Broken. Megan Hart

linebacker, but he was equally sensitive as he was strong. Though he’d only been with us for two years, I could no more do without him than I could with Mrs. Lapp.

      “Hi, Sadie. You’re home late.”

      “Traffic,” I told him, too.

      “I’ll be going out in about twenty minutes. I’ll check on him before I go,” he told me and disappeared into his room again. I heard him talking, then making some calls.

      Everything has its price, and the cost of having Dennis and Mrs. Lapp was my privacy. No matter how often I wistfully remembered being able to walk around in my underwear and eat peanut butter straight from the jar, that life was a part of the past. My mother-in-law euphemistically called them “help.” I called them necessity. The three of us worked together like synchronized machinery to keep this household functioning. Without them, I’d have been lost.

      I paused in Adam’s doorway to put on the right face. A pleased half-smile with just the right touch of weariness to indicate the battles of the highway. A fond gaze.

      Adam was already in bed, but he turned his head to look at me when I came through the doorway. He’d been reading something on his laptop. “Close program,” he ordered the computer. He could operate most everything in his room via the voice-operated command system. “You’re late tonight.”

      “I feel so loved. You’re the third person tonight to tell me so.” I kept the reply light, joking, slipping so easily into the role of wife.

      I pushed the computer table out of the way and bent to brush his lips with my evening kiss. His mouth felt cold beneath mine, and I closed my eyes, willing it to warm.

      “Long day?” Adam asked when I’d pulled away. “You look bushed.”

      Even before I could answer, my stomach gurgled, and I put my hand overtop to quiet it. “Mrs. Lapp made soup. I’ll go have some. I wanted to say hi, first.”

      He smiled again, still looking so much like the man I’d fallen in love with it made my guts hurt. “Hi.”

      “Hi.” I reached to push his hair off his forehead. His mouth had been cold but his forehead and cheeks were flushed. “You feel warm.”

      “Ah, you caught me reading.” He wiggled his eyebrows. For a man without the use of anything below his shoulders, Adam never had a problem making his expressions clear.

      I looked at his laptop. “You’re reading smut again?”

      “Please.” He affected a haughty tone. “It’s literature.”

      “For class or for fun?” I stroked my hand across his forehead again, pretending a caress but really checking for fever.

      “Class.”

      Adam’s poetry had once won national awards. Now he taught online English courses for Penn State University. As far as I knew, he no longer wrote poems.

      “Prison Poets?” I straightened a hand that had fallen askew, legs that had bent a bit during the course of the day. I tucked blankets in all around him with swift, practiced movements, making him a mummy.

      “The Marquis de Sade versus Oscar Wilde.” Adam’s eyes followed my course around the bed.

      “Sounds positively kinky.”

      I leaned across him to tuck the blankets on his other side. He breathed in deep and his lips grazed my throat. Heat and memories flooded me.

      “You smell so good.” Adam’s voice was hoarser than usual.

      I froze. He tilted his head to brush his lips against my skin, and breathed in again. He nuzzled me. My nipples tightened and knees got weak as instant arousal, eager as a puppy, bounded through me at that one, simple caress.

      His tongue flickered out. “You taste good, too.”

      I turned my face to his and kissed him, our mouths parting. His tongue stroked mine and another bolt of pure liquid pleasure washed over me. I put a hand on his shoulder to steady myself. The flannel of his pajama shirt was soft, the bones beneath padded enough by the fabric not to hurt my palm.

      I wanted to kiss him forever, to melt into him. The kiss broke and left both of us breathing hard. I leaned in again, my mouth seeking his and finding it closed to me. Shut out, I pulled away.

      “Hey, how about we watch a movie tonight?” My hand lingered on his cheek. “Give yourself a break.”

      “Can’t.” He smiled, rueful. “I’m already behind on this stuff from being sick.”

      Even a simple head cold knocked him harder than it would have for me. I understood. Even so, my heart still hammered in my chest and my thighs trembled with desire. Joe’s stories did that, but so did Adam’s kisses, as they always had. I leaned close to breathe into his ear and run a hand over his chest.

      “I could make it worth your while.”

      “Sadie,” Adam said after a moment. “I really need to get this done.”

      We looked into each other’s eyes for a moment infinite with silence. I had no illusions that my husband did not know every part of me, every thought, every single stir of emotion. The accident that had taken the use of his body hadn’t damaged his mind. He’d always known me better than anyone ever had.

      So why did it so often feel like he’d forgotten?

      I pulled away, putting the mask back on. This was not the first time he’d lacked interest in physical intimacy. It wouldn’t, I was sure, be the last. I could’ve asked him why he’d rather read about sex than have it, and in the past, in our life before, I would have. But that was long ago and far away, and those sorts of questions often hung between us, never spoken. We both bore scars, and not all of them were visible. There was enough damage to contemplate without creating more.

      “You’d better go eat,” Adam said. “Your stomach is growling.”

      I nodded. “Do you need anything?”

      “No. I’m good for now. I’ll finish this up and go to sleep.”

      The entire room had been adapted to his use. He was perfectly capable of putting himself to sleep without me or Dennis to help him, though he’d still need help with the regular turning that helped prevent pressure sores. Tonight was Friday, and that meant it was my job to wake every two hours and check on him, since Dennis was off-duty for the weekend.

      I kissed him again, without the heat from before. “Call if you need me.”

      His attention had already gone back to his work, shutting me out. “’Night, babe.”

      “G’night.” I pulled the door half-closed behind me and stopped to lean against the wall with one arm crossed over my stomach and the other elbow resting on top of it to support the hand covering my face. I was trying hard not to shake, but not quite succeeding.

      “Sadie? I’m heading out now.”

      At Dennis’ concerned tone, I straightened up and shifted my features again into neutrality. “Thanks, Dennis. Have a good time.”

      He studied me and looked as though he were about to comment, but instead just grinned. “Yeah. It’s open mic night at the Blue Swan.”

      I laughed, the sound barely hollow. “Ah. And what are you planning on reading?”

      “Me? Nothing. I’m there for moral support. Scott and Mark are going to sing.”

      Envy attacked me from behind, biting the back of my neck and jabbing its stinger into my spine like an electric shock. I wanted to go out with friends, have some drinks. I wanted to—

      “Have fun,” I told him, and he nodded.

      “I will. See ya Monday.”

      He headed down the stairs two at a time, quiet despite his size, and I waited until I heard the front door slam before