Will pulled away and took a seat on the arm of the couch, and waited. “From last night?”

“Yeah. I didn’t like that you just assumed I should take a position at a small teaching school.”

“Plum, I didn’t assume anything. Is it what I’d prefer? Maybe? Believe it or not, I happen to like you. I like to spend time with you.” He shook his head, laughing a little. “I mean, today is a pretty good example of what I’m talking about.”

“I’ll admit I shouldn’t have left for the entire day, but I told you, I needed to think.”

“Well, not to be an asshole and point out the obvious,” he said, “but you go to the lab on Sunday all the time. Not just when you need to think. And we were married one week ago.”

Oof. Okay, that one sort of hurt. I took a step away, unzipped my jacket, and placed it over a chair. “Going in to the lab is my job.”

“I know it’s your job, and I love that you take it so seriously and are so fucking good at it. But I’m also trying to express that I want some of your time, too. And I’d like you to take that into consideration when looking at all this. To talk to me about it.”

My head fell back and I looked up at the ceiling. “Are we going to argue about this again?”

I felt his stunned silence before he said, “What we did last night was not argue. We can discuss something—even heatedly—without it being an argument. That said, what’s wrong with arguing? It doesn’t mean we’re in a bad place just because we’re two people with different opinions about how to handle something.”

“If I were a man, would we be having this same discussion? Would a man be asked to take a teaching position over running a large academic lab?”

His eyes went wide with shock. “Yes! You’re not seriously saying this has anything to do with you being a woman, are you?”

“No, I mean... of course not. I know you wouldn’t do that. I just want—I don’t want us to argue about something until we know exactly what we’re arguing about, or whatever! Discussing!” I said, getting flustered. “We don’t even know all the options, so how can we possibly have a logical discussion about it? Can we just wait? Please?”

Will sighed, reaching up to push the hair back from his face. He looked at me with soft, patient eyes, and then nodded, holding out his hands to me. “Come here,” he said, and I took the few steps toward him.

This was what I needed: the closeness, the certainty I felt when wrapped in his arms. Everything else was up in the air, but this, this was my constant.