He knew where she lived with him. She dropped it into a conversation months back and he savoured the information, cruising past the address late some nights when it was too dark for his car to be noticed. It was creepy, he knew it, but couldn't help himself.
He didn't want to make her an adulterer, she didn't deserve that label. All she ever wanted was to make people happy, that's how she ended up in that high end apartment building with delicate ivy that climbed up the walls. She must love that.
The nameplate on the door says Howell and his shoulders tighten. This is another man's home he's walking into. He brushed his teeth twice and put on his best cologne hoping he could walk into some other man's apartment and touch another man's wife.
He was a vile person for doing this. She answers the door in a pink dress and twists her mouth into a nervous smile. She blushes and glows all at the same time, he wonders if Carl keeps her up at night making her blush and glow like that.
Costumes. He is here for costumes.
"Have you been drinking?" she turns her head to the side like she always does when he surprises her. He didn't brush his teeth well enough. He nods and laughs a little. She bites her lip.
They stare at each other. Stiffly and expectantly.
She asks and he says yes to a drink and they sit on a leather sofa that doesn't suit her.
Talking about Glee settles his nerves and he can tell she's relaxed because when she finishes her wine she starts talking with her hands and one of them brushes against his knee, gently and softly but not accidentally.
While she's happy he wants to tell her that yesterday Kurt said she was the best dressed teacher in the school. That the kids call them 'Wemma'. That last week Brittany asked if red heads were just sunburnt blondes.
He just smiles at her instead, feeling tipsy and content to just sit with her. She opens her mouth and he wishes she wouldn't because he can tell she's thinking hard before she speaks and that never ends well for either of them.
She takes a deep breath and he winces.
"Tell me again what it would be like … for us?"
"Do you really want to have this conversation?" she ignores him.
"I … had a piano in my old apartment, you would have liked it I think" she is staring at the buttons on his shirt, chewing her lip between words.
"Sometimes I used to think about you resting your coffee cup on the piano and coaching the Glee kids in my living room. I could help you, I mean I can play too, Gosh not as well as you but still… I used to think about that a lot."
She holds his hand in hers as she's talking and he feels woozy and hot and angry. His hand flinches out of her grip for the first time ever.
"Don't say things like that!"
"Why? You did!"
"I'm not married! Emma, I mean it, I'll wait for you for as long as it takes, but you can't bring me here and tell me these things and God, look like that! All I want to do is touch you, all of you but I'm not going to have you on Carl's couch after a few glasses of red. You deserve better than that and damn it, so do I"
He's disgusted by what he just said but won't regret it. It was the truth.
"I think I should go" he cracks and she grabs his hand again. Tight.
She asks him to stay and he can't refuse her.
There are thuds and footsteps in the neighbouring apartments and for a while they sit together, threading fingers and bumping shoulders and listening.
Her eyes get heavy and then she's sleeping against the arm of the sofa still holding his hand. He kisses her goodnight on the forehead softly and then on the mouth because he can't help himself. Her eyes flutter open and she whispers his name, he says no. She says it again, with force, and wraps her arms around his neck. He's never heard anything said with that much conviction. She leads him to the bedroom. He lifts up her dress and ignores Carl's smiling face hanging on the wall.
"Stop" he says to himself and then her. Her hair is tousled. He did that. He's out the door before she can agree or apologize or beg him to stay. He smells her perfume all the way back to his apartment.
The next day it's Sunday and snowing. He lies awake and wonders if she'll still wear a skirt when she picks Carl up from the airport. He drinks more beer. At six his doorbell rings and she's standing there in a beret, shaking and forgetting to blink.
She's leaving Carl she says. She's left Carl. She's going to stay with her folks over Christmas to get herself together. "I don't want you to see me this way" she whispers. He protests and she takes his face in her hands and kisses his nose.
She promises to call when she's back in town. He tells her he loves her and hears her say it back before she leaves.