he left. Otherwise she looked the same. It was simply as if some massive hand had picked her up and moved her. She was frowning when she glanced at him.
He simply sat down in a chair and continued to eat the peach he'd cut in half and taken the pit out of.
"You want me to marry you," she said.
"Uh huh, I do," he replied.
"Why?"
He stared at her for a few seconds. "Well, it might have something to do with the fact that I love you and I don't ever want to be without you, or at least without the knowledge that we are a couple."
"We could do that without being married," she observed. "Be a couple, I mean."
"So you don't want to get married." His voice had a curious, or maybe slightly empty tone to it.
"I didn't say that," she said. "It's just that I never thought it would be necessary."
"Necessary is a kind of harsh word," he said.