That Summer, Jennifer Weiner [sites to read books for free txt] 📗

years younger, just looked short and dumpy and, probably, desperate. If Hal wanted extramarital fun and excitement, he’d have ample opportunity. Daisy tried not to think too much about that, or whether she’d care if she learned that Hal was cheating, or if she’d just feel relieved that someone else was tending to what he used to call my manly needs. She would have asked her best friend, Hannah, her opinion, whether Hal was being faithful and what she, Daisy, should be doing if he wasn’t, except, nine months ago, Hannah had died.

Daisy rolled from her left side onto her right. She sighed again, and made herself close her eyes. She had met her husband when she was twenty years old, and he was almost thirty-three. Red flag, red flag, red flag, her friends had chanted, all of them certain that there had to be something wrong with a guy Hal’s age who’d never been married, who was interested in a woman almost thirteen years his junior. Hal had clearly been aware of the conventional wisdom, because, on their first date, he’d said, “I should probably tell you how I got to be this old with no wife or kids.”

“At least you don’t have an ex-wife,” said Daisy.

Hal hadn’t smiled before clearing his throat. “I was a pretty big drinker, for years.”

Daisy said, “Oh.” She was thinking about twelve-step programs, about Higher Powers and meetings and sponsors and You’re only as sick as your secrets. She thought, At least he’s telling me now, before I got really interested and, then, Ugh, but I liked him! She’d liked his confidence, and—shallow, but true—she’d liked his looks. Hal was handsome, with olive-tinted skin that stayed tanned even in the winter and emphatic brows, like dark dash marks over his eyes. He had a way of taking up space that felt like a first cousin of arrogance—the result, Daisy assumed, of his age, the money he’d grown up with, and the success he’d already had as a lawyer. He’d come to her door in a tweed sports coat and a tie with a bouquet of flowers for her mom, apricot-colored roses and lilies. He’d held the car door for her, waiting until she was settled before walking around the car and getting behind the wheel. He drove skillfully, and asked Daisy questions, and seemed to actually listen to what she said.

Daisy had liked that he was older; that he knew who he was, that he already had an advanced degree, a house, a career. A man like that seemed unlikely to announce, the way her roommate’s boyfriend recently had, that he wanted to pursue an MFA in poetry instead of an MBA in finance, or to decide, like one of Daisy’s previous beaus, that he wanted to try sleeping with men in addition to women.

All of that zipped through her mind as she sat across from Hal in the restaurant she’d picked. Hal must have seen it. Daisy had never been good about keeping her feelings off her face. “Don’t worry,” he’d said, smiling. “My friends didn’t do an intervention. I never went to rehab, and I don’t go to meetings. It wasn’t anything like that. I liked drinking, but I didn’t like who I was when I drank. So I stopped.”

“Just like that?” Daisy had asked.

“Just like that. For the last three years, I’ve had a glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve, and that’s it.” He made a rueful face, those emphatic eyebrows lifting. “I’m not going to tell you that the first few days, or weeks, were pleasant. But I’d never been an every-single-day drinker. I guess I was lucky. But yes. I just stopped.”

“And it doesn’t bother you if…” She’d nodded at the sake that he’d ordered for her.

He shook his head. His voice sounded a little gravelly when he’d said, “I like to see a woman enjoy herself.”

She’d kissed him that night, made out with him after their next date, slept with him on the date after that. And it had been good. Better than good. The best sex she’d ever had. Not that she’d had a lot of sex. She’d slept with exactly four boys, two of them just once, and Hal had been the first one with whom she’d had an orgasm. At first, when he’d kissed his way down her belly and gently coaxed her thighs apart, she’d been self-conscious and shy, wondering if she should have waxed, or shaved, or washed herself ahead of time, but then he’d pressed his face right against her, breathing her in, his hands tightening on her hips, pulling her closer, like he couldn’t get enough of her. He’d eased her underpants down her legs, and, before she could worry about how she smelled or looked down there, Hal had done something, made some combination of movements with his fingers and his tongue. Daisy had jolted off the bed like she’d been electrified. “Oh,” she’d said. “Oh.” Hal had laughed, low in his throat, and then Daisy had forgotten to worry, or to think about anything at all. When he raised his face, still wet, to hers, Daisy had kissed him, and she’d tasted herself on his mouth. Hal had still been kissing her when he’d rolled on top of her, pushing inside of her in a single stroke, then pulling out slowly, and doing it again, and Daisy had thought, So this is what all the fuss is about.

When it was over, she’d rested against him, catching her breath, and then she’d gone to the kitchen, determined to woo him, to delight him the way he’d delighted her. She’d cracked an egg into semolina flour, running the dough swiftly through her pasta machine while a pot of salted water came to a boil. She’d cooked the ribbons of pasta perfectly al dente and served them with salt and pepper and good Parmesan and a poached egg resting gently on top. Hal had twirled the first strands around his