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Twenty pounds, give or take a few.

Apparently, I had lost a lot of weight this year. That fan wasn’t just bullshitting me. At least, twenty pounds was my best guess. I had gone for years without really worrying about it, just estimating based on how my clothes fit, so I couldn’t really say for sure. Now it nagged at me, this uncertainty about just how much progress I had made. I wanted to be able to pin a definite number on it, to know with certainty, although I doubted anyone else but me truly cared.

There was one person who I was sure would notice, though. I stood in the airport in Atlanta, nervously tapping my foot and hoping I was at the right place. Finally, after what felt like hours, I saw a familiar figure around the corner. I would know her long, dark hair anywhere, even if she did look different now. There was just something different about the way she carried herself since Shepherd was born. Not to mention that it was still a bit disconcerting to see her, the girl I’d been with since I was fifteen, the girl I’d lost my virginity to, pushing a stroller—although right then, she was on her own. My mom had agreed to keep Shepherd so we could have a few days to ourselves.

“You’ve lost weight,” she said. It was the first thing out of her mouth, but there was no judgment in her voice. It was just a statement of fact.

“Yeah, a little bit,” I kissed her forehead and took the massive bag from her arms. “You look good, too.”

“But not any skinnier,” she said, something of a teasing tone to her voice.

I shrugged. “Still beautiful. You know I wouldn’t care either way; if you were a hundred pounds or four hundred.”

It was the truth. I loved her for who she was, not how she looked. It was only myself I judged so harshly and held to such high, nearly impossible to reach standards. I hoped she knew that. I hoped she knew it wasn’t just a line.

Her flight had been a late one, so we loaded her luggage into a taxi and headed straight back to my hotel to eat a late night dinner of Goodfellas Pizza. I picked at one large slice of veggie lovers, and Kate did the same. I wondered when we had become so similar, but I supposed that happened to all couples after so many years together. If there wasn’t some similarity to begin with, it never would have worked. Now that we were older and settled into our relationship, it wasn’t really surprising at all that we seemed to practically be twins.

Maybe I should have found it depressing that, at only twenty-two, I felt like I had been married my whole life. But that was just how I had always felt–years and years older than I really was. Maybe it was depressing, but it was just a fact of life for me. Call it having an old soul or call it being a jaded child superstar. If it wasn’t normal, how should I know? It was my normal.

“Alright, I think it’s bedtime,” Kate said, picking up the still half full box of pizza and setting it on the extra bed. “And next time, we’re staying some place with room service so we can order something with a little less grease.”

“Deal,” I replied. “Does that mean you’re coming to visit again?”

“Just these few shows, I think,” Kate said, climbing into bed next to me and pulling up the covers. “It’s already been rough on the little man, and it’s not so easy on his mama, either. When did we get so old? When did I get so old?”

Hadn’t I just been asking myself the same question? We really were like twins. I chuckled softly and kissed the top of her head. “You’re not old. Because if you’re old, I’m old, too. I feel it, though.”

“Do you know what I would kill for right now?” Kate asked, her voice taking a husky, seductive tone. She leaned in closely, and I shivered a little, realizing just how long it had been since we had been together. “A foot massage.”

I laughed loudly, and the moment probably should have been ruined, but somehow it wasn’t at all. I leaned in and gave Kate a soft kiss. “When we’re done with… other things… then we can talk about a foot massage.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” she replied softly, her voice little more than a whisper.

I held my breath as I watched Kate undress. Despite what she said about her body now, she looked more beautiful to me than she ever had. For once I didn’t feel like I needed the lights off to undress myself; besides, after a month of not seeing my wife, I wanted to be able to see and remember every moment of this.

To my surprise, Kate nudged me onto my back, but I was all too happy to comply. My eyes fell shut as she kissed her way up and down my body, and I wondered what I’d done to deserve such special treatment. I would definitely have to return the favor later, but I wasn’t so sure I could last long enough to return it right then.

She held me in place, only allowing me to place my hands on her hips to help guide her into position. From the very first second, there were stars exploding behind my eyes. I dug my fingernails into Kate’s hips, enjoying—though I would never dare tell her—having a little more to hold onto.

“You’re getting so skinny,” she remarked, running her hand up and down my chest and making me shiver.

I didn’t want to hear any more about that, even if I was rather proud of myself. It was just awkward to talk about, even with my wife. I grasped her hips harder and flipped her over, hoping to distract her with other thoughts. I was so close already, I couldn’t stop myself from thrusting harder and harder until Kate was gasping and grabbing fistfuls of the sheets in her hands.

How it could still feel so good, so new, after years together… I didn’t know. She was still only one of two girls I had ever slept with. We had broken up on a misguided theory that we needed to date around a bit to be certain we were meant to be together. I fell into bed with another girl then, but it wasn’t the same at all. When I finally confessed that to Kate, she admitted to more or less the same thing with some frat guy. I had thought there was no way I could compare to a guy like that, but Kate wanted me and only me.

And she still did.

I was sure I would wear her scratches for a week, but I didn’t care. I pressed my forehead against hers and rolled my hips so hard against hers that I wondered if it was actually possible to break bones that way.

I came with a pathetic whimper and collapsed on top of Kate. If I had it my way, I decided, I would just never move again. After a moment, though, she gave me a gentle nudge and I felt more than heard her chuckle into my hair.

Taking the hint, I rolled over and stared up at the ceiling, a smile on my face that hurt my cheeks. I realized, with a start, that I couldn’t remember the last time I had really smiled, aside from onstage. Concerts were guaranteed to raise my mood, but could anything else? It was a short list: just Kate and Shepherd.

That probably should have been a depressing thought, but nothing could bring me down right now. My smile remained in place as Kate stood up and padded to the bathroom. I pulled my boxers back on while she was gone, and had just settled under the covers when she walked back into the room, now sporting my t-shirt, which was laughably over-sized on her.

“Not a bad way to say hello again,” Kate remarked as she climbed into bed and curled up at my side.

“Kinda makes you wanna leave and come back again, just to do it all over again, doesn’t it?”

She laughed. “Well, I don’t know about that. But we’ve certainly got a lot of time to make up for.”

“We certainly do,” I agreed. “And we can start again tomorrow. Right now, I am exhausted.”

Kate kissed my cheek. “You’re taking care of yourself, right? I know it’s the mother in me talking now, but I just worry about you when you’re gone.”

“I know you do,” I replied. “But it’s okay. And I am.”

“Are you sure? Don’t just… don’t just say it because it’s what you think I want to hear.”

Could she see through me? But no. That was silly. There was nothing to see. I was being healthy this time; I knew I was. I shook my head. “I’m not just saying it. I’m doing good. Better than ever.”

“Good,” she said. “It’s just, you know, I know how you can get when you’re stressed. You won’t eat, you’ll smoke too much, you’ll stay up all night. You run yourself into the ground, but you keep on going somehow, like a zombie. So you don’t even notice anything’s wrong.”

“But nothing’s wrong this time,” I replied, and I wondered if I sounded convincing at all. I wasn’t sure I even believed myself anymore.

“Just keep it that way, okay?” Kate asked, a small smile on her face. At least it seemed I had managed to assuage her fears… this time.

“I will,” I replied, then kissed her forehead. “For you. I don’t like how much you worry.”

“Do it for you, too,” she replied softly.

“Okay.”

For me. Wasn’t I doing this for me? The exercise and the dieting? I wasn’t so sure anymore why I was doing it, only that it seemed necessary. When every fiber of my body seemed to be screaming at me that I had to lose weight, who was I to argue? I wasn’t hurting anyone else, and I certainly hadn’t lost enough weight to be hurting myself. If exercising a bit too much helped me cope, what was so wrong with that?

Kate fell asleep long before I did. I stayed awake with my thoughts, pondering whether or not it was possible for a coping mechanism to be healthy. I didn’t come to any conclusions before exhaustion won out and I drifted off to sleep.

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