Reclaimed in Room 214

The thing nobody tells you about dental conferences is how much time you spend standing around a coffee urn pretending to care about intraoral scanners. I'm Lucy, I'm 42, I've been a hygienist for almost twenty years, and I've been married to Lenny for ten of them. Three days in Omaha. Day two, and my feet already hurt.

I'm carrying my little swag bag toward the keynote when I see him.

Eddie. My ex-husband. The one I divorced when I was 30 after four years of him telling me my needs were, and I quote, "a lot." He's across the hall with his arm around a woman who can't be older than 31. She's wearing a green dress and laughing at whatever he's saying, and he's doing the thing with his eyebrows, the thing he used to do at parties when he was working a room.

My stomach drops and then floods with heat. Twelve years and he still does this to me. Not longing. Anger. He's here, at MY industry's conference, he sells software now, he has no business being here, and he's parading her around like a trophy.

I don't go over there. I learned my lesson a long time ago that talking to Eddie feels like arguing with a very smug wall. Instead I pull out my phone and text Lenny.

Room 412. Now.

Lenny's 45, he does pharma sales, and he's at this same conference for some reason that involves a cardiologist and a golf game. He's three floors up in our room right now, probably watching local news in his socks.

Then I'm doing something I haven't done since maybe ever. I walk out of the keynote before the lights go down. Dr. Prasad from the booth next to ours gives me a little wave and I wave back like a normal person leaving a normal keynote and not a woman on a mission.

The elevator ride up takes forever. I check my phone twice. Lenny texted back a thumbs up, which is so him. The man communicates in thumbs up. I love him and it drives me insane.

In the room I kick off my flats, and then, standing in front of the big window that overlooks the interstate, I take off everything else. The dress goes over the chair. Bra and panties on top of it. I'm not a body-confident person, never have been, but standing there naked with the highway hum below me I feel almost dangerous.

I find the lube in my toiletry bag. It's the travel size from the plane trip, but it'll do. I set it on the nightstand like a little flag I'm planting.

There's a knock and my whole chest goes tight.

"Lucy?" Lenny says through the door.

"It's open."

He comes in with his badge still clipped to his shirt. Mid-forties, going a little soft in the middle, still has the forearms that did it for me at a barbecue eleven years ago. He stops dead when he sees me on the bed.

"Oh," he says. "Oh wow. Okay!"

"Hi," I say. I'm lying back against the pillows on purpose, not hiding anything.

He looks at the lube on the nightstand and then at me. "So this is happening. Right now. In the middle of the afternoon."

"Right now. In the middle of the afternoon."

He starts unclipping his badge, very focused on it. "Can I ask what brought this on, or is it one of those mysteries I should be grateful for?"

"Eddie is here."

His hands stop. "Your Eddie."

"My Eddie. With his girlfriend. In the lobby. Wearing a lanyard like he has any reason to be here."

Lenny sits down on the edge of the bed. He's quiet for a second, and I know that quiet, it's him being careful. "You okay?"

"I'm fine. Better than fine. That's the point." I sit up and put my hand flat on his chest. "Lenny, listen. I saw him and I felt that old feeling, the one where I'm small and he's rolling his eyes at me, and I decided I'm not keeping that. I want to replace every memory of him with you. Today. Starting with this afternoon."

"You don't have to compete with a ghost," he says, but his voice has already dropped, and his hand comes up to my knee.

"I'm not competing. I'm renovating."

That gets a laugh out of him. "Renovating. Okay. What does the contractor need to do?"

"Everything he said no to!"

That lands. He knows exactly what I mean. I told him the whole shape of it early on, one bad Tuesday, and he didn't flinch, he just said "why didn't you tell me sooner." Eddie refused to even consider anal. Called it gross, once, at a dinner party, loud enough for the table.

Lenny leans in and kisses me, slow, his hand coming up to my jaw. He kisses the way he does everything, unhurried, a little methodical, and I make an embarrassing noise into his mouth because it's been months since we did this with any real attention. Work, his travel, my travel, it all just piled up.

"You taste like conference coffee," he murmurs against my mouth.

"Drank three cups. I'm shaking."

"Good. Hold still then." He pushes me back against the pillows and kisses down my neck, down between my breasts, taking his time. My hands go to his belt and I get it unbuckled while he's still working on my collarbone, and I feel him smile against my skin.

"Eager," he says.

"Extremely. Shirt off. Now!"

He sits up and pulls his shirt off over his head, and I get his slacks and boxers down while he kicks off his shoes, and there's an ungainly moment where he nearly falls off the bed and we both crack up, which is fine, honestly, that's us. Ten years in, we laugh during sex. Eddie never laughed. Eddie performed.

Then he reaches over me for the lube and things change tone. He warms it in his hand, which he does, he always does, he says cold lube is a crime. I'm already on my back with a pillow under my hips because I planned this, I literally planned this in the elevator.

"Relax for me," he says, and his fingers start slow, one, just circling my ass, patient, the tip pressing in and stopping.

"I've been waiting all morning," I tell him. My voice comes out lower than I expected.

"I can tell. You texted like a hostage negotiation."

"Shut up and keep going."

He keeps going. One finger slides all the way in and my back arches off the mattress. He works it slowly, in and out, letting me open around him, and adds more lube, and then a second finger, and this is the part, this is the part I've missed so much it embarrasses me, the stretch, the fullness, the way my whole body goes quiet and loud at the same time.

"Oh god," I say. "There. Just like that."

"Still good?" he asks. He always asks.

"So good. More."

He crooks his fingers and finds the spot that makes me grab the sheet, and he stays there, working me with deliberate care, watching my face the way he does, like he's taking notes. My hips come up off the pillow to meet his hand.