Coda Books 06 - Fear, Hope, and Bread Pudding (MM)

this room has seen nothing at all. It’s silent. And empty.”
    “It won’t always be that way.”
    “I want to believe that, but it’s hard.”
    “You need to have hope.”
    His laugh was dry and spoke more of heartache than humor. “I’ve never needed it in the past. I can only think of one other time in my life when I’ve wanted something so desperately and yet had no idea how to get it.”
    “And what happened then?”
    He squeezed my hand. “You pulled your head out of your ass and came after me.”
    I smiled at the memory. “But this is different, isn’t it?”
    “It is, and I hate it. I hate the uncertainty. I wish somebody would just tell me, ‘yes, you’re going to get a child,’ or ‘no, it’s never going to happen.’ Then, either way, I could plan. Even if it meant waiting another year, or three years, or five. At least I’d know. But the uncertainty of forcing myself to hold on to a dream that may never come true is driving me mad.”
    I nodded, wishing more than anything that I had an answer for him. I understood his pain, even if I didn’t feel it as acutely as he did. I put my arms around him, although he was stiff against me. He had to resist, because accepting comfort would be admitting how much pain he was in. “Remember what you did when you were waiting for me to figure things out?”
    “I ran.”
    “Yes.” I rubbed my hand up his back and kissed the side of his head. “Let’s run this time too.”
    He turned to face me. My eyes had finally adjusted to the dimness of the room, and I could just make out his cheekbones and his soft, full lips. “Are you serious?”
    “We never did take a honeymoon.”
    “What if something comes up while we’re gone?”
    “Thomas knows how to reach us. If he calls, we’ll be on the first plane home.” I pulled him toward me again. I kissed his cheek and his jaw until finally, he relaxed and went limp in my arms, melting against my body.
    “Where should we go?”
    “I have never seen your home in Hawaii.”
    “I have a private snorkeling pond.”
    “We can do more than snorkel in it, right?”
    He laughed. “Indeed. I was about to tell you not to bother packing a swimsuit.”
    I thought about being with him in the warm water. About kissing him while we were both salty from the sea. About adding our own heat to the pool. “Let’s leave right now.”
    “I can have us on a plane in less than twelve hours, but first….” He sighed and tilted his head up to me. “Make me think about something else for a while.”
    “How do you feel about neckties?”
    He laughed as his lips found mine. “I’m one hundred percent in favor.”

    F OR the next eight months, we lived much as he had lived before we’d become a couple, traveling more often than not. We spent time in Hawaii and the Hamptons and took trips to Okinawa and Prague. We dropped in to Colorado three different times to see our friends. We also spent a month touring Italy. We started in Rome. It was my first time there, but Cole hated it for some reason I didn’t quite understand, so we quickly moved on to Florence and Sienna. I fell in love with Tuscany and discovered Cole spoke Italian nearly as well as he spoke French. We rarely mentioned the adoption, although Cole lamented being so often away from my father. He began to talk of giving him a yearly stipend in order to allow him to quit his job. I argued that my father would never accept such a thing. “Besides,” I told Cole, “it’s rude to even offer.”
    “Let me get this straight, sugar. You approved of me offering to pay for Angelo’s college, did you not?”
    “Yes, but that’s different.”
    “How?”
    “Because….” It was, wasn’t it? And yet, I couldn’t think of a reason. It made sense for him to offer to pay for Angelo’s schooling, even if Angelo hadn’t yet accepted the offer. So why shouldn’t he offer to help my father retire in style?
    Despite my feelings on the matter, midway through the year, my father made a liar out of me and happily left his job of twenty-two years. He had a decent chunk of money in his 401(k), but it was Cole’s “travel fund” that really sealed the deal, and soon my father was traveling with us about half the time. He seemed to sense that the adoption was a delicate subject. He never asked about our progress, which was good since we had nothing to report. Anytime we returned to Phoenix, we’d spend a few weeks avoiding the closed door at the end of the