Veiled Affection

Chapter Fifteen

Chances had it that indeed I was home alone that day. My routine obsessive husband was - against all odds - gone, and would be gone until late in the evening. Now I can't recall why - I figure it must have been some family obligation - but I know I was pleased.

That is why, upon receiving her text, I responded in a positive sense. Of course I wanted her to come over, whether we would just talk, or, as she stated, get absolutely wasted.

All alone. Sure you're up for it?, I replied, and the latter sentence was meant as nothing more than a tease. Only now can I look back on what I typed, and catch sight of a different meaning; a different intention. And it should have been picked up, but it wasn't. Instead, she replied in the same way as my initial intention: teasing, untroubled, ignorant. Impossible to out-drink me. I'll bring some, she texted, and I smiled. Is that even a word?, I texted back, but she didn't answer, and I knew she was already on her way over.

I opened the door and she stood there, carrying a shopper on her shoulder with two wine bottles sticking out.

''You weren't kidding.'' I laughed.

''Do I ever?''

''Debatable.'' I said and let her in.

Call it a habitual manner, or the fact that we didn't want our drunk traces showing all over the place, but we thought it best to just go upstairs, to the study. She and I entered the room, and I had expected to firstly sit down and talk for a bit, but she was fast to take the first bottle of wine out the bag.

''Have you got any glasses here?'' She asked.

I thought it swift of her to say, and I suppose I looked at her for a second or two, but then I simply answered.

''In the cupboard,'' I said, and gestured my head towards the corner of the room where it stood.

Without a hitch she walked over, took two wine glasses and filled them up.

''No beating around the bush?'' I said as she handed me the glass.

''Please, I'm in desperate need.'' She joked and raised her glass. "Cheers to getting drunk." She said, and it was odd - her making all these unusual comments - but she looked so adorable just then, that I responded blithely.

"Cheers."

We clang our glasses and took a sip.

"That's good," She muttered and took a second sip.

We sat down on the couch, and there goes another sip. I looked at her, and as she focused her attention momentarily on the glass in her hands, my thoughts went out to her.

I wanted to ask how she had been doing. Just like every other time I was with her. And every one of those times I knew better than to spoil our time together that I ended up not asking. It was a knowing of upcoming gloom that would arise once I would ask the question. But this time, I don't know if was the nosiness that had reached its peak, or the fact that she consumed her wine as if she hadn't drank anything all day long, that I decided to just ask.

''How have you been doing?''

She was still for a moment - looking down at her wineglass - and I saw right then that she deliberated whether to go in, or to retrieve; if she should answer genuinely, or ignore it all together. Alas, the latter was chosen, and she reacted with a simple ''Fine.''

She replied as if assuming I didn't want to know anything more. As if I was asking out of politeness, rather than sincere interest. But I did want to know. I wanted to know everything. What she had gone through the past few weeks handling her divorce, how she had been doing and what she felt. And I almost followed through with it by wanting to say she could share anything with me. But in that moment that I had decided to do so - to continue on with the topic - she beat me, and spoke sooner.