on his heels while I took my time unpacking and putting

away my groceries.

"Can I sit down?" he asked finaly, when I'd made it clear I wasn't going to offer.

"Do you have to ask?" I kept my back turned as I sifted

through the change from my walet. I found a Wheatie

penny and set it aside to put in my colection, then washed

my hands thoroughly with soap and hot water. Money is

one of the filthiest things a person can touch.

When I turned to look at him, he was stil standing. We

stared at each other across the expanse of my unimmense

living room until I nodded. He sat the way he always had,

legs sprawled, taking up as much space as he could.

I took my time cleaning the kitchen, wiping the counters

and scrubbing the sink with bleach-infused powder. I even

emptied the garbage pail and took the trash out to the

chute at the end of the hal. I expected Austin to be

restless or irritated by the time I came back, but he'd

found a copy of a Robert Heinlein novel inside the pile of

found a copy of a Robert Heinlein novel inside the pile of

books and magazines thrown into the straw basket next to

the couch and was flipping through it.

"It doesn't have any pictures," I said from the doorway.

Austin put the book on the coffee table. "This is nice."

He hadn't risen to the bait, though I'd made a point of

pushing one of his buttons. "The book?"

"The coffee table," he said, stil not rising.

"It was Stela's."

Austin nodded, like that made sense. "Glad I didn't put my

feet up on it."

It took me an actual five seconds before I realized he was

trying to tease me without pissing me off. He was actualy

just…kidding. I knew how to handle him trying to seduce

me or piss me off. I didn't know how to take that.

"I miss you," Austin said.

The words were hard to hear, and I don't mean because

he spoke too low, or mumbled. They were hard for me to

he spoke too low, or mumbled. They were hard for me to

listen to because I didn't know what to say. I didn't want

him to miss me.

I sat across from him, instead. The recliner's springs

sometimes poked through the faded material, though I'd

tossed a fleece throw over it. One did now, and I winced

as I shifted.

"I do," he said, as though my expression had been in

response to his statement and not a coil of wire in my butt.

"Austin." Nothing else would come out.

He shrugged. I hadn't falen in love with him because of his

way with words. Back then it hadn't mattered if he spoke

more with his hands than his mouth. Back then we'd both

been young and dumb.

"You look good, Paige. This place," he gestured, "it's nice."

"Thanks."

His hair used to be bleached almost white by the sun, and

he wore it so short I could see his scalp. When I ran my

fingers through it, my nails scraped skin. Now it fel

fingers through it, my nails scraped skin. Now it fel

forward over his ears and forehead and was the color of

wheat in a field, waiting to be cut. His eyes, moving over

my face, made me think he was waiting to be cut, too.

I almost couldn't do it. I mean, the night before I'd let him

put his tongue down my throat and his hands al over me.

When the warmth of him wafted over me, I wanted to

close my eyes at how familiar it was. How easy it would

have been to take him by the hand and lead him to my

bedroom.

I kept my eyes open, a lesson I'd been taught a long time

ago but had taken me a long time to learn. "I don't miss

you, Austin. Last night was a mistake."

"C'mon, Paige. Don't say that. We were always good

together."

"We haven't been together for a long time," I said, not

quite as evenly as I wanted.

"It's not just the sex." Austin leaned forward, too, his

hands on the knees of his dirty denim jeans. A white spot

had worn through just below his kneecap, not quite a hole,

but on its way to becoming one. "I didn't just mean that. I

but on its way to becoming one. "I didn't just mean that. I

can get laid anytime I want."

"I'm sure you can." I got up, my arms folded across my

chest.

He got up, too. "I didn't mean it that way."

I wasn't going to bend. Not over the chair, not over the

bed, and not over this. "It doesn't matter how you meant it.

I think you should go."

"Same old Paige," he said with a shake of his hair. "Stil hard as nails, huh? Hard as a rock. Can't ever give me a

break."

"You don't need a break from me. Besides, you can just

get laid whenever you want. Look, Austin," I said when it

looked as though he meant to speak. "We can't keep

doing this."

"Why not?"

I studied him deliberately until I couldn't hold in the sigh

any longer and it seeped out of me like air from a nail-

punched tire. "You know why not. Because fucking

doesn't solve every problem. And we had a lot of

doesn't solve every problem. And we had a lot of

problems."

He crossed his arms and looked stormy. I didn't point out

the arguments we'd had about money, about religion,

about monogamy. I didn't remind him of the nights he'd

gone out for a few beers with friends and had come home

smeling of perfume and guilt, or that it didn't matter

whether he had or hadn't fucked anyone else, it was that

he was content to choose a night with his buddies over

staying home with me. I didn't bring up the times I'd said I

was studying for school when I was realy someplace else,

with someone else.

"I just want you to be happy, Austin." I meant it.

He leaned back and frowned more fiercely. "You want me

to be happy so you can feel better about yourself, that's

al. So you don't feel so bad about what happened."

The truth of that stung me like a wasp, smooth-stingered

and able to jab more than once. "I think you should go."

Damn him, he didn't. He moved closer and cupped my

elbows in his palms so I had to uncross my arms to push

him away or let him snuggle up close. I put my hands on

him away or let him snuggle up close. I put my hands on

his chest, but didn't push. His muscles beneath the tight T-

shirt were hard and firm. He leaned, and I didn't pul away.

If he'd kissed me, I'd have been lost, but if he'd ever

thought he knew me, he proved himself wrong again. He

didn't kiss me. He spoke, instead.

"I'm your husband."

I pushed my arms straight. His hands slid from my elbows

along my arms and fel away at my wrists. I stepped back,

my hand against his chest preventing him from folowing

unless he pushed me, too. Austin looked for a second as if

he meant to try it, but didn't.

"I have a folder ful of paperwork that says otherwise," I

told him.

"Okay, so not officialy. But you can't tel me—"

"I can tel you anything I want, so long as it's true," I shot back.

"Can you tel me it's true that you don't miss me, too? Not

even a little?"

"I miss fucking you," I said flatly. "The rest of it? Not so

"I miss fucking you," I said flatly. "The rest of it? Not so much."

Austin grinned and spread his fingers. "It's a start, right? I'l cal you."

"I won't answer."

"I'l cal again."

I pointed at the door, and he went. I waited until it closed

behind him before I gave in to the urge to sigh. What is it

about bad boys that make them so, so good?

I've known him since kindergarten. Austin. In my

elementary-school class photos, more times than not, his

freckled face is beaming from the row behind me. In one,

we stand beside each other, our grins showing the same

missing teeth.

In high school, we had nothing in common. Austin was a

jock. I was a gothpunk girl with multiple piercings and a

tattoo of a dragonfly on my back. We shared colege-level

classes and the same lunch period. I knew who he was

because of his prowess on the footbal field. If he knew me

it was maybe because I was one of the girls every boy

it was maybe because I was one of the girls every boy

knew, or maybe just because we'd been in the same

school since we were five. We didn't say hi when we

passed in the hals, but he was never mean to me the way

some of the boys could be. Austin never caled me names

or made crude invitations.

In the fal of our senior year, Austin went down under a

pile of boys pumped up with testosterone and fury. We

won the homecoming game, but instead of riding in Chrissy

Fisher's dad's 1966 Impala convertible, Austin took a red-

lights-flashing ambulance to the Hershey Medical Center.

He recovered, nothing miraculous about it. His body,

bones broken and skin torn, healed. Nobody ever said

he'd never play footbal again. Austin simply never did.

Nor basketbal, either, and in the spring, not basebal. By

then his chances of going to anything other than community

colege had vanished along with the scholarship offers, but

if he ever cared he wasn't getting a ful ride to Penn State,

he never said so to me.

And by then, he would have. By the time our senior year