We Missed You Today

The text came in at 7:42, while Gabriel was chopping cilantro and I was pretending to still be numb.

I'm Inés. I'm thirty, I design packaging for a chocolate company, and I've been with Gabriel for four years, married for one. We live on the third floor of an old brick building downtown: a loft with exposed brick, an arched window that catches the streetlights, a monstera slowly taking over one corner, and a deep-green velvet armchair that he claimed the day we moved in.

And since August, we have a rule. It's written on an index card on the fridge, under a magnet shaped like a lemon, in my handwriting this time, because I was the one who asked for it:

We don't lie to each other. Not big lies, not small ones, not "it was easier this way." If one of us does, we talk first. Then we settle it.

It took me three glasses of wine and a very long night on the couch to tell him I wanted that. That some part of me had always wanted someone who would actually hold me to my word, gently and firmly at the same time. Gabriel listened to all of it without laughing. Then he asked a hundred questions. We read together, we talked for weeks, we agreed on limits: his hand and his belt and nothing else. We agreed on colors: yellow to slow down, red to stop, and our own word, girasol, sunflower, for when I needed him to stop everything and just hold me.

In two months, we had never used it.

That afternoon I had a dentist appointment at three. A cracked molar I'd been ignoring since summer. Gabriel is an ER nurse; he has seen what an ignored infection can do to a face, and he had booked the appointment himself, with Dr. Okafor, and made me promise.

At 2:50 I was sitting in my car outside the clinic, hands sweating on the wheel. I hate dentists. I hate the light and the sound and the smell. At 2:58 I started the engine and drove to a café instead, and at 4:30 I texted him: All done!! Just a filling. Face is numb lol. Love you.

He sent back a heart and three ice cream emojis.

So now it was 7:42, and the loft smelled like lime and garlic and the chicken soup he'd made "for my poor mouth," and my phone lit up on the white marble island. I was across the room. He was right there.

He didn't mean to read it. It was just there, in big letters on the lock screen:

Okafor Dental: We missed you today! Your 3:00 PM appointment was marked as a no-show. Please call us to reschedule.

The knife stopped.

Gabriel is thirty-seven. Warm brown skin, shaved head, a short, neat black beard, and round tortoiseshell glasses that make him look gentler than he is when he's serious. He's broad and tall, six-one, and tonight he was wearing a black ribbed quarter-zip pullover, charcoal wool trousers, a black leather belt with a matte silver buckle, his silver watch, and navy socks on the wood floor. He set the knife down, wiped his hands on the towel, and looked at the phone for a long time. Then he looked at me.

I was still in what I'd worn all day: a dusty-rose ribbed turtleneck tucked into a black faux-leather straight midi skirt, gold hoops, a thin gold bracelet. My black ankle-strap heels were by the door. My straight black hair was pulled into a sleek low ponytail, and my blunt bangs suddenly felt too warm on my forehead.

"Inés," he said. Just my name. "Come here, please."

I walked to the island. He turned the phone so I could read it. I already knew what it said.

"How's your face?" he asked quietly.

"Gabe…"

"Is it numb?"

My eyes filled. "No."

"Did you go in?"

"I got to the parking lot." My voice cracked. "I sat there. I couldn't. I went to a café and read for an hour, and then I… I texted you."

"You texted me 'just a filling.'" He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, the way he does at the end of a long shift. "You sent me a little face. And I made you soup."

That was the worst part. The soup, still simmering, made for a mouth nobody had touched.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I was scared, and then I was embarrassed about being scared, and then it was just easier…"

"Easier." He put his glasses back on. "You know what I see at work? People who waited too long on a tooth. Faces swollen shut. That's why I booked it. And I'd much rather hear 'I couldn't do it, I panicked' than this." He tapped the phone. "I could have held your hand in that chair, Inés. I would have taken the afternoon off."

I couldn't look at him. I looked at the lemon magnet instead, and the card under it, in my own handwriting.

He followed my eyes. "You wrote that."

"I know."

"What does it say?"

"We don't lie to each other," I said, barely audible. "If one of us does, we talk first. Then we settle it."

"We're talking." He came around the island and lifted my chin with two fingers, so I had to look at him. His eyes were soft behind the glasses, and very steady. "This is the first time, love. We've never done this for real. So I'm going to ask you, and I want a real answer. Do you want to settle it the way we agreed? Or do you want soup and a long talk, and we leave it there? Both are okay. I promise."

I thought about it. I really did. I thought about sitting in that café feeling like a coward, and how much worse I felt when the ice cream emojis arrived, and how, all evening, part of me had been waiting for the lie to come out on its own.

"I want to settle it," I said. "I don't want to carry this to bed."

He nodded once. "Then turn off the stove for me."

I did. My fingers shook on the knob.

When I turned around, he was walking to the green velvet armchair by the arched window. The streetlights glowed orange through the glass, the string lights over the bookshelf were on, the record player sat silent. He sat down, knees a little apart, and unbuckled his belt.

The sound of that buckle, the soft slide of leather through the loops, went straight down my spine. He folded the belt in half and laid it on the wide arm of the chair, where I could see it.

"Hand first," he said. "Then that. Come stand here."

I crossed the loft barefoot. The floor was cold. I stood between his knees, the skirt stiff against my thighs, my heart pounding so hard I could see the turtleneck move.

He took both my hands. "Tell me why we're here."

"Because I skipped the dentist. Because I lied to you about it. Because you trusted me and made me soup." I laughed, and it came out as a sob. "Because I wrote that card and I broke it."

"Colors?"

"Yellow to slow. Red to stop. Girasol if I need you to just hold me."

"And right now?"

I swallowed. "Green."

"Okay." His thumbs moved over my knuckles. "Over my knee, Inés."

I lowered myself across his lap, the velvet soft under my palms on the far arm of the chair, my ponytail sliding over my shoulder, my toes barely touching the floor. His left hand settled flat and heavy on the small of my back. With his right, slowly, he drew the black skirt up, inch by inch, until it was gathered at my waist and the cool air of the loft touched the backs of my thighs.

He rested his palm there. Warm. Still. Waiting.

"Last check," he said, very quietly. "The first time."

Outside, a bus sighed at the corner. On the island, my phone lit up again with a second reminder. We missed you today.

"Green," I whispered into the velvet. "I'm ready."

His hand lifted.

To be continued… The full chapter, uncensored and with exclusive images, continues on Fanvue: Read what happens next on Fanvue →