The Rain in Spain by Amy Jo Cousins Read Free Book Online Page A

some guy you met on the beach in Goa?”
    “No.”
    He didn’t hear her. “I know I talked you into it. Fucked you into it, because when we touch, we can’t think straight.” The heavy pulse of pressure between her legs at his graphic words spoke to their truth. She rolled her hips instinctively, and he pressed against her in turn. “I know as soon as I left, you regretted it.”
    “No.” But she was shocked into inarticulateness and her stutter sounded false, even to her own ears.
    “Don’t lie. You’re not good at it.” He lifted his head just enough to wipe his face against her pillowcase. She pretended not to notice. “Your face when you landed in Chicago—your face every time you land in Chicago—says it all. You don’t know what the hell you’re doing, coming home to me.”
    He was so fucking wrong she wanted to laugh. But she’d be doing it while crying herself because this didn’t fix anything at all, really. The only thing it let her do was make sure he knew that the fault was all hers.
    She didn’t imagine that being blameless meant he would hurt any less.
    “God, Javi. You’re so wrong. About everything.” The time for either of them to hide their faces was over. She wedged the heels of her palms on either side of his jaw and pushed his face up off her shoulder. If she turned the lights on, she knew his eyelids would be swollen, his nose red. But she could only say this in the dark. “I don’t regret anything. Anything ”—she let her fierce love for him, failure at it though she was, ring in her voice.—“except not being what you thought you wanted.” His mouth opened, but it was her turn to quiet him, fingers pressed to his lips. “I’m scared when I get off a plane at O’Hare because I’m afraid, every time, that you’re gonna meet me at the airport with my shit packed in boxes because you’re just done with me.”
    He pulled his head back further, as if trying to take her in more completely. “I would never. I want you there. Whenever you can be there, I want you.” His voice had lightened, though he still hesitated. “But that’s not all, is it?”
    She shook her head. Wondered if he could see glimmers of light in her wet eyes now. “No, that’s not all.”
    His silence made an open space for her between the two of them.
    “You know how we argue about your lists?” she asked at last.
    His breath hitched. “I know you think they’re stupid. Boring.”
    Was there no end of the damage she’d done to this man? The ache under her sternum throbbed with regret. “They’re not stupid. They’re you.”
    “But.” It wasn’t a question. He knew there was a but .
    The pressure behind her eyes built and her chest struggled to rise under what felt like a twenty-pound lead weight. “I feel like I was the next item on your list.” And the items that follow our marriage on that list scare me . But she couldn’t say that. So she feinted and cut her eyes to the side. “And I hate lists. I hate knowing exactly what we’re going to see tomorrow. You hate wandering. That’s what I do. For a living. What if we are too different?” She waited for him to deny it.
    He brushed his lips over her eyebrow. “We are different.”
    She stiffened under him. He continued as if she hadn’t turned to a board in his arms. “I also like sugar in my coffee and you hate it. You’ll put the most disgusting pieces of offal in your mouth and chew, and I’d eat McDonald’s in every city in the world.” His cheek curved in the dark. “We’re different, but if a difference is important, we can change. I have changed, for you.”
    “I know.” Her whisper in the dark was almost as loud as her heartbeat. She’d been remembering that all day. “But I haven’t changed at all. How could anyone love that?”
    “I could. I do.” He rolled to his side and rested his head on his own biceps, face inches from hers. “Do I wish some things were different? Of course. I wish you would treat our