An Act of Persuasion - By Stephanie Doyle Page 0,85
every once in a while she would say she needed some space, a gesture, he thought, made mostly to be perverse—he was edgy and nervous. As though with each minute that passed while he was away from her, he was losing some of the ground he had gained.
Ben didn’t do nervous and edgy well.
She was at nineteen weeks already and, while they had fallen into a normal pattern of domesticity, suddenly he felt like it wasn’t enough. He wanted more of a commitment.
“Call me crazy,” Anna said, pulling his attention to this moment. “But I thought you were happy engaging in sex...quite often. Right now, however, you don’t have a happy look on your face.” She bit her lower lip in a way that drove him wild.
“Of course I’m happy with our sex life. Hell, we’re standing in a parking lot in front of a hospital in the middle of the day—the least romantic place I could possibly imagine—and still I’m thinking of taking you. Against the car with your impossibly tight pants around your ankles.”
“Ben!” Her eyes widened in shock, but he could also see a gleam of answering desire.
“I can wait until we’re home. But that’s what we need to talk about, Anna. Home and where it is.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He took a deep breath. It was a risk, and maybe he was pushing too hard and too fast, working against the advice Mark had given him. But it seemed to Ben that everything between him and Anna hinged on these months before the baby was born. They had to have their relationship defined and solid. Because after the baby was here and she had her family, she might not need him anymore.
“I want to know if you’re ever going to ask me to move in with you.”
Her jaw dropped and Ben decided that wasn’t the answer he was looking for.
* * *
THE DOORBELL RANG and Mark jumped up from his chair. He turned off the TV and jogged to the door. Deep breath first, then he opened it to three slightly unenthusiastic guests.
“Hi. Welcome. I’m glad you could finally make it.”
Marie gave Sophie a gentle nudge and the girl crossed the threshold as if she were doing so at gunpoint. Marie followed her, but turned quickly to watch Dom’s progress. He was using his walker today, which meant the arthritis in his legs was making walking a chore.
“Age is a bitch,” he said as he slowly made his way to the couch where he fell into the cushions with a groan. Marie propped a supporting pillow behind his back and hovered over him until he waved away her fussing. By the time she sat down, Mark could hear her slight wheezing. The two were definitely a pair.
But they were here. Finally. After many invitations—initially to Sophie alone, but extended to Dom and Marie when it was clear Sophie would not come to him alone—they’d consented to a group visit. It was a major advance as far as Mark was concerned. While Sophie had agreed to a few lunches and shopping trips, coming to his home seemed to cross a line in the sand she’d drawn.
A line Mark knew he had to erase. And the first step in doing that was to stop giving away home court by always going to her grandparents’ place. If you couldn’t beat the enemy on his terms, then you beat him on yours. A creed that had served him well during his years with the agency.
Not that Sophie was the enemy, Mark reminded himself. Just the prize.
“Sorry you’re having a rough day,” he said to Dom.
He pointed to the windows that overlooked the Philadelphia skyline. Dark clouds had rolled into the area and rain was threatening. “Humidity and rain make it worse.”
Mark considered suggesting that staying in Philadelphia through August and September wasn’t the best way to avoid humidity, but he kept his mouth shut. There would be no rocking the boat for this visit. The rocking could—and would—come later.
“Sophie, I thought you might want to see the room I had decorated for you.”
After their little adventure at IKEA, Mark hadn’t trusted Sophie to make the best calls regarding her room. Regardless of Anna’s advice to the contrary, he suspected Sophie would continue to let spite dictate her choices. Instead, he hired an interior designer and told the man exactly what he wanted—the most perfect room imaginable for a fourteen-year-old piano prodigy. Budget nearly unlimited.