He swallows thickly, his cheek suddenly resting heavy on my head. “And here I thought I had a novice negotiator on my hands.”
I smile against his chest, then kiss right over his heart. “You should know by now, I’m a very fast learner.”
? THIRTY-SIX ?
Christopher
For a moment after my eyes open, I have no idea where I am. Strangely, I’m not in my bed. Even more strange, I feel deeply rested. Strangest, loveliest yet, I’m wrapped around the slope of a familiar waist. A small, soft breast is my pillow. A steady heartbeat thuds beneath my ear.
My vision adjusts to the soft warm light coming from behind me, dimmed low. Now I see her, and everything makes sense.
Kate.
I stare at her as she comes into focus, lashes casting shadows on her cheeks, her mouth pursed in concentration. She wears her big headphones nestled in that bird’s nest I love, knitting needles clicking in her hands, balls of yarn strewn across the other side of the bed.
She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
As I watch her, my heart’s door creaks wide open on rusty, unused hinges, heavy, slow, determined nonetheless.
And when she peers down at me, greets me with such a deep, sweet smile and those eyes like the ocean, peaceful and calm after a storm, I know with certainty I will never close that door again—for her, it’s as good as gone, turned to ash, dissolved in the wind.
Because I love her.
“I love you,” I tell her hoarsely, before I know what’s come out of my mouth. My heart’s an elevator, plummeting to its doom.
Until her knitting needles freeze as she nudges off her headphones and says, “Hmm?”
I exhale roughly, saved. “Hi,” I tell her.
Her smile deepens. Back to knitting, needles clacking, she asks, “Comfortable?”
I nod and then feel water dripping down my temple. Bringing a hand to my head, I find cool plastic. A memory of frozen vegetables being piled on my head comes back to me. I remember Kate closing the curtains to her room, grumbling and pissed that I insisted on helping her make the bed. I remember the gentle way she shoved me back onto the mattress and tugged off my boots and jeans, then peeled off my sweater and kissed my forehead. I remember her sliding a clean, soft shirt over my head and how that felt impossibly more sensual, more intimate, than having my clothes taken off.
I remember her hands rubbing my shoulders and neck, soothing them as they tensed. I remember when the pain broke just enough to be bearable, tangling my legs with hers, dragging her close until our bodies clung to each other like vines, and sleep swallowed me up.
I should hate it. The mess I am. How fragile my body seems when it hurts like this, when it disobeys me, despite how hard I try to manage it. How naked I feel, even though I’m clothed.
But I don’t hate it at all. I don’t hate Kate for dragging me to bed in the middle of the day, for rubbing my neck and icing my head and holding me while I wrestled with pain until sleep and modern medicine mercifully won out.
Lying here, half-clothed, tangled with Kate, my mess just as known as hers, I feel stripped down and unburdened—a naked, wide-armed free fall into cool water on a hot summer day.
“How’s it going?” she says, nodding her chin toward my head. No Do you feel better? No Is it gone yet? No expectation or pressure for the pain to have conveniently disappeared, though, thank God, it’s faded drastically.
“Pain’s better,” I tell her. “Not gone, but much better. Thanks to the nap you forced on me and . . .” I lift the wet bag on my head to inspect it. “A bag of carrots and peas.”
Kate sighs dramatically. “There goes my stir-fry tonight.”
“Like you were going to cook a damn thing.”
She smiles, and Christ, it’s a sword and a sweet gift, cutting me deep and swift, reminding me how much, how uniquely, Kate makes me feel. “I had aspirations for dinner this evening,” she says primly. “But someone had to be dramatic and get a headache.”
My hands sink into her hips, then higher, beneath her shirt, because even when she’s teasing me, I have to touch her and feel her like this, warm and whispering beneath the sheets, her legs tangled with mine. “What can I say?” I tell her. “I like the spotlight.”
“Clearly.” Lifting the bag of not-so-frozen vegetables from my head, she chucks it behind her on the bed. “And clearly you like to get headaches, too,” she deadpans. “Otherwise, you’d do more to stop them, Christopher. Have you tried eating gluten-free? Dairy-free? Drinking more caffeine right when a headache comes on? Drinking less caffeine so you don’t trigger them? Eliminating stress? Quitting your job? Relaxing more? Exercising more? Avoiding MSG? Getting acupuncture? Taking cryogenic baths?”