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They don't stay on the roof for long after Max's announcement at the harvest festival. The contrast between the absolute elation Helen feels radiating deep in her chest and the shocked—but not happy—looks on the faces of their colleagues when Max had dropped the bombshell about London had threatened to detract from the moment, and that's not how she wants to remember this day if it really is going to mark the first page of their new chapter. So, when the moment is right, she links her arm through his and whispers "Let's get out of here."
In the elevator, without saying a word, Max stands behind her and wraps both arms protectively around her, resting his chin on her head. He's warm all over—always warm, it seems, no matter what the weather—and she lets herself relax a little, breathe a little. She thumbs the button for ten, but when Max reaches back and hits ground, she lets out a hum of confusion.
"Tuesdays I normally work late, so Luna's nanny picks her up from daycare and takes her home." He checks his watch. "We'll probably miss dinner and bath time but we should make it back for bedtime."
Against her better judgment, the cogs of Helen's mind start to whir. She wishes she could switch off the overthinking sometimes, but at this point she's accepted it's a fundamental part of her personality and probably something she can't change. "Is that why you chose tonight for me to stay?" She ventures. "Afraid I'll cramp your parenting style?"
Max humors her, she can sense from the almost imperceptible tension which works its way up his body while he's still holding her that he knows there's two different conversations happening here, but he chuckles in a low tone instead. "There are nights where I'd love it if the three of us could hang out together, and we'll get plenty of those, I'm sure." The elevator door dings, and they make their way out into the atrium together. "But then," he says, holding out a hand so they can interlace their fingers in a way that's still so new and so exciting that she feels a bit like a teenager. "There are nights where I want you all to myself, without either of us having to pick rice out of our hair. Is that okay?"
And well, he's clearly not deliberately trying to keep Luna at a distance; it's fair reasoning. So Helen decides to shelve the more nuanced conversation for another night, nods and takes his hand, smiling as he winds their fingers together.
~
On the subway, they flop into seats at the end of a car and lean into one another like personal space is something they've never known, rather than something that up until very recently they've both gone to painful lengths to preserve. Helen closes her eyes, dimly aware from the angle of Max's head that he's staring at something on the wall above her.
"What is it?" She asks with her eyes still closed, too comfortable to turn and see.
"One of those subway poems," Max murmurs, sounding distracted, his fingers absent-mindedly tracing the hem of her jacket. Then, taking her completely by surprise, he starts to read aloud.
All we want is to succumb to a single kiss
that will contain us like a marathon
with no finish line
He stops, presumably suddenly self-aware, although there are enough people around them staring in opposite directions that they're hidden in plain sight and Helen's pretty sure nobody is watching. "God, that was really corny, wasn't it," he laughs into her hair.
"Maybe," Helen says, her head still balanced on his shoulder. "But I was actually kind of enjoying it."
Of course, Max can take a hint, and is never one to pass up an opportunity to do something embarrassing in public. He wraps an arm around her like if he tries hard enough he'll be able to pull her even closer, like they're not already glued together from shoulder to knee, and carries on.
And if so, that we land
like newspapers before sunrise, halcyon
mornings arrived like blue martinis. I am
learning the steps to a foreign song: her mind
was torpedo, and her body was storm,
a kind of 'Wow'. All we want is a metropolis
of Sundays, an empire of hand-holding
and park benches? She says, 'Leave it all up to me.'
It hits Helen then for the first time; the fact that this evening on the roof he'd listened to what she needed and without trying to solve for all of the above, he'd chosen her.
"Thank you," she whispers quietly into the crook of his neck, and means it.
~
They make it back to Max's in time to get a sleepy cuddle from Luna and do the awkward set of introductions between Helen and Luna's nanny where Max stumbles over what to call her for several long seconds and settles on 'this is my—Helen', and then all of a sudden it's just the three of them standing in the living room, Luna in her dinosaur pajamas in Max's arms. Helen tries to shake the feeling of being a spare part around them, knowing that she was never going to fit seamlessly into any of this. Watching Luna cling to her father with both arms wrapped around his neck, she reassures herself that they've got time to work it out.
"She's overtired, so don't take her lackluster greeting personally. I'm gonna put her down," Max says softly, gesturing to the newly constructed toddler bed which sits not in the crib's original spot in his bedroom but on the other side of the glass wall in what's technically the dining room, with a sparkly velvet canopy hanging over it to create a tiny sleeping space of Luna's own. She pictures Max taking Luna to the hardware store on a Saturday morning while she was in London, buying the hoop to make the canopy, threading the curtain and screwing the whole thing into the ceiling. It shouldn't surprise her—the fact that he's such a loving father—but it still makes her catch her breath, sometimes. He shifts Luna's weight to the side to free up one of his hands, unlocks his phone and swipes to find Postmates, making a show of placing the phone ceremonially in Helen's outstretched hands like he's entrusting her with some great responsibility. "Best dim sum in the city. There is literally nothing I don't like."
While he carries Luna to bed, she takes a seat on the couch, tucks her legs up under herself and begins to scroll down the menu. In between reading and swiping, she sneaks glances at Luna's bed, watching Max as he sits on the edge of it with half of the canopy wrapped around him, reading Luna a bedtime story. It's still so new, getting to watch them muddle through the boring everyday parts of life which happen outside of the hospital walls. She's definitely watching it all through rose-tinted glasses, and she knows that at some point the illusion will be shattered, but for now she's enchanted just watching.
~
By the time the food arrives, Luna is fast asleep, so they close the door and relocate to Max's room with trays and the bottle of Malbec that Helen had swiped from her wine rack at home before leaving this morning, because it had felt strange coming over empty-handed. They sit cross-legged on the bed and pass containers and steamer baskets between them, sharing out crispy potstickers and impossibly fluffy char sui bao as they finally breach the subject of their colleagues' reactions to the news.
"You know I love what you did back there," Helen says, picking her words carefully in between bites. "But I'm already beginning to wonder if it was unfair to spring it on everyone at once, at what was supposed to be a party." She's thinking of Lauren and Karen in particular, both of whom had looked nothing short of betrayed in a way that makes her dread the next time she'll be alone in a room with either of them. The unspoken corollary of putting oneself first is that it means putting everyone else second.
"I got a little carried away trying to prove that I'm all in, I guess." Max grins, and she can tell he doesn't regret his decision to announce it like that in the slightest. "I think once they've had a few days to get used to the surprise, they'll be okay."
"And Gwen and Calvin?" It had seemed easy enough when push came to shove for Max to come clean to everyone at the hospital, but after the fraught custody battle over Luna earlier in the year, Helen would be a fool if she didn't foresee Georgia's parents putting up a fight over Max taking their only grandchild three thousand miles away across the ocean. She'd expected him to look coy in response to her question, or exasperated maybe, but instead all she sees on his face is a sudden fall in his expression, sadness clouding his features in the blink of an eye.
"I'll tell them, you have my word. Just, not tonight?" The way he phrases it—a question rather than an assertion— makes it clear that if Helen still has any doubts as to his commitment he'll call them up and have it out with them right now, but selfishly, she doesn't want the first night she spends here to be tainted by the very real likelihood of the conversation going badly. So, she shakes her head, watches the relief wash over Max and decides to chalk today up as a win.
Clearly trying to reroute the conversation back to happier matters, Max picks up his chopsticks again, deftly taking a pillowy turnip cake and bathing it in chili oil, lifting it up to Helen's mouth where he waits expectantly for her to take it.
"Is it weird to say I'm actually really impressed by your dexterity?" She asks, conceding to the subject change and biting into the turnip cake. "Mmm," she adds, as a hundred different flavors and textures hit her tongue simultaneously. "I thought I was full, but it turns out I can make an exception for these."
"Right?" He agrees. "And I mean, I know I'm not a surgeon, but I'd sorta hoped by now you'd agree I'm good with my hands." As he says it, he emphasizes his point by stroking two fingers innocently up and across her thigh.
”Oh, I don't remember," Helen muses, because two can play at that game. "I could probably use a refresher."
Smoothly, Max starts to lift the trays and empty boxes off the bed, stacking them on the floor and then moving their wine glasses to the windowsill. "What a coincidence," he says once the space between them is cleared. "Because I distinctly remember you promising me this morning that when I told everybody I'd get dim sum and then some. And, well, as you can see..." He gestures theatrically to the floor and Helen can't help but laugh. "We've just finished the dim sum."
Kissing him is just starting to go from feeling brand new—bitten lips and head knocks and giggled apologies in the dark—to feeling like something she knows how to do, filing away his responses in the corners of her mind, learning what makes him tick. It still leaves her light-headed, because Max kisses in rolling waves of intensity, picking up and slowing down in time with a rhythm only he knows, leaving Helen never quite sure what's coming next. He's been slow and tender and fast and rough all in the space of a single evening before now, but the common theme has been the feeling that in between every touch and every kiss, he's been learning her too.
"Oh, before we—," he starts, pulling an inch or so back from her lips like he's not willing to distance himself any further quite yet. "The glass walls were all fun and boho when we bought the place, but they're very much not soundproof, so uh..."
"Understood," Helen cuts him off, feeling warmth rising in her cheeks, despite herself. "That's easy, I can be quiet. But," she adds as an afterthought. "I'm putting real walls on the list of non-negotiables for our flat in London."
"Yes ma'am," Max says, and then he's kissing her again, all tongue, his hands at her waist un-tucking her top from her skirt.
She yields, raises her arms to help him pull it off over her head. Max ducks, kissing her through her bra, soaking the lace with his tongue. It's unexpected and filthy and Helen has to hold her breath to keep from making a sound as he teases her, sucking ever so gently until she pushes him back with a firm palm against his chest and breathes, "Take your clothes off."
"Yes ma'am," he repeats, low and sultry this time. He reaches an arm behind his head and pulls his t-shirt off in one easy motion, dropping it at the foot of the bed as he starts to undo his jeans. The rush of desire becomes a game as they both seek to rid themselves of every scrap of their clothing in turn; Helen's bra, Max's jeans, her skirt, her underwear, and then she's perched on the edge of the bed as Max eases his boxers down and she finds herself helping him, impatiently kissing every inch of him that she can reach. Max stifles a groan as she wraps her hands around the back of his thighs and pulls him towards her, letting her tongue follow her fingers down the length of his cock as she strokes him. As she builds up a rhythm, twisting on the upstrokes like she'd seen him do himself the one time she'd asked 'let me watch', she notices his hands at his sides, clenching and unclenching into tight fists like he's concentrating on keeping them still. Glancing up, she realizes his head is tilted back, eyes closed, chest flushed pink as he breathes in shaky bursts. He's the picture of someone who's holding back.
Pausing, she reaches out tenderly for one of his hands and uncurls the fist with her fingers. "Look at me," she coaxes. He obliges, looking down at her curiously as she brings his hand to the back of her head before returning her attention to his cock, and then he gasps as kissing turns to stroking turns to sucking. His hands use their newly granted freedom to hold her close as his hips start up a rhythm of their own, beginning to lose the restrained edge of the Max Goodwin who's in complete control of his responses.
"I can't," he chokes after a few more strokes, Helen's tongue still circling the head of his cock with no intention of backing off until he actually asks her to. "I can't watch you or this is going to be over too soon for either of us." He gives her a rueful smile, and she relents.
"We don't have to—", she starts, trying to work out how to phrase it. "There's no playbook for how sex has to go, you know?"
He smiles, pushing her back on the bed and crawling up after her, and she knows from his eyes that he understands.
"I know" he says, as he strokes two fingers through where she's already wet, teasing her. "I just really want to be inside you tonight." As he says it, he sinks his fingers into her, and god, she'd always wondered if with hands that big he'd be clumsy when he touched her but so far he's proven her completely wrong in that respect. His fingers are precise and unrelenting, following her whenever her hips buck away from his touch, knowing that it's not too much until she says it is. His other hand settles on her stomach, fingers splayed to keep her in place, sliding up her chest still to circle her nipples whenever she stills. Helen bites down on her bottom lip to keep herself from crying out, sinking further into Max's touch on every stroke of his fingers.
His weight shifts away from her towards the foot of the bed and his soft coaxing noises go quiet for a second. Looking down at him, she suddenly knows exactly how he'd felt when he'd said 'I can't'. Watching Max's tongue lap teasingly over her clit while she rides his fingers almost tips Helen over the edge with no warning at all. The intensity in his eyes is too much when he's all that she can feel around her and inside her and she's coming apart in his hands.
She rolls her hips slowly, unable to suppress a gasp that comes out in several shuddery breaths. "Max." She needs him to realize that she can't stay quiet with him touching her like this, she can't think of anything else when his tongue is all over her, and maybe he understands because he crawls back up her body while his fingers carry on working her through it, his other hand going to her mouth, slipping the tips of three fingers inside. She sucks on them, and this time it's him who has to fight against a gasp. He must know that she's on the edge, because takes this as his cue, his fingers curling inside her and stroking until she's coming, writhing against his palm, soaking his fingers, her legs shaking with the force of it.
"Wow," Max murmurs, slipping his hand away from her mouth so he can stroke her neck, and bringing his other hand up to his own mouth so he can taste her on his fingers. "Can we do that again?"
Aftershocks still coursing through her, Helen closes her eyes and lets out a breathy laugh. "You're going to be the death of me, you know. I was keeping it together until I looked at you, right as you—" she groans, feeling the friction of his palm on her clit as his fingers start to trace swirling patterns across her upper thigh. Her train of thought disappears as she sees the look of pure lust painting his features; he looks wrecked. "I want you," she whispers, running a finger down his chest and then wrapping a hand around him, stroking lazily. His eyes flicker up to the ceiling involuntarily as his breath catches in his throat before he sighs into her touch, and then he comes back to himself and starts to spread her legs with his hands on her thighs.
If Helen knows anything at all for sure in this moment, it's that watching each other when they're both keyed up with desire like this is going to leave them with a sleepless toddler on their hands, or a noise complaint, or both. "I was wrong about it being easy to keep quiet," she says, slipping out of his grip, rolling over onto her front and sweeping her braids to one side so she can look back at him over her shoulder. "But we've got pillows, so we can make this work."
When Max's voice comes, it's shaky with laughter and heavy with desire, all at once. "Have I ever told you how much I love your resourcefulness?" He settles on his knees between her legs, kissing down the notches of her spine as his hands go to her hips and he lifts. She remembers—before any of this had happened, back when he was just a late-night fantasy she would never have admitted to—at first she used to freeze up whenever they brushed against each other, brittle under his touch, worried her body would give her feelings away. Now they're learning the contours and tells of each other by touch alone, and she feels pliant and malleable with his hands on her, like clay he's shaping with his fingertips. He teases her, rubbing the head of his cock through her folds, checking she's still wet. Then, with very little preamble—which she's grateful for, because she's not sure she can handle much more of the feeling of being on-edge tonight—he sinks into her, half a moan escaping through his closed mouth at the same time as Helen holds her breath to swallow a gasp of her own.
He starts slow, full strokes which make her thrust back against him impatiently, which earns her a deep chuckle. "Okay, you win." He says, knowing what she's asking for. His hands settle on her hips, gentle at first and then firmer as he picks up his strokes and starts to fuck her in earnest. Helen cries out almost immediately, burying her face into the pillow to stifle it. Max can't keep his hands still, moving them from her hips across her lower back, down the curve of her ass and then back up and around to her chest. This is the first time they've done this, and with the freedom to concentrate fully without the distraction of getting lost in each other's reactions, Max touches her like he's known her body his whole life.
His hands settle back on her hips but hard enough to bruise now, and the thought of running her hands over the same spots tomorrow when she's back in her own bed alone sends another wave of desire rushing through her like a current. "God, Helen I'm—" he says in a single, fierce breath, his thrusts getting sloppier as he starts to lose it. When he slips a hand beneath her and finds her clit again with his fingertips, clearly adamant that he's taking her with him, Helen knows she's done for. She holds her breath, not trusting the pillow to muffle the sounds that she's biting back. Max's last few thrusts are drawn out, and as they both start to lose it, the lack of oxygen goes to her head and for a second she feels like she's floating. As she comes, she breathes out in a rush of relief. His hips falter behind and then he's spilling into her, collapsing forwards onto her back with shaking hands and kissing her from her neck to her shoulder blades.
It takes a while for her to come back to herself, her fingers tingling and her legs still shaking. Max uses the arm that's still under her to roll them both onto their sides and then keeps it there, wrapped around her like he's not ready to let go of her yet. "Okay?" He asks, his lips soft and delicate against the top of her spine.
Helen nods, sighing contentedly into the pillow again as the lightheadedness starts to recede. She wants to say it's not like that with other people, but something about the way he's nestled up against her tells her he already knows; that he feels it too.
Instead, she pulls his arm tighter around her and interlaces their fingers against her chest. "I know so many dim sum places in London," she says, feeling Max burst out laughing behind her, trying to stifle the noise against her skin.
"We should probably try all of them," he murmurs.
"Play your cards right and we just might.”