Incompatible

The confident, poised woman who'd dominated their interview the previous week was gone, instead replaced by a woman who was almost hyperventilating with tears in her eyes. Reed's face was brick red and he willed himself to breathe and not say another word until she did. He knew his voice would throw off her train of thought while she was trying to compose herself.

It was almost another five full minutes that she sat in silence at the kitchen table, her eyes rapidly blinking as she seemed to be rehearsing what she was going to say.

"The last day we saw each other, I was going to tell you," she quietly began. "I found out the day of the protest--the day you first met Amy." It swiftly hit Reed that Hana hadn't avoided him that interim week because she thought he'd been flirting with another woman. And she hadn't been sick because she'd caught a bug.

"I... I don't know what happened to me when I saw her in your apartment from the doorway," she continued. "Maybe it was pregnancy hormones or something, but I panicked. I mean, I knew we weren't together and you were free to date whomever you wanted."

"She and I weren't dating," Reed made clear. "At least not at that point. After you ran off, I went after you. How the hell did you leave my building without making it past me in the lobby?"

"I... I got tired in the stairwell and sat down for a few minutes. Then I stayed in there and cried for maybe another 20 minutes."

"Fuck, I just missed you." Reed took his glasses off and put his fingers to the bridge of his nose. "I went to find you the next day but instead I found your sisters," he said as Hana looked down at her hands.

"I thought after a year, whether you and I were 'together' or not, I was at least entitled to the courtesy of a goodbye, Hana. Amy wanted to date right away but I couldn't. I was hung up for the next six months on finding you."

"I'm so sorry, Reed," Hana swallowed, a tear sliding down her face. "There is nothing I can say or do to make up for this. I should have told you I was pregnant right there and then even while Amy was standing in your doorway. But I was a coward because I assumed you would reject me."

"How did you even disappear in just a day?" Reed asked.

"The apartment belongs to my family," she reminded him. "The furniture and appliances stay there. I just packed my things and gave Talya a call. Remember her?"

"Right, your friend who made me uncomfortable," Reed said.

"Yes," Hana's lips broke into a ghost of a smile. "She finished her schooling in Toronto that same week and was headed back to Montreal, her hometown. We were going to be roommates in September while she worked and I did my PhD, but she was just an absolute godsend after I gave birth.

"She and her parents supported Daniyal and me until I could manage work and school again. Then I moved us into our own apartment, and then here when my book hit it big. The first thing I did was pay off her condo."

"Jesus, why didn't you just give me one call, Hana? Even if Daniyal was two or three years old, it wouldn't have been this bad." Reed couldn't believe she'd handled all of that virtually alone. It didn't sound like her own family was at all involved in hers or Daniyal's lives.

"Reed, we were just having sex, weren't we?" Hana asked. "Wasn't that all it was to you? I couldn't ask my fuckbuddy to co-parent with me, especially if you were married with kids." Reed looked away as a wave of regret washed over him, remembering that he never told Hana how he really felt about her. Shit, I could have stopped all of this if I'd just opened my goddamned mouth, he thought.

"If not to Amy, then I was sure you'd be married to someone," Hana went on. "I didn't want to disrupt your life. If you hadn't specifically said in your e-mail that you and Amy weren't together anymore, I wouldn't have replied back."

"It took you long enough even so," Reed retorted, pushing aside his anger and disappointment in himself. No, I was wrong but it doesn't mean she was right, he justified.

"I was having debate after debate in my head whether I should invite you over and have this conversation that would guarantee you would hate me for the rest of our lives," Hana admitted. "But then I couldn't do that to Daniyal--him continuing to not know his dad."

Dad, Reed thought, his ire rising at being robbed of nearly a decade of his son's life.

"You know, I recognised you were practical, but I never imagined you would be this cold and callous, Hana," he said quietly.

"You think this wasn't a practical decision?" Hana's voice grew a touch louder. "Not only did we not have a real relationship; you were soon on the local news in Toronto, and then NewsPlanet. Neither of those are 9-to-5 jobs, Reed.

"Do you think Daniyal didn't ask me why you were reporting from dangerous places sometimes?" She stood up and gripped the back of her chair. "Or why you were in different locations every month and only in the studio once in a while?

"I hated seeing you in that Kevlar vest in Afghanistan, surrounded by soldiers with massive assault weapons," Hana said, glowering at him. "The day I didn't see you, I was so scared. The next day, you were back in the studio and Daniyal and I went out for ice cream to celebrate."

A heavy silence fell over the room before Hana drew in her breath again.

"I considered an abortion," she said, unaware of Reed's eyes widening. "I would have been at that clinic so fast if it had been my ex-fiancé's... remember the guy who tried to baby-trap me? But I thought..." she finally looked up at Reed, still standing across the room, now leaning against the side of the fridge.

"I thought if I couldn't have you, I'd want to love and raise your child. Daniyal looks more like me, but his personality is all yours." Reed exhaled hard, now upset at himself that his anger at Hana was dissipating from where it had been moments ago. He couldn't deny that at least half the blame for this rested on his own shoulders.

"Who the fuck said we couldn't have each other?" he wondered aloud. "You and I decided we couldn't be together because of goddamn Christmas trees and you being a vegetarian, and I have no idea how we thought any of that made sense." Hana gave him a rueful smile.

"A lot of things make sense in your mid-20s that you wonder about 10 years later," she said. Reed gave a short laugh and continued his thought.

"When you blew me off that week--because, I thought, I'd been flirting with Amy--I realised I loved you and I never wanted to be without you. I didn't want anyone else." Hana's breath caught in her throat and felt like it stopped altogether for a full minute. "If you'd just told me at my door that you were pregnant--wait, how did you even get pregnant with that arm thing you had?"

"It was nearing its expiry and I was planning to swap it out the following month," Hana quickly explained. "What's the end of that sentence?"

"Oh, right," Reed said. "If you'd just told me you were pregnant, I would have dragged you to the courthouse the next day and married you, compatibility be damned." Hana stared at Reed with her mouth half-open.

"And believe me, I would have made a shit-tonne of different decisions regarding my career. I loved you Hana," Reed went on, slowly stepping toward where she stood at the kitchen table.

"I never stopped loving you."

That's all it took.

Hana's mouth was crushed by Reed's with all the fervor they'd each been harbouring for nine years. Her fingers hung onto his collar while his hands cupped her face and his lips devoured hers. They staggered back toward the table, sliding it backward on the tile, and Reed caught Hana before she slipped.

Then she remembered their first time together a decade ago. She pulled back and took him by the hand, leading him toward her bedroom and laying him down on her comforter. When she climbed onto the bed, gently took off Reed's glasses, and laid them down on her nightstand, it was clear he remembered too.

Hana unbuttoned Reed's shirt, her eyes never leaving his face. She lowered her face to his chest, tenderly tracing his collarbone with her tongue before heading south toward his left nipple. Reed's torso flinched as soon as her lips made contact. He instantly remembered when he nearly lost his mind the first time she ever did that to him in her old apartment.

She shot him a glance on her way down to his thighs that told him she remembered as well, then quickly rid him of his pants and underwear. Before she lowered her face, however, Reed reached for the buttons on her blouse, then pulled off her jeans.

While he looked on in disbelief that this was really happening, Hana wrapped her lips around Reed's shaft and devoured him like she hadn't eaten in days.

"Hana..." he gasped, his fingers in her hair. "God, Hana..."

Recalling what he'd next done with her their first time together, Reed yanked her upwards and beside him just as he thought he would explode. He tugged off her bra and panties, then ravished her breasts while firmly holding her forearms down.

Hana squirmed and whimpered under him, then outright shrieked in glee when he darted down and pulled her knees apart.

"Mmmm... Reed..." she moaned, throwing her head back onto the bed as her lover fired his tongue inside her. Soon, she was calling his name more frantically, then she screamed it during her climax as she gripped the pillow beneath her head. Reed's arms were wrapped around her shoulders seconds later, holding her while he kissed her cheek.

Hana brushed her nose against his neck, then wordlessly rolled onto her back and pulled him atop her. It took her a moment to notice him hesitating, squinting at the underside of her left arm before feeling the spot with his thumb.

"It's not there anymore," she told him. "I'm not on any birth control." Reed's eyes narrowed a bit as they met hers. "I don't care if I get pregnant," Hana went on, her fingers twirling in his hair. "I kinda hope I will so we can do things right this time."

"Are you sure about this?" Reed asked, overwhelmed with the weight of what she was saying.

"Only if you're good with changing diapers. I did all of them last time."

They both convulsed with giggles, and then Reed bent down and tenderly kissed her. He put his forehead to hers as he pushed into her, taking care to be gentle as it dawned on him this was the first time in a long time for either of them.

When Hana moved her hands to his hips and then squeezed her muscles around his cock, Reed realized she didn't want him to be that gentle. He slid in and out of her, enthralled at hearing her adorable whimpers again.

"Reed... baby..." she held on to his shoulders as he began to go faster. "I should have told you I love you too."

Reed groaned and exploded inside the love of his life, swallowing hard while holding on tight to her. He clung to Hana's shivering body as he breathed rapidly, finally feeling like he found what he'd been searching for all this time.

Reed slowly looked down at her fluttering eyelids while she buried her face in his chest, then relaxed his neck and let his head fall back on the pillow. She kissed his face, then slipped out of bed toward the washroom.

We never should have been apart, he thought, swallowing hard and staring at the stucco ceiling. It doesn't matter if I love her or I hate her; there's never going to be anyone else like her for me. After Hana emerged and he took his turn in the washroom, he came back to see her sitting up in bed with the sheets and comforter around her.

"What happened between you and Amy?" Hana asked, almost as though she was reading his mind. Reed sighed, then reached over to put his arms around her while he figured out what to say. She fit against him like his chest was made for her.

"I don't know if you mean how we got together or how we split up," he started. "But it's the same answer either way. Both times it was a 'shit or get off the pot' situation." Hana grinned and nuzzled her face against his shoulder.

"Talk about making stupid decisions in your 20s," he went on. "I thought I had everything put together even when you left me, but I was just going through the motions. I was 28 and Amy and I had been together for a couple of years." He shrugged while twirling Hana's dark locks around his fingers.

"She was hinting at getting married and my family absolutely loved her. She was perfect on paper--tall, pretty, Irish-Catholic, someone who'd never refer to Thanksgiving as a coloniser holiday." Hana's giggles tickled his collarbone.

"I took a final look for you on social media and didn't find any clues as to where you might be," Reed said as Hana's eyes darted upward to his face, "so I did what I thought I should do.

"As for how we split up, she cheated on me with a guy who probably spent 500 percent more time with her than I did, and I couldn't be happier for them. Without that kind of a push, I'd probably still be pretending today." Hana's arm around his back tightened a bit in a soft squeeze. "I have a question for you now," he said. "What does 'Daniyal' mean?"

"It's a Persian name of a prophet in the Qur'an," Hana replied with a smile. "It means 'intelligent man.'"

"Good pick," Reed said. "That little guy is certainly bright. You did a fantastic job raising him but I'm sad you had to do it alone."

"You're wondering about my family, aren't you?" Hana surmised. "They don't know about him."

"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me, Hana."

"Yeah, of course you'd say that coming from your family, with their happily meeting your girlfriends and everyone wearing matching ugly sweaters," Hana shot back as Reed smirked. "You don't know what it was like for me, especially as a woman.

"A lot of Muslim families are very liberal," she explained, "but not mine. If my siblings or I fell in love, it'd better be with someone from our mosque, and we'd better be getting married. None of this undignified dating, and certainly no giving up your virginity before your wedding night.

"Imagine what would have happened if I'd announced I'd been knocked up by my white, strawberry-blond, Italian-Catholic fuckbuddy with gorgeous sapphire eyes? They would have disowned me anyway. I did all of us a favour by keeping our lives separate."

"You like my eyes that much, huh?" Reed grinned. "I'm kinda glad Daniyal got yours."

"That's why I wanted him to have your grandfather's name," she murmured as Reed pulled back, surprised she remembered him talking about his grandpa Daniel all those years ago. "I thought... if on the off-chance you were ever back in our lives, you'd be happy he was named after the person you were closest to."

Reed gently kissed Hana's lips, floored at how she never forgot even the tiniest details of their time together. She responded by tangling her legs in his and weaving her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. Reed had only meant to kiss her a couple of times and then go back to cuddling and talking, but when Hana's tongue brushed against his, he unwittingly stiffened.

"We're not fuckbuddies anymore," he smiled against her mouth. "I love you, Hana."

"I love you more than I ever thought I'd deserve," Hana replied, her mouth trailing kisses along his jaw. "Let me show you."

Reed gasped a moment later when her fingers gripped his shaft and she teased him the same way she had during their first time together. Her tongue measuredly and repeatedly flicked his tip, making his cock bound upward until he was gritting his teeth.

"Hana, please," he begged, his voice raspy as she stroked the underside of his testicles. The next second, she took him into her mouth as far as she could, still grasping the base in her fist. Reed exhaled hard and tangled his fingers in her hair, wondering how he survived the last nine years without her.

"Baby, you're gonna make me..." he trailed off as Hana sped up and started sucking on him, gently at first and then more hungrily. Suddenly, she released his cock from her lips with an audible pop and crawled up to mount him. Reed groaned as she impaled herself on him, tilting her head to one side with a mischievous grin.

"You missed this, didn't you?" she drawled, running her hands across his pecs and dragging her thumbs across his nipples. He groggily nodded, unable to keep his eyes from rolling back. "I missed it more," she whispered. Hana then rocked them both to a climax within minutes and then fell against Reed's chest in euphoria.

Ten minutes later, she was spooning him while running her toes against the bottoms of his feet. Then he turned around and looked at her, his face troubled.

"We get to be together now, right?" Reed asked. "No more unilateral decisions; no more assuming what I want and taking a course of action because you think it's for my good. I don't want to waste any more time away from you or Daniyal.

"I understand why you did what you did," he said. "I'm not happy about it, but I can't say you were totally at fault. I realized I loved you over Christmas that first year, and I just sat on my ass until it was too late. This entire thing could have been avoided if I'd made you feel like you were more to me than just a physical relationship." Reed paused to take a breath.

"But I want to start over, Hana," he said, propping himself up on his forearms. "We can get a goddamn plastic tree and reuse it every Christmas. We can buy Daniyal one present so we don't spoil him and contribute to over-consumption, then donate what we don't spend to a soup kitchen. We'll donate to animal shelters instead of owning pets; god knows I was a shitty dog owner anyway."

Hana started giggling but tears still spilled from the corners of her eyes and rolled into her hair.

"And we'll teach Daniyal about Indigenous history and Land Back on every stat holiday," Reed hurried on. "My parents stopped doing a full Thanksgiving and Christmas years ago because it got to be too much of a hassle at their age. Now they just order Swiss Chalet's festive special." Hana chuckled even harder.

"Please," Reed said seriously, grasping Hana's fingers. "I just want to stop thinking about our relatives and our habits and all this other crap we prioritized instead of thinking about us and our own little family."

Hana felt a chill run up her back at those last four words, then gazed into Reed's cobalt eyes.

"Reed, I don't want you to have to compromise or settle."

"Like I said before, we're different people from when we were in our mid-20s," he countered. "Everything I just mentioned is what I want to do; not things I'd be reluctantly changing for you. I went into journalism as a form of activism. It's not a compromise to raise our kids as activists in other ways."

Our kids. The words reverberated through Hana's brain. Reed then tipped her chin upward and continued, his voice a touch above a whisper.

"It's not called settling when you're trading in a bunch of stuff you don't really care about for the things you desperately want," he told her.

"So what do you say, Dr. Farouq?"

***Epilogue, three years later***

"I'm not convinced it was a good idea to bring a six-month-old here, Hana," Reed told his wife as they walked down Boulevard Saint Laurent, their daughter sleeping snuggly against his chest in a baby carrier. He put a protective hand against Saira's tiny head, which was spiked with a shock of cinnamon brown hair.

"Reed, this is The Main," Hana replied, pushing their toddler son in his stroller. He pulled at his straps, desperate to escape his wheels and run. "It's a sunny weekend in June, and we're in broad daylight in the literal center of Montreal. I know it's a protest but there are families all around us. Ooooh, look, a juggler!"

She released two-and-a-half-year-old Zayn from his prison, lifted him up onto her hip, and pointed at the busker throwing bowling pins in the air about 15 metres away. Zayn seemed satisfied, entranced by the man whose face was painted like a mime.