Intimacies

Rowan

"Rowan?"

"Hmmmmm..."

"Row...please..." his voice is pure velvet in my ear. I know what that tone this early in the morning means. I smile and snuggle into the covers, expecting his hands to slide down my hip to my knee, then up my inner thigh to—

"Yes," I whisper. "Oh Riley..."

"Rowan." His voice is somewhat more urgent. "Wake up, please. I need you..."

I sit up automatically, ignoring the ache in my shoulders and back.

Fuck.

That wasn't Riley in my dreams. That was Riley in my Alexa unit.

"I'm coming..." I say.

He makes that adorable derisive sound he always makes at double-entredres. "I'd say not quite yet, from the sound of things."

"I'll be right there," I hiss, throwing back the covers.

I do this sort of dance in the middle of the guest room. I want to go pee, more than that I want to brush my hair and and teeth, because I'm sure I'm five kinds of gross, but after I check the time, I completely abandon idea and dash across the house. It's after eight. What the hell?

My alarm should have gone off an hour ago. Riley's too. Riley's caregiver should be here by now. What's wrong?

Riley is sitting on the side of his bed, in sleep pants, shirtless, his back brace already on, dark hair wild but in an adorable way, calmly wiping his glasses on a tissue. When I throw open the door, he puts on his glasses and gives me an up and down. Like a real up and down.

"Forget something?"

I smooth my hair, raking tendrils back into my braid. My hands flow automatically down the braid and I pull it over my shoulder. That's when I realize that I'm wearing a tank top and panties.

Yes, I forgot something.

I forgot pants.

Well, so what?

The way Riley is smirking at me lets me know he's not exactly offended by the view.

"Sorry to interrupt your...dreams," he says with suggestion.

"You didn't interrupt anything." I muttered. Then because he's still smirking at me and he's enjoying teasing me far too much, I walk over and stand right in front of him. "But it has been a while. Would you like to help a girl out?"

Now I'm the one that's smirking and he's the one that's uncomfortable. He looks up into my face and for one moment I think I see an echo of the old way he wanted me. Then he lowers his eyes—to my chest. I can feel my own nipples hardening at the idea of sitting on Riley's lap as he touches me and makes me come.

Is that weird? Maybe, but not really. I mean, he's still Riley. It's not like we haven't done that exact same thing before. In a limo. On a jet. On the damn couch that's in the living room.

I wonder if he's thinking the same thing.

He could easily do that to me. And then after, I could easily slide from his lap...

And reciprocate.

That would be okay, right? Surely it wouldn't hurt him, surely he could stay still enough...

Surely he needs that, right? It's been six weeks since his accident. Six weeks of physical and emotional discomfort. Six weeks of living with limitations and uncertainties. Wouldn't a few moments of simply being a man, with a woman, feel good for him?

He's still staring at my chest. I think he's focused on my hardened nipples too. I reach out and put a hand on him, stroking his sternum.

He sighs, looks away, and pulls my hand from his chest.

"Not today, dearest. But you do intrigue," he says softly.

A breathy laugh escapes me. It's what he always used to say to put me off, when I practically threw myself at him and he thought I was too young and too dangerous to him. Too forbidden. Too...del Marco.

I step a little closer, stroking his hair.

"Are you sure? If you want, it can just...be about you. An experiment to see...how best to go about things. No strings..."

He jerks his head away. "There are certainly strings, Rowan. You think I don't feel tied to you?" he laughs bitterly. "In every way possible? No strings..." he huffs.

I step away. "I didn't mean it like that. I meant...no pressure. One day at a time."

He nods tersely, but doesn't say anything.

"I feel tied to you, too," I whisper. "Riley, being here with you in this house for a month, I still feel..." I trail off.

"Married," he says quietly.

"Yeah," I say.

There's a long moment of silence.

"Rowan...I can't."

I nod. "It's okay. I know. I know you said that before, that you wanted to, but you can't forgive me—"

"That's not what I meant."

I wait, confused.

"Forgiveness is a separate issue," he mutters. "One that doesn't seem so...unattainable anymore."

A feeling of profound gratitude floods through me. That's the first time in almost nine months he's thought that. Or that he's expressed that to me. Not since he told me he wanted a divorce. And even though I don't want the relationship we had back, I still want him. I want him and I want us to love each other better.

I drop in front of him, my hands on his knees. "Riley, if you want to try, I want to try—"

"Rowan...I can't," he repeats.

"We can. You just said..."

"I can't," he repeats. "We can't...have all that back, not even if we got to the place where we both wanted it. Not even if we were able to move past our problems. Now, there are...other issues."

I look at the blue plaid pattern of his sleep pants and my fingers. The slight pill on the pants. My chipped black nail polish.

"Oh."

"Yes."

I know what he means. We haven't talked about it, but I read all the literature they gave us, all the stuff on the internet about spinal cord injures. Where his specific injury is...it can cause more than motor dysfunction in the legs. It can cause other problems below the waist. It can make a man unable to perform, sexually.

"The doctor said that? That you can't?"

"Not impossible, but not as likely as walking again. I can't," he repeats.

"Maybe it's too soon?" I whisper. "You're a long way from fully recovered, Riley."

"There's...nothing happening." He looks me in the face again. "It's morning. And you, gorgeous and almost naked and the sounds you were making before over the intercom, and your nipples so...alluring...and you offering..." He looking down my tank top now and he groans. "Fuck. There's the feelings of desire...but no...response," he grimaces.

A feeling rushes me. A feeling that I hate. A feeling that I know Riley will hate if I show it.

Pity.

"It's too soon, that's all." I repeat firmly, rising, bringing his chair near to the bed. "Your body has been through a terrible trauma. It will come back. Everything will come back. Even if it doesn't come back...that doesn't mean anything, if we loved each other. If we could...relearn...to love each other."

Even as I say it, I know it's a daunting prospect.It wouldn't be impossible to have some kind of love life, but it would be hard. Especially after what I did.

I cheated on him when he was fully capable. Would the memory of my cheating give rise to a different kind of insecurities if we had sexual problems? Would those insecurities block the forgiveness we would need?

"It means a lot," he says. "I would not...could not...accept the half-measure. Not between us. Not after everything that has happened."

Yeah, he's thinking the exact same things as me. He would always wonder if I was getting my satisfaction somewhere else. But I wouldn't. I would never do that again. If we got back together, I would never risk him again.

A few nights ago, when Riley and I were singing together, and I saw the satisfaction in his eyes at the way I harmonized with him and matched him so perfectly, I remembered everything good about us.

I remembered the pride that once shone in his eyes for me. I remembered the ease we once had, and the respect in each other's unique talents and abilities. I remembered that he taught me so much about the business, but I taught him not a few things about being a better guitarist, vocalist and performer. I remembered the belief I held, that Riley was the only person that had ever fully understood my dreams and desires. I remembered as much as I loved the stage, and the fans and the high from a high octane performance, I used to get a quieter but even more thrilling endorphin rush when Riley and I mixed voices and rhythms on the couch in this very house. Then threw the guitars aside to make out or make love.

I remember that we almost had it all.

I remember everything we almost achieved together.

I remember everything I lost.

And what I lost is not between Riley's legs.

What I lost was an amazing life with the man I loved.

Part of it was taken from me by Daemon Turner, but the bigger part, I threw away. And I was tossing out chunks of it long before I cheated. I threw away part when I quit Strut. Another part when the long distance was wearing on us and I renewed my Band Girl contract over his objections. Part of it when I stopped telling Riley how I felt, and started swallowing resentments and lying to him about the diet pills and so many other things.

So I won't stop telling him how I feel now.

"We could make it work. Other people make it work. For better or worse,right?" I say stubbornly.

"Except that we're not married anymore," he snaps back. "And do not speak to me of vows, Rowan. You forgot the forsaking all others part, remember?"

"I can never forget," I say.

You won't let me.

"Because I won't let you, you mean" he says the words for me. "I can see inside your pretty little mind. Sometimes you are so transparent, Row. You think you can hide the things that show so plainly on your face?"

"Then you should see that I can't stop loving you no matter what mean things you say to me, or whether or not you can get a hard-on, you insufferable, arrogant, prideful British fuck!" I yell at him.

I stalk out of the room. I slam the door. I go to the kitchen. I pace around and around the bar. I pour myself a cup of coffee and stand, staring out the window at the pool.

The Alexa units flashes blue, indicating the intercom is activating.

"Rowan? I'm sorry, but I still need you. In the practical sense."

I sigh. "I'm coming."

He snorts. "Perhaps you could be a little more sensitive and adopt another phrase, yes?"

I hate his smug stiff upper lip. How can he do that? Make jokes in the face of this disaster?

"Shut-up!" I yell at the unit. "I hate you!"

"Oh, I hate you, too, my darling," he says wearily. "But as I've already told you weeks ago, I haven't entirely stopped loving you, either. However, can we please put this aside for the moment? Unfortunately, I need your help. Lucinda is sick and she's not coming today. I made the unfortunate mistake of telling the agency not to send a replacement. That you and I could manage for one day."

Every morning, his caregiver comes to help him perform his bowel routine and take a shower. I pretty much do everything else, but in those things, Riley prefers the help of a paid professional. I wouldn't have minded helping with those things, but since we are all fucked in the heads and hearts at this present moment, it doesn't seem like the best idea for us to deal today in more intimate issues.

"Well maybe you should call them back," I say, as nicely as I can.

"It's a matter of some urgency at this point," he says crisply.

Oh. Crap.

Literally.

"Be right there."

"Thank you. Incidentally, that's ever so much better," he chirps. "Let's use that phrase from now on, shall we?"

When I arrive in his room, I'm a little pissed to find he's made the transfer to his wheelchair himself. I suppose I should be glad that he didn't attempt his bathroom needs by himself. He rolls himself silently to the bathroom and I follow.

"What do I need to do?" I say, going over to the drawer where all his bowel routine supplies kept. After the accident and the surgery and the spinal cord injury all combined, his digestive system sort of shut down. At least the lower part of it. There's stuff to be done to help it along, but I've never been a part of that. It was always the nurses and then the caregiver.

"Oh, nothing of that sort," he says with an embarrassed clip. "Everything's working normally again in that department, thank all of heaven and creation. I just need the transfer."

"Oh!" I turn around, surprised. "I didn't realize that."

"Yeah, for a couple of weeks now," he mutters.

I can't help pointing out the obvious. "See? You're getting better."

He grimaces at me and jerks his head to the water closet.

"Shouldn't we use this?" I gesture to the portable toilet that's sitting along the wall space between the shower and his closet. We didn't make any modifications to the toilet closet because it would have required a full bathroom modification, and he's going to get better and he won't need it.

"No we should not," he growls at me.

I laugh at him. He's always been private about this. He used to yell at me if I tried to talk to him while he was taking a poop. I can plainly see his issue with the portable toilet. He doesn't want me to have to manually dump the bowl.

"I was thirteen when Lane was born, you know. Sixteen when Alley was born. I'm not afraid of poop."

"How wonderful for you. I'm utterly terrified of it," he drawls.

I bite back the remarks I want to make.

It's not the first poop conversation we've ever had.

The conversation would usually turn from his weird aversion of all things poop related to me demanding to know if he's going to refuse to change diapers, if we ever have a kid. He would typically reply that the day I take out a sack of garbage is the day he would consider changing a diaper. Then I would say that's what the maid is for, and he would say that's what the nanny would be for. And I would say the nanny wouldn't be around one hundred percent of the time when a baby would need a diaper change and he would say the maid is only here twice a week and I make so much trash by throwing away things that should be recycled that it has to be taken out every day and whom do I think "bloody well" does that? Him. So he'll stick the trash, and I'll do the diapers, when the maid and the nanny are not available. Then he'd remind me, that I always say I'm not having a kid before thirty five, which was ages away, so perhaps there would be advances in diapers by then. Self-cleaning diapers, he'd say.

"What?" he asks, rolling his chair back and forth—a new habit of irritation for him.

"Nothing."

"You have that devilish grin on your lovely face. What are you thinking?" he asks suspiciously.

"I thought you could read my mind," I say smugly.

He glares at me. "You're thinking about how we used to bicker over potential diaper duty, but you don't want to say it now, given current circumstances."

I roll my eyes. "Lucky guess."

We make the transfer and I go to attend to my own bathroom needs. Then change the sheets on his bed. Another thing the caregiver would do today, but I don't mind. When I have put them in the washer and he allows me back into the bathroom, it's time for his shower.

The humor has faded. He is somber as I turn the shower on and wait for it to warm.

I know he does not want to do this now. Earlier he'd made the decision that it wouldn't be a problem, but then after our exchange in the bedroom—after my nipples had a mind of their own and his cock didn't, this is the last thing he wants—yet he can't do it on his own. He must sit in a shower chair, and he can't yet twist and bend in all the ways to properly bathe.

"You know, there's a bright side," I say quietly as I test the shower wand.

"What's that?" he says grimly.

"A few weeks ago, you were in far too much discomfort to feel anything else. Too worry about...other issues, like this.  You're getting better," I insist.

"No love, I'm just getting used to the new normal," he says grimly as he rolls back and forth in his chair.

"Riley—"

"It's alright, Rowan. Please can we not argue anymore?"

"Alright."

He nods and reaches for my right hand, rubbing each finger. It's ironic really, that he can't feel his feetm and I can't feel my pinky finger.

"You know what?" he says wearily. Let's skip this, and get a caregiver over here after PT. We're running late anyway."

"Are we?" I say absently, shutting off the shower, mildly relieved myself. I don't want to make Riley feel frustrated in any way. Most likely, the more gently we can handle this new "issue" the better chance for it working out.

"Yes."

I run my left hand through his thick black hair. "You always keep me on time."

He nods absently. "I always will."

He didn't mean it when he said it just now. It's just an old habit. A slip of the tongue. An automated response to my words. It's a thing we used to say on "work days" back in the early days of our marriage. A kind of acknowledgment that we were more than just artist and manager, but now husband and wife. That our relationship was thriving on so many levels.

Now our relationship is not thriving. Now, I'm putting on his shoes for him and he's hating every moment of it. But at the same time, he's stroking my braid as I lace his shoes.

"Thank you," he says when I lace his shoes. "I'm sorry. That this is all so hard. Not just for me, but for you, too. You don't have to do this, you know."

"I would tell you that I always will, and I would mean it. But I won't have to. You're going to get better," I whisper through my tears. "This is going to get better. All of it. Bit by bit."

"We'll see, love," he whispers back. "We'll see."

In the van, on the way to PT, Riley puts on U2. He sings absently.

I love his voice. He's one of those rare singers who loses his accent when he sings. It's not exactly unpracticed, I don't think. I'm sure when he sang punk he had that distinctive Morrissey lilt. But living in LA so long, working in alt rock, living with me probably, has caused a shift in his vocal style. He sounds casual. He sounds cool.

He brings a whole new dimension to this song he's singing right now. He doesn't sound anything like Bono—whose singing this song on the radio. He doesn't sound like Leed or my Dad, either—he doesn't have that gravel component to his voice. Not like Trace. Trace sings in that edgy, restrained way that was the original alt-rock style of the nineties.

No, Riley has a beautiful sensitivity to his voice and but he also has a very good ear for harmony. And something more. The subtle rhythms he infuses with his voice. Not for the first time, Riley's singing voice reminds me of Adams Heartley's voice.

Riley may even have a slightly more pleasing natural timbre than Adam. That's some nothing against Adam, who does a damn lot with the pipes he's been given. But some voices are just more pleasing than others. Like the difference between Leed and my dad. Same basic genre, same kind of frontman, same range. But Leed has a better voice. Leed's voice is incredible, really, considering it's relatively untrained. My dad's is too, but he probably wouldn't even have made it today, where anybody with a superb natural talent and a few hundred bucks can go on YouTube and vie to be discovered by the A&R guys. The industry has a much bigger field to choose from these days.

I'm more like Adam than Leed or my dad. I have a ton of musical training and I try to tease the very best out of what I've been given.

With my voice, I mean.

On the show.

That I don't want to do anymore.

Christ. If I'm not a guitarist with a band and I'm not an actress playing one on tv, what the hell am I going to do next?

I eye Riley.

Maybe I could help Riley in the talent management end. If we can somehow find our way back to each other, I would be his partner in any way he would let me. It would be kind of fun, to develop new talent, maybe...

But we said no expectations, right? So I need to put those thoughts away.

My favorite U2 song comes on. I find myself singing along with Riley.

In the rear view mirror, he grins at the harmony we make. It's the first genuine smile I've seen from him all day.

When the song ends I press pause. "My dad taught me that one when I was twelve years old. Can you play it?" I ask.

He scoffs. "I can play anything you can play, love."

"Right," I scoff right back.

"Since you'll play nothing, I can play quite a bit more, I'd say."

I don't take his bait. He just wants me to prove him wrong. I don't know if I can prove him wrong, and I don't think I want to know.

"Skid Marcs covered it a few times, mashed up with Dead Man Walking, and so I know a cool improvised opening. I'll show you."

"Will you?" he says quickly.

"I'll talk you through it, I mean."

I wonder absently if Riley could have hit the big time with his band, if it hadn't fallen apart. He says no. He says they were all mediocre musicians. But Riley has a very good voice, for indie. Or folk music. Hell way better than most indie singers. Maybe he wasn't meant to a punk rocker.

He nods. "Alright. Another duet then? I quite like the harmonies we made there. Although I think we could tighten it with a little more precise shift on the chorus."

"Like this, you mean?"

I sing the line he means, modifying my pitch slowly. He joins in. We repeat, until we are making our pitch infections in perfect time.

"From the top? Except when we hit the bridge, I'll go alto and let you run with that?"

"Okay, lets' try it."

We are sitting at a light, looking at each other in the mirror. "This is fun," I say.

"Yes," he agrees. "A lot of fun.

Another smile. I find my own mouth smiling back as I press play.