Married to My Ex's Uncle novel · Chapter 10 of 32

Chapter 10: The Loft

The engine ticked as it cooled.

Out past the guardrail the bay was black, with one green channel light blinking.

Greta looked at her husband's profile.

"Ever?" she said.

"Ever."

"Not even before seminary?"

"I went in at twenty-two. Before that I was a very serious young man who read a lot of books about sailing."

"So you've never..."

"I've kissed two women," he said to the windshield. "One in high school, behind the bleachers, very badly. You, at the courthouse. And you, in my sister-in-law's pantry, next to the soup tureens."

"That's three kisses."

"You count twice. You're very thorough."

She laughed out loud.

He finally looked at her.

His face in the dashboard light was tense and embarrassed and something else underneath, something that looked a lot like hope.

"I'm thirty-eight," he said. "I know how that sounds."

"It sounds like a man who keeps his promises."

"It sounds like a man who doesn't know what he's doing."

"You seemed to know what you were doing with that hem."

He put his forehead down on the steering wheel.

"Drive us home," Greta said. "I'm not doing this in a truck."

The boathouse was dark.

Lukas let the dog in and fed it and stood at the bottom of the ladder waiting for a ruling.

Greta took off her flat shoes and set them on the bottom rung.

"Come up," she said. "We're going to talk first."

They sat on her mattress in the loft with the lamp on, her back against the beadboard wall, his against the window frame.

Three feet of blanket between them.

"Rules," she said.

"You like rules."

"I run a business. Rule one. Neither of us had a drink tonight. I checked."

"Water," he said. "All night. Margit noticed. She thought I was sulking."

"Rule two." Greta pulled her knees up. "I'm not your penance."

He went still.

"You left the church," she said. "You stood up for me in front of your whole family. You married me when nobody else would. And I keep thinking, what if I'm just the hardest thing you could find to do. The hair shirt."

He was quiet a while.

"You're not a hair shirt," he said. "You're the first thing in ten years I've wanted for no reason except wanting it."

Her chest went tight.

"Now you," he said.

"Me what?"

"Am I your revenge?"

She opened her mouth.

He held up a hand.

"Think before you say no. It would make sense if I were. I'm his uncle. I'm the one man in this county who'd make Tanner sick to his stomach, just by existing in your bed."

She thought about it, honestly.

She thought about the courthouse, Tanner's red face by the rubber plant.

That had felt good.

Then she thought about the pantry, and how she hadn't thought about Tanner once until he laughed in the hall.

"No," she said. "You're not revenge. Revenge doesn't make me coffee with a saucer on top."

His shoulders dropped.

"I want to be very clear," Greta said. "You can say no. Any time. Tonight or halfway through or never. I'll go to sleep on my side of that wall and make your coffee in the morning and nothing changes."

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