Chapter 1
I open my eyes and look into Sophie’s smiling face.
“Happy fifty-plus birthday,” she whispers, and leans in to kiss me.
I groan but let her kiss me. Fifty-plus is putting it mildly. I luxuriate in the taste of her lips on mine. I may be sixty today, but at least I have this—the question is for how much longer.
Sophie slips on top of me, pushing my legs apart with her knee. Heavens. I’ve just woken up. And I’m sixty. I’m not sure I can give her what she wants. I’ve never been one for birthday cheer and I’ve been dreading this one in particular, even more so because of the delightful woman spreading my legs at this very moment. I’ve somehow convinced myself that if it weren’t for Sophie, who is twenty-six years my junior, turning sixty wouldn’t be such a problem for me. I might even have relished crossing over into the next decade of my life—the one in which the banal becomes even more futile. But because of Sophie, I just feel old instead.
“Am I coming on too strong?” she whispers in my ear, probably sensing my reticence.
“I just need a minute to wake up.” I don’t let her slide off me. I hold her close. I let the sensation of her soft, warm flesh pressed against mine wash over me. I inhale her scent. Some of the previous day’s perfume lingers on her neck and I nuzzle my nose against her skin. I love Sophie so much, but I’m not sure I should stay with her.
“I kept my promise.” She pushes herself up so she can look at me. “No surprise parties. No impromptu dinners. No one in the house, but you and me.”
I huff out some air. I should be relieved because it’s exactly what I asked for. Because I didn’t want to celebrate this day—this deadline I gave myself for being with her.
When Sophie and I got together, it was unexpected, but almost necessary in a way. We had no one left but each other and we found each other—and ourselves again—in the depths of our grief for Ian. But Ian died over four years ago and while it still hurts every single day that he’s no longer here, our grief has been tempered by time. Our lives have resumed and most of our days are no longer only colored by the sharp pain of loss.
I let myself fall for Sophie in a way I hadn’t fallen for anyone since I met Angela, Ian’s mother. Because, at the time, I had nothing else to lose. So what if a friend didn’t agree? Then they weren’t a true friend. So what if us walking down the street hand-in-hand raised some eyebrows? I’d lost my son and Sophie had lost her partner in a freak accident—we knew what genuine pain was, and it wasn’t the quizzical look of a random passerby in the street.
I threw myself into our affair with reckless abandon, because I needed to feel all the things being with her made me feel. I didn’t care about anything else but Sophie and me and how we turned our shared grief into something completely different. I convinced myself that something good had come out of Ian’s death because it brought Sophie and me together. But as my sixtieth birthday approached, I started seeing things differently.
“What do you want to do today?” she asks.
“Visit Ian,” I blurt out.
Sophie’s features stiffen for a split second, then soften again. But I noticed, because I know her. I’ve looked at her gorgeous face a million times. I’ve seen her cry; I’ve seen her come; I’ve seen her surrender.
“Alone.” I twist in the knife a little deeper. She surely doesn’t deserve me taking my frustration out on her. Being with her makes it so I don’t feel like I’m sixty years old at all. I’ve never let my age stand in the way of us going to all the places she and her friends go—although, thank goodness, they’re not into clubbing anymore.
Sophie slides off me now. “Are you okay?”
“Soph,” I start, but I don’t know what to say.
“I know you haven’t been looking forward to this.” She props herself up on one elbow and the duvet falls off her, exposing her chest. Still, after four years of sharing a bed with her, it takes my breath away to see her naked. “But, babe, you don’t look a day over forty-nine. I promise. You know that my life’s purpose is battling fake news, so you know I wouldn’t lie to you about something very important like that.”
A smile breaks on my face and some of the tension in my muscles melts. I huff out some air. “The best you can expect of me today is that I’m not a total monster.”
She puts her hand on my belly—always an intimate act, especially given how it all started between us. “You couldn’t be a monster if you tried.” Her hand slides down.
“Darling. I’m—” I’m not in the mood, I was going to say, but that would be a lie. With Sophie, I’m always in the mood. The places we’ve had sex in over the years—mostly initiated by me, I see now, probably because I felt like I had some point to prove.
She twists her hand so her fingers point down. She might as well have circled my clit already, that’s how much her touch turns me on.
“It’s your call.” Her voice has dipped into a lower register. She slants toward me and kisses me again and, this time, I do give in. I may feel like I no longer have any business being Sophie Winters’ partner, but I still am. We’re still together—against all odds. And it’s my birthday.
