“Well, here I am.” She raised an eyebrow. “Or did you mean just to have sex? A quickie and you’re out?”

“Stop it,” he said.

“Here, Hope and I will go,” she said, starting to stand up. “And you can just call a prostitute to come on by instead.”

“Whitney!” he said, exasperated, digging his fingers into his temples. “Stop acting so obtuse. You know what it is. I feel uncomfortable . . . pretending to be a little family. We already have families.” Guilt came over his face at his own reminder, his eyes drifting in the direction of his suit jacket, slung over a chair. He was going to leave.

“I didn’t come here to play house,” she said, and dug in her bag for the cheap iPad she and Grant had bought as their official baby screen—a small one, locked in an indestructible case, loaded with “educational” videos. She snapped it into the front of Hope’s stroller, then pulled up the first playlist she could find. A song began, with hyped-up cartoon barnyard animals dancing a square dance. She lifted Hope from the rug and buckled her into the stroller. “Look, Hope-y. Look at the cows!” The lure of the screen worked its magic. Hope leaned forward and began to point at the moving images. “This will be a treat for her,” Whitney said to Christopher, over her shoulder. “She hardly ever gets screen time.” She cast her eyes around the room, settling on the bathroom door. “And she can hang out in here.”

She wheeled Hope’s stroller over. The bathroom was lovely, all gray tile, each soap still packaged in its starched paper, the little amber bottles of shampoo gleaming in the soft light. “Ooh, look at this beautiful bathroom!” she said as she pushed the stroller in. “I’ll be right back, sweetie.” She tiptoed out as Hope clapped her hands at the animals.

She shut the door and met Christopher’s eyes again. He was standing now, his jacket in his hand.

“You think I’m crazy,” she said.

“Whitney . . . ,” he said, and he didn’t deny it.

She burst into tears and slid down against the bathroom door to the rug. “I’m sorry,” she said through her sobs. “It’s just a really tough time right now, and all I wanted was to come here and be with you, and the babysitter canceled, and now I’ve made a mess of it all.”

He hesitated, looking over at her. Then he sighed, laid his jacket back on the chair, and sat down next to her, gathering her in his arms, holding her while she cried against him. He smelled like coffee, rich and peppery. She probably smelled like sour sweat from lugging Hope’s stroller around. Through the bathroom door, the faint sounds of barnyard songs tinkled on. Her tears stained the light blue of his shirt to dark navy. His body was rigid against hers. He held her like she was almost a stranger or an old-maid aunt of his who had gotten too drunk and weepy at Thanksgiving, not like she was a lover he’d once said was the sexiest woman alive.

Screw that. She swallowed away the lump in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said into his chest.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he said, sighing.

“No,” she said, dangling her hand down into his lap and brushing it against him, almost as if it were an accident. “I want to.”

Christopher tightened in a different way, a sort of snapping to attention, and she ran her hand up and down his thigh more insistently. “I’m sorry,” she said, “that I couldn’t wait a whole week more to have you inside of me.”

She glanced up at him through her eyelashes, still wet with tears. The look of apprehension on his face was turning into a look she liked a whole lot more.

“I’m sorry I kept thinking about the way your breath changes when you fill me up,” she said, walking her fingers up to his belt buckle and undoing it. He grasped her shoulder as she slipped her fingers inside his pants, to where he was hardening, and brought him out. “I’m sorry I wanted to taste you,” she breathed, then bent down and ran her tongue over the tip of his penis as lightly as she could. A drop of precum dissolved in her mouth, salty as the ocean. He shivered.

She straightened back up and turned away. “But you’re right,” she said, making as if she were about to stand. “This was too crazy. I’ll go.”

He grabbed her around the waist and threw her roughly down onto the ground, holding her wrists above her head. “You fucking tease,” he growled in her ear, laughing in a sort of disbelief, and then they were kissing, their tongues tasting like her tears, as he ripped open the buttons on her dress and stripped her black lace underwear from her hips.

Some overeager hotel employee had turned on the central AC too early in the year, and a vent blew cold air over Whitney with a low hum. In comparison, Christopher’s mouth was hot against hers, as scalding as the hot coffee he tasted like.

She rubbed herself against him, not letting him inside her just yet. Running her fingers through his curls, she tugged him away from her by his hair, wriggling her hips to a new spot on the rug, just out of reach of where he wanted her. She gripped his face and stared him straight in his hazel eyes, her nose inches away from his bumpy one. “Tell me I was right to come here anyway,” she said.

“You were right,” he said, panting.

She rolled over so she was on top of him, perching just above his penis. Slowly, she lowered herself down, stopping when she’d only taken the first couple of inches of him into her. Her thighs shook. “Tell me how glad you are.”

“I’m so glad,” he said, grasping her ass, and pulled her hard against him. She let out a strangled moan. As they bucked, he dug his fingers into her skin. “God, Whitney, you make me feel so good.”

She smiled against his shoulder as his breathing started to change, and her whole body tingled in anticipation.

And then, from the bathroom, Hope began to cry.

They both looked at the door, their bodies growing rigid. Probably the playlist had stopped. Whitney couldn’t hear the tinkling barnyard song, the helium voices, any longer. She shook her head. “It’s fine,” she said.

“Are you sure?” Christopher asked.

“Yes. Yes,” she said. “Keep going.”

He thrust again and again, but Hope’s cries were echoing off the tiled wall. This bathroom had the acoustics of Carnegie Hall. Christopher’s face set in determination, as if suddenly the act in which they were engaged wasn’t about the pleasure he was feeling but merely about needing to cum. Wanting to get it over with.

He flipped her over and began to drive into her from behind, pulling her hair. The walls of her vagina started stinging, just a little at first and then as if he was opening up a thousand tiny paper cuts to the soundtrack of Hope’s wails. It felt like it did with Grant, she realized with a sudden shock, her eyes beginning to water. She gritted her teeth and willed him to get it over with. She didn’t need her own pleasure today. They could still salvage things, if only he managed to finish. But instead, he pulled out of her abruptly.