It Had to Be You, Georgia Clark [phonics reader TXT] 📗

close she could tilt her head up and feel his mouth touch hers. His presence pounded through her like a storm. Zia had always assumed the ability to be wildly, uncontrollably attracted to someone was just a rare human quirk, like having two different-colored eyes. But it was happening to her, and she didn’t know what to do. She could barely ease the black button through the stiff buttonhole. She was undressing him. As if for bed. As if for sex. His body on top of hers, moving together in a hot, hungry rhythm.

Her fingers found his bare chest, touching the smooth, hard muscles. Clay inhaled. His chest rose beneath her fingertips. His musky, masculine smell made her mouth water. Her body was one hot surging mess of driving need. Desperate for contact. Desperate for this man.

She dared to look up at him. His eyes were glazed and hooded. Drilling into her. His voice was low and almost strained. “Zia…”

She yanked his shirt toward her.

“The thing about straight weddings—”

Before their lips had a chance to meet, Henry’s voice crashed over her like a bucket of cold water. They sprang apart like guilty teenagers as Henry and Gorman entered the bathroom.

“—is no one knows how to dance…” Henry trailed off as both he and Gorman stared at Clay. Then at Zia. Then back at Clay, a tennis match of surprise. Zia’s face was burning. Clay’s shirt was half unbuttoned.

Gorman cleared his throat, his fingers resting lightly on his chest. “That’s because straight people feel so guilty about sex. Don’t you agree, Zia?”

Usually Zia enjoyed the florist’s dry humor, but at that moment, she couldn’t even look at him. Or Henry. Or the man she’d just been about to kiss. Her heart was striking a steady beat of What? The? Hell?

“I’ll, um…” Clay’s attempt at speech was a failure. He gave Zia a parting look of mute bewilderment, and left the bathroom.

Henry looked rattled. “Did we just walk in on a Me Too moment, Zia?”

“No!” Zia shook her head. “No, that was… I don’t know what that was. But I liked it.”

“I’ll bet you did,” murmured Gorman.

Zia’s gaze fell to the floor. Something square, made of dark brown leather, was at her feet. A wallet. Even before she flipped it open, she knew who it belonged to.

“Good,” said Henry. “And, bonus: now you know who Clay Russo is.”

16

Henry packed the table arrangements back into boxes, extracting the dainty flowers from a battleground of soiled napkins, spilled booze, and discarded menus. Dave and Kamile didn’t want to keep the arrangements, so whatever the other guests hadn’t taken, they’d donate to a local assisted-living facility. It was an excuse to stay till the end, really: he and Gor wanted to keep an eye on Liv, especially given the free-flowing alcohol. But the wedding had turned out pretty much perfectly. Possibly the part where the bride mentioned the hashtag in her vows was a little odd. But otherwise, gorgeous.

Henry finished one box and started another.

Clay and Zia. Huh. If they got married, maybe Henry would get to make a speech. Zia and Clay are a passionate couple. I walked in on them about to share their first kiss… in a public bathroom! Henry had made a dozen speeches at weddings over the years. People said he was good at them. He just always imagined the sort of speech he’d want to hear at his own wedding.

In the weeks following his birthday and the infamous stand mixer, Henry had begun to feel increasingly insecure. Maybe he’d been too subtle about wanting to get married, maybe not. Either way, it was obvious Gorman didn’t want to marry him. But instead of addressing the issue as he typically would, his lack of confidence made him fold back on himself. Maybe he should just let the idea go. Gay marriage as fiction, as performed normativity—could he make it his truth, if he had to?

It seemed impossible. Painful. Dangerous. Why?

Because if he followed the impulse all the way to its logical root, he wanted a baby.

Henry’s hand stilled in midair. He’d never let the desire form so perfectly, so unapologetically. Instead, Henry buried his paternal urges under layers of practicality and, somewhat shamefully, fear. Even in progressive Brooklyn, he and Gorman were far from a typical family: an interracial gay couple, a generation apart in age. But how much longer could Henry deny the precious and delicate truth that he wanted to be a father? He’d never just wanted a proposal—he wanted shelter for a family. An indication Gorman wanted one too. Marriage was a need for a love that was strong and reciprocal enough to create the future he was terrified to imagine.

“Can I have a flower?” Behind him stood a little girl, her small face pink and puffy with sleep.

Henry’s heart just about fainted. “Of course you can, sweetheart.”

He selected a white frizzle tulip. The child accepted it gravely, just as her mom came up behind her. They looked so alike: same close-set eyes, same narrow chin.

“What do you say to the nice man?” Mom prompted, and the girl responded with the requisite “Thank you,” cut short by a big yawn.

They left. Henry felt his smile fade.

For straight couples, the news they might not be able to conceive a child was devastating, a turn of events they’d spend thousands of dollars and years of effort to overcome. Because what greater achievement could there be in making a person with the person you love? The literal expression of your union, there in a child that has Mom’s pretty eyes and Dad’s sense of humor. Straight people expected shared DNA would form their family and anything less was subpar. But subpar was where gay couples started and no one ever said anything about it. The tragedy that Henry could not make a baby with Gorman, or even bring up the notion of children in the first place, was a sadness he alone had to carry.

He hefted