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Amanda had woken a little while ago, and was enjoying lying next to her husband – her husband! – watching shadows move across the walls as the room gradually lightened, until full daylight took over. Morning light now flooded the room. The metaphor wasn’t lost on Amanda; falling in love with Carisi, marrying Carisi, had felt like she was finally letting light in, allowing herself to be happy.
He was still asleep, lying on his side facing her. She drank in the sight of him, silver hair tousled, stubble shading his jaw; the shallow crease in his right cheek that deepened into a dimple when he smiled. He seemed to be one of those men for whom time acted as a refining agent, honing all that was attractive about him and just making it even more so as the years passed.
Seeing him like this, at peace, vulnerable, made her heart clench. I am going to take such good care of you, Dominick Carisi Junior, she thought fiercely. I promise. She had already made him the same promise during their vows yesterday, but repeating it now was as much a promise to herself as it was a reaffirmation of the one she had already made to him.
She stretched carefully, not wanting to wake him, and smiled to herself at the slight soreness she felt. It was a pleasurable soreness, and although in part it served to remind her that she wasn’t as young as she used to be, what it mostly did was remind her of what she and Carisi had done last night. Several times. Her smile widened.
Amanda remembered Dr Hanover’s summary of Carisi from a few years before: “Smart, kind, funny. You enjoy his company, he’s good with your kids.” She could provide an update now: “Amazing in bed.” On second thoughts, Dr Hanover didn’t need to know everything about the two of them, did she? Amanda tried her best to muffle her snort of laughter, but not well enough.
Carisi stirred. He opened his eyes; a sleepy smile spread over his face when he saw her lying next to him. “Good morning, wife.” He said the last word like a man who had been waiting all his life to say it. Like having the right to call her his wife brought him so much joy. She had noticed him dropping the word into conversation as much as possible at the reception yesterday; she had smiled every time she heard it.
“Good morning, husband.” It seemed that she loved referring to him as “husband” just as much as he loved referring to her as his wife. Amanda smiled back at him, captured, as always, by the softness in his eyes. She reached out with her left hand to cup his cheek; his hand came up to cover hers, thumb tracing the simple gold band he had placed on her ring finger less than twenty-four hours ago.
“Take off your ring,” he said.
Of all the things Amanda might have expected him to say to her this morning, that would have been last on the list. She raised an eyebrow at him. “You sick of me already, Counselor?”
“Never.” He reached over to run his fingers lightly down the side of her face. “Take off your ring and look inside the band.”
Puzzled, Amanda did as he asked and saw a single word, engraved in beautiful flowing script, on the inside of her wedding band: Partners. She hadn’t taken the ring off since he had placed it on her finger yesterday, so she hadn’t noticed the engraving. She felt tears prick behind her eyelids; she blinked them away and looked at him. “When did you …?”
“I went back to the jeweler the day after we chose the rings and asked him to add the engraving. My ring has it too.” He took off his own ring and showed it to her, the same word clear on the inside of the band.
Amanda felt the tears start again. Smart, kind, funny. Amazing in bed. And a hopeless romantic.
“Hey, are you crying?” His eyes crinkled at the corners to accompany his gentle, half-teasing, smile.
The usual denial came automatically to her lips, but she stopped herself before saying the words out loud. What the hell, she’d let him have this one. He’d earned it. Like the tears he had evoked eighteen months ago by the Hudson with a speech for a wedding that never was, these were good tears. “Yeah, I’m crying. And you can stop looking so smug about it.”
“Smug? Me?” He immediately pasted a look of innocence so patently false on his face that she couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yes, you.” She dashed the tears away. There was only one thing to do when he was like this – kiss him silly. So she did, hoping that her lips conveyed everything she felt. Love. Trust. Hope. Happiness. He had given all of those things to her; made her feel things she didn’t even know she was capable of. Made her believe in things she hadn’t before. If they both lived to be a hundred, it still wouldn’t be enough time for her to tell him everything that he meant to her. How much he meant to her.
He seemed to understand. Pulling back, he met her eyes with his, blue searching blue. “I love you,” he told her, all teasing gone from his face.
She traced his jaw with her fingertips. “I love you, too. Partner.”