Chapter 23
BELL
The afternoon sun bakes itself into the streets as I slip in the front door and close it.
I don’t hear anything right away, and then I hear a sound from the studio, a rhythmic chip chip chip.
It’s like a shot of liquor, heat and light pouring into my chest and stomach, and I follow the sound like a siren’s song to the studio door and then open it as quietly as I can.
It doesn’t matter. Birdie’s back is to me, her attention fully on the block of wood before her. She’s got tracing paper on two sides of the block, but the shape must be indelibly clear in her mind even without the sketches because she’s moving deeper into the wood without a second’s hesitation.
The door closes behind me, and I stroll over to one of the workbenches. I lean my hip against it and just watch her, the chisel’s edge catching the sunlight from the windows, the mallet swinging with perfect force each time. There’s a soft clatter of wooden rain falling to the floor.
Her hair is pulled back into a messy knot held in place by two pencils, and she’s wearing another one of those thin white tank tops and her jeans.
I’d walked her through using my washing machine and dryer earlier this week, but it’s high time I personally dragged her into the guest room to see the closet filled with clothes for her.
I’d hoped she’d find it on her own, but she’s largely kept her snooping to my room and my office, which is actually kind of sweet.
I watched her on the camera feeds flipping through my news clippings, peeking under my bed, staring at the Lucifer statue, with my pulse hot and the pressure behind my zipper nearly unbearable.
Just the mere idea of her being curious about me…
wanting to know me… God, it made my palms sweat.
It made me tremble with the strain of not driving straight back to the warehouse to get between her legs and take what I’ve been wanting for so long.
It’s the most my control has ever been tested, but I should have known I’d succeed. When it came to her, I’d literally do anything it took to make her mine—and that included staying away when the worst of myself was so close to the surface.
She pauses for a moment, stepping backward off the stepladder and wiping the sweat from her face with her forearm, her eyes not leaving the wood. With the tracing paper that hasn’t been chiseled away with the wood yet, I can guess what she’s going for.
“I should have known you wouldn’t have wanted to warm up with a saint,” I say, and she jumps a mile, the chisel clanking to the floor.
I cluck my tongue and walk over to her, squat, and pick it up. I stay crouched as I hold it up for her, enjoying having her hips at eye level, enjoying the way she can’t avoid my gaze when she instinctively ducks her head down.
“Thank you,” she whispers, taking the chisel. She was already flushed from exertion, but I can see the additional pink coming to her cheeks and throat. I want to gobble it all up, the hesitation, the smallness, the pained shyness. It’s the sweetest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
I stand up and smile at her, which makes her eyes slide to the side. “So a crucifix?”
She nods slowly, turning back to face the block. My gaze drops to the nape of her neck, to the loose red curl stuck on the damp skin.
“I thought maybe…Golgotha.” She lifts the hand holding the mallet and aims it at two other blocks in the room.
“All of these have the same feel to me, although the one at the far end is so gorgeous, it’ll have to be Christ’s.
I’ve never done the entire scene at Golgotha because most buildings don’t have the space, and even if they do, it’s just not as conventional with statuary as it is with stained glass.
But this isn’t for a church or a client at all, so I thought… ”
She stops, which is a shame, because I’m hungry for her thoughts most of all. Her opinions. Her fragile hopes and recollections. All of her, what’s inside her, that heart, that mind.
“I suppose I should be thinking more practically,” she says suddenly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t consider that you might…”
I step closer, so we’re side by side. “Consider that I might what?”
Her chest is redder now, a little splotchy. “I guess I should have considered that you bought the blocks and you might care how I used them. Or want me to use them more practically or for a commission somehow, even though I don’t get those anymore, and I just—”
I don’t interrupt her very often because I like hearing her talk, no matter what she’s talking about, but I have to stop her here. “The blocks are gifts, Birdie,” I say firmly. “I don’t care how you use them, only that you do.”
She turns to look at me, brows knitting. “But why? I mean, why with the truck and the phone and the…the anything, really? I said yes before all that.”
It’s a fair question, and I put my hands in my pockets, considering how I want to answer—how much of the shadow inside me I’m willing to let her see.
“The truck and the phone are because I want you to be safe, and I want to be able to get ahold of you when I need to without worrying about a dead phone battery. The studio is more selfish. I love your work, and I want you to make more of it. I find it—” I pause, trying to bite back the fast rush of rage that comes whenever I think about this.
“—an insult that your gifts are being used only for furniture.”
Her delicate mouth flattens. “I’m proud of the things I make. I still work to make them beautiful. I work to make them durable and well-fitted and…”
She stops talking as I step in front of her. “I know,” I say, brushing my knuckles against her jaw. “And they are beautiful, and I’d never stop you from making them. But this is what you were meant for.” I reach down to wrap my hands around hers, where she holds the mallet and the chisel. “This.”
Her eyes search mine, so solemn even with the sunlight glittering in their depths, and there’s a slight parting of her lips, like maybe she’s going to say something.
Like she’s going to point out that I’m the reason she hasn’t been able to sell her work anymore.
I almost want her to. I want her to drag all that ugliness out into the open, yell at me, shove me, demand something in return, like my liver or my throat.
I’d give them if she wanted—I’d give her anything except leaving her alone. Except for an apology.
It wouldn’t be an honest one anyway.
Her mouth closes again and she looks away.
I take the chisel and mallet away from her, and she doesn’t resist. I walk over to the workbench to set them down and ask casually, “How did the appointments go today?”
“Well,” she replies. There’s a new tightness in her voice—all the things she’s leaving unsaid right now, probably. “The first doctor was able to remove the stitches. It’s healing well, and it looks like the infection is gone.”
I walk back over and get down to one knee.
I don’t ask permission to take her ankle and calf and carefully guide her foot to rest on my thigh, and I don’t ask permission to push up her jeans to look at the injury.
She submits to it, staying quiet as I run my fingers over the new pink skin, completely free of those fevered smudges and threads from earlier.
My hand stays wrapped around the back of her calf as I look up at her face. “And the second appointment?”
Pearly teeth nibble at her lower lip. “It went okay. The birth control thing was a surprise.”
“I’m sorry if you were caught off guard.” I run my hand soothingly up and down her calf. “What do you think about using it? I can send you my test results so you know they’re negative.”
“It makes the most sense for what you want to do to me,” she murmurs. And then lets out a low kind of laugh.
“What?”
“It’s stupid.”
I smooth the scrunched denim back over her calf and return her foot to the floor before I stand up. “Nothing you think is stupid. Tell me.”
She closes her eyes. “It is stupid. I agreed to be your—yours for a year, and yet taking birth control feels like this wall I can’t imagine myself on the other side of.”
I take her elbows in my hands and drop a kiss on her nose.
She startles a little but keeps her eyes closed, so I drop a gentle kiss on each eyelid.
Yours for a year. God, I love the sound of that.
The only thing that will sound better is yours for the rest of our lives.
“Birdie, you know that a massive swath of American Catholics are using birth control anyway, right? I’d complain that they’re hypocrites, except I think they’re right to be. ”
She opens her eyes, but she doesn’t look at my face.
“I know condoms are just as much contraception, but when it would be you doing it, you putting them on, it feels more removed. But swallowing the contraception, making the choice a part of my body…” Another low laugh.
“It doesn’t make sense, I know. And obviously a pregnancy can never happen. ”
Never? The word feels like a thin, deep cut inside my chest.
I push past it. I would love to put a baby in her, but only if it would make her happy. If it would make her feel miserable and trapped, then that’s the opposite of what I want.
“If you want to use condoms, we’ll use condoms,” I tell her. “I’ll fuck you any way I can have you.”
She shakes her head. “I got the prescription. They gave me the first month’s supply at the office, so I started today. They said I’d still need to use condoms the first seven days but then we can stop.”
I put my forehead against hers. “Birdie, I’m not pushing for this. I’ll push for other things, I’ll seduce you into them, but I’m not going to seduce you into taking a medication. If you’d prefer condoms, we’ll do those.”
“I’d prefer…I’d prefer not to care. There is no difference to the Church, really. Any artificial contraception is a grave matter, and I’m already having sex I shouldn’t have. I want to do what makes this year the easiest. I’m just so…behind everyone else.”