Vivian still didn’t look appeased. Which was weird. Why was she making this so complicated? Why had she been dead set on making it complicated from the beginning?

Jules considered that. Vivian had been married three times. For a woman so devoted to her career, she’d invested a lot of time and energy in relationships that had never worked out. If Jules wasn’t used to relationships being this complicated, Vivian probably couldn’t imagine they could ever be easy.

Time to finally answer one question. “Vivian? Why were you so sure that you didn’t want to have sex with me?”

With a frown, Vivian admitted, “I didn’t know that I wanted to.” Then she blushed and looked even madder about that. “Until you kissed my hand. That was… I didn’t expect it.”

Jules remembered how Vivian’s look of surprise had kept her warm during a few lonely nights. “I’m sure you didn’t.”

“Are you sorry I didn’t jump into bed with you right away?”

It was Jules’s turn to blush. “No! I didn’t want to rush you or push you.” Much. “I didn’t want to screw anything up. I wanted it to be okay.”

“Then we agreed on that,” Vivian said lightly. “Or do you think you’ve ‘screwed it up’ now?”

“Not if I did it right,” Jules dared, and Vivian finally smiled. Awesome. “Want breakfast?”

“You were breakfast.” Vivian stretched and smiled again, relaxing visibly.

“Well, seconds are available,” Jules said, “whenever you want them.”

“Why do you say things like that?”

“I don’t know.” Jules laughed.

Vivian rolled her eyes but scooted in closer on the mattress.

She wasn’t sure how it happened, but they both fell back asleep. So much for Vivian’s idea that they shouldn’t laze around.

When she woke up again at ten o’clock, Vivian had plastered herself to Jules’s side and was sleeping like a baby. Her head was on Jules’s chest, and she’d thrown an arm across Jules’s stomach.

Watching Vivian sleep, she remembered the first time she’d ever seen Vivian at rest—that night in the car just after she’d learned she was pregnant. It seemed like years ago, or at least like more than four months.

Jules petted her hair, careful not to do anything that would tug at her scalp or otherwise wake her up.

The room, the whole house, was peacefully still. Sunlight was shining through the blinds now, falling across the bed, painting Vivian in stripes of light and shadow. There weren’t even many sounds of traffic outside on Vivian’s quiet street. Jules wondered how many people were doing what they were doing now: lying in, sleeping late on a Saturday. She wondered, in fact, if Vivian ever had done this before. Surely at least once.