Henry broke the kiss, but couldn't bring himself to pull away from her, nor she him. They remained where they were, leaning into each other, foreheads touching. Mouse kept her eyes closed, but Henry's were open, and he could see her, what had been described by some horrible boys as a "butter face", in super-duper close up. 

Her skin was flawless, like a young child's. Adding to this aura of extreme youth was how clean it was, scrubbed and smelling like soap. Her hair was held off her face by a band, like Alice in Wonderland, and he could feel her gentle exhalations on his mouth, in his mouth, as she chased his lips with her parted ones, soft tongue poking out slightly as it finally found what it sought with a small, satisfied sigh.

Kissing Mouse was like tasting the best, freshest fruit, her mouth was ripe and sweet, and just the physical sensation made Henry's senses reel. In all his years of kissing first girls, then women, beginning with when he locked lips with Missy Stanger under the Canal Street Bridge back home when he was twelve, he'd never experienced anything like it. 

Like the first time they kissed, in the hall outside her room, he immediately wanted more, more kisses, more Mouse, and he balled his hands into fists and pressed his knuckles into the couch so he wouldn't reach for her. He wanted to grasp her and lay her down and cover her and claim her. He wanted their skin to touch, everywhere it possibly could, he wanted to know if her other warm and wet parts were as wonderful as her mouth, as deep and delicious to dive into. He wanted to feel her rocking under him and over him, he wanted to see if he could make her moan into his ear until it felt like he was exploding into her.

Using every last ounce of willpower at his command, stopped kissing her again, this time taking the extra measure of sitting back, out of range of her searching mouth, her lips as soft and ripe as country plums.

Mouse blinked at him, brown eyes slowly focusing on him, as she swallowed and sat back herself. She took a deep breath and bit her lip, unsure what to say or do.

"I thought that wasn't going to happen any more?" she finally said, inflecting it like a question.

"Fuck," Henry said miserably, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, it wasn't, I mean, I wasn't--I just, when you said what you said about the boys in your dorm, it just--" He finally stopped. "God, I must be drunk again." 

Mouse smiled a tiny smile, a smile that Henry found so endearing and pretty. "Yeah, I've had my share of drunk guys kiss me, believe me. It's not that unusual at NYU--"

"Hold on, hold on, that's not what I meant," Henry interrupted. "You're making it sound like a guy would have to be drunk to want to kiss you, and that's not what I meant at all."

"It's what you said," Mouse pointed out. "Look, Henry, I've seen pictures of Josie. She was gorgeous. I know she was a model, and that's how you met. And obviously I know what Madeleine looks like, and I know she got her start in the business as a model too. And you spend your days photographing the most beautiful women in the world. You'd have to be at least a little bit impaired to come home and make a pass at me, don't you think?" 

Mouse picked up her glass and tried to drink from it, though of course it was empty. "And it might be a proximity thing, as well, which I totally understand. I mean, I'm here, day after day, in your home, available, it makes sense." She rose.

"Don't worry, I get it." She nodded and turned to leave.

"Wait a minute!" Henry was having a hard time articulating his thoughts; it was as if his brain had just jammed up or something. "I kissed you, remember?"

Mouse turned around. "Yeah. But you also stopped. Both times. I remember that, too."

"Mouse," Henry began, his frustration evident. "Come on, there are so many reasons we shouldn't do this. I'm old enough to be your--your--"

"My what? My much older brother? My uncle?" Mouse supplied. "Don't say 'father,' because there's no way, Henry, you're only fourteen years older than me."

She took a couple of steps back toward Henry, looking so vulnerable in her tank top and shorts, so defenseless. He wanted to protect her, somehow, but how could he protect her from himself? He could see her collar bones, prominent under her shirt, her slender neck, wispy brown hair somehow only emphasizing fragile it looked. 

"I know. There's Madeleine, who's your girlfriend, you owe her a lot. There's Leo. You owe him everything. Then there's me, whom you owe nothing." Mouse smiled again, a valiant effort. "It's okay, honest.

"I'm exhausted, I'm going to bed, okay? Good night, Henry." Mouse turned again, this time actually leaving the room.

Henry sat back on the couch, wondering what to do. The truth was that things were better this way. Getting involved with someone who worked for you was just all kinds of wrong, and the person receiving the paycheck always came out worse than the person who signed it, he knew. He owed it to Mouse, if not to Leo, to leave things alone.

And what about Madeleine? This was cheating, he was contemplating cheating. He wasn't a cheater, he wasn't a liar. He never had been. He believed he probably could deal with dating, or at least sleeping with, multiple women, but he knew that most women could not, and it wasn't something he wanted to explore. Serial monogamy had always seemed like the safest way to go, and that was fine with him. He'd never been one of those men with insatiable appetites in the bedroom, anyway. He'd seen relationships, marriages, crumble, because people, men, usually, couldn't keep their pants zipped, they'd just lost their heads over women, over sex. He'd enjoyed women, been attracted to them, liked sex, but it had never consumed him, taken over his life, the way it seemed to with other men he knew, even other close friends.

Until now. 

Somehow this mere girl, nicknamed after a rodent, of all things, had insinuated herself into his life, into his consciousness. He saw her everywhere, thought about her all the time. He got up off the couch and took himself off to bed, knowing that he'd probably dream about her, and he was right. 

In the dream, he, Mouse, and Leo were walking out in the beautiful New York City evening, going for ice cream. He wanted to hold hands with Mouse, but he couldn't for some reason, until Leo came along, running up the street, holding an ice cream. The dream Leo had rainbows coming out of him, like a beautiful, glowing firework, sparks and glitter shooting out of him and bouncing onto the sidewalk.

"Hold my ice cream, daddy," he requested, laughing, so Henry did, and Leo grasped one of Henry's hands and one of Mouse's hands, walking between them, skipping along as he laughed his wonderful little boy laugh. The rainbows began to flow between Henry and Mouse as well, like an electrical current connecting the three of them as they walked along in the gorgeous city dusk. The dream Mouse was pregnant, Henry noticed, gloriously pregnant, her beautiful, life carrying belly protruding roundly in front of her, belly button showing a little through her pink maternity dress. In the dream, Mouse smiled at Henry over Leo's head. "I love you, Henry," she said. "I love you so much."

************

The next day, things were about back to normal. He was going to have lunch with Madeleine, and he was running late, as usual, so she came to his office to wait for him while he finished typing up a report.

"This is new," she remarked, looking at a framed photo he'd hung next to the door.

"Yeah," he answered, looking up for a minute. "I've been trying to take more photographs of Leo this summer. He's growing so fast, you know? I can't believe he's already four. I thought that one turned out really nice. I might even put it in a show."

The photo in question was of Leo, sitting in Mouse's lap as she cuddled him. They were sitting on a bench on the High Line, surrounded by greenery. A bit of the New York skyline was visible, as well as a patch of blue sky. The composition of the photograph was impeccable, serendipitously perfect, as candids sometimes turned out to be, balanced between the human forms, the shrubbery, the buildings, and the horizon.

Leo was looking at something he was holding in his hands, but speaking to Mouse, you could tell by the tilt of her head that she was listening to him, focused attentively on his words. Henry had taken a photograph of their entire bodies, and the whole bench; the photo was a close up of maybe forty percent of the frame. Her hair was up in a messy bun, and only part of her face showed, just the curve of her cheek, the downward sweep of her lashes. Her arms were wrapped protectively around Leo's body as he curled into her; his chubby legs were visible between his overalls and his sandals, as was his face as it looked at his hands.

To the casual observer, it looked like a photograph taken by a doting father of his son.

Madeleine wasn't a casual observer, though; she was a professional, a former model, a magazine editor, one of the youngest ever to achieve this position. She had an amazing eye. She saw the photograph, and could tell immediately what the original, full-frame picture had looked like. She could tell how he'd cropped it to pull focus to certain elements. Her eye was drawn immediately to line of Mouse's back as she sat, the sweep of her full, round breast as it bloomed from her torso where Leo leaned into her. She could see the beauty the photographer had sought to capture of Mouse's bent neck as she listened to his son, the delicacy of the shell of Mouse's pink ear. Her hands bent gently around Leo's body as she held him, her legs were tucked gracefully under the bench where she sat.

This wasn't a photograph of Leo, being held by Mouse. This was a photograph of Mouse, holding Leo.

Henry looked up at Madeleine, watching her look at the picture. He watched her hand go to her throat, saw her swallow. 

She turned to Henry, smiling brightly. "We all finished, darling?" she asked.

"Yes, all finished, finally," he said. "Shall we?"

Madeleine nodded, waiting for Henry to hold the door for her.

"I love you, Henry," she said, leaning in to kiss him.

"I love you too, Madeleine," he replied softly.