A few hours later I laid on our sofa, my legs stretched out across Nate’s lap, while I sipped at the ice cold beer he’d just handed me before settling in. The living room was lit by the flames in our fireplace. It was cozy and intimate and romantic.
It was also weirdly quiet.
“You feel it too?” Nate drew circles on my ankle with the tips of his fingers.
“The girls?” I said softly.
He nodded. “It’s quiet without them.”
“Yeah. You get used to having them around.” I chuckled. “Lily said something so funny this morning.”
Nate smiled. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, I just can’t remember what it was.” I rested my head on the back of the sofa hearing Nate laugh. “It’s been a weird day. I can barely remember any of it.”
“Except for the part where you had lunch with an ex?”
I shot a look at him. He was drinking his beer and still tracing my skin casually but the lines of his shoulders were tense. “Ben wasn’t an ex.”
“Close to.”
My brows drew together. “You honestly had a problem with me seeing him today?”
He turned his head and our gazes locked. “Yes. I had a problem with some guy getting to have a quiet lunch and a nice conversation with my wife because until right now I couldn’t remember the last time I got to have a quiet lunch and nice conversation with my wife.”
“Nate.”
“I know I’m being an arse.” He rubbed a hand over his face and groaned.
I smiled. “You’re not an ass. On retrospect, considering how little time we’ve had for each other lately, I would have been mad if you had lunch with some other woman who had some affiliation with your romantic history.”
Nate squeezed my ankle. “Doesn’t matter now. We’re here.”
“Yes we are.”
We lapsed into comfortable silence, the only sound the crackling of the flames in the grate of the fire.
And then I couldn’t help myself.
“Would you rather take part in The Hunger Games or the Tri Wizard Tournament?”
Nate contemplated the question. “Depends. Am I competing in the 74th annual Hunger Games or the 75th?”
“Why?”
“Well the 75th was the one where all the previous winners were pitted against each other.”
“You’ve seen those movies too many times.”
“You’ve seen Harry Potter too many times.”
Well I couldn’t argue with that. “True.” I frowned. “Does it matter if you’re in the 75th annual hunger games?”
“I take it I am then?”
“Yes, for the sake of expedience you are in the 75th annual Hunger Games. So The Hunger Games or the Tri Wizard Tournament?”
“It’s kind of an easy decision. I’ll probably die in The Hunger Games. I’ll live in the Tri Wizard thing.”