Chapter 6
David
The October air bites through my suit jacket as I walk up the path.
Her house looks exactly like it did that afternoon—small, warm, lived-in in a way I still don’t quite know what to do with.
A planter by the steps. A pumpkin on the porch, half-carved and abandoned, like she ran out of patience before she ran out of pumpkin.
From inside, movement. A dog’s bark—one sharp woof, then another, more suspicious this time.
I should leave.
I knock.
Her dog loses his goddamn mind.
Nails skid over hardwood, then Nora’s voice—muffled, familiar, impossible on my nervous system. “Archie, absolutely not. Sit.”
The barking stops. There’s a beat. The door opens.
Nora is in a soft gray T-shirt and flannel pants, hair loose around her shoulders, reading glasses pushed up on her head. She’s holding a glass of red wine, and behind her, the low murmur of a TV and the click of Archie’s nails on the hardwood as he investigates the visitor.
She blinks at me.
“David?”
I open my mouth. Close it. Try again.
“I think we should talk.”
Of the nine hundred things I rehearsed on the drive over, that is arguably the most inadequate, but it’s what comes out, and she stares at me for a beat—long enough that something flickers behind her eyes she’s trying very hard to keep contained.
“OK,” she says, stepping back. “Come in.”
I follow her inside, and it hits me immediately—the smell of her house, vanilla and old books and a sweetness that might be her shampoo or her laundry detergent or just her. The familiarity of it is so sharp it feels like walking into a place I’ve been missing without knowing it existed.
Archie appears from around the corner, tail wagging at a moderate pace that suggests cautious optimism. He sniffs my hand, decides I’m acceptable, and returns to whatever he was doing.
“Drink?” Nora holds up her glass.
“Whatever you’re having.”
She nods and moves into the kitchen. I watch her reach for a glass and pour. When she hands it to me, our fingers brush. I pretend it doesn’t register.
“So,” she says, leaning against the counter. Her shirt slides just enough to expose the bra strap on her shoulder.
I take a drink. “I owe you an apology.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I do. Not just for the other night, but for avoiding you ever since. For acting like a goddamn child about it. That isn’t who I want to be.”
She tilts her head, considering me. Her eyes are different from in the office—softer, less lined with exhaustion, but still searching. “I didn’t take it personally,” she says. “I figured you needed space.”
“I need . . . something. I don’t know what. I mean, I know what I want, but that doesn’t make sense—”
Nora crosses her arms, which has the effect of pulling her T-shirt tighter across her chest. Jesus. “David, you don’t have to say any of this. Really.”
“I do. You were right. I am going through this by myself. It’s not working, and I know it’s not working, but for some reason letting anyone in feels like losing.
” I shake my head. “I don’t know how to do it differently.
But I want to. I keep thinking about . .
.” I stop because finishing that thought would seem like a threat, or a promise, and I’m not sure which scares me more.
She uncrosses her arms, sets her wine glass on the counter. Her fingers are steady. Her voice is gentler than I deserve. “You keep thinking about?”
“You.” I say it before I can stop myself. “Your mouth. Your hands. Your voice.” I want to swallow the words, but they’re real, and they’re standing there naked. “Shit. No. That’s not what I came here to say.”
Her brow lifts. “Oh?”
I take a mouthful of wine and try again.
“I have a rule,” I say. “About relationships. Since Kelsie left, I made a decision. That I wouldn’t—that there wouldn’t be anyone. Not until Michaela is older. Stable. Not until the risk of introducing someone into her life and having them leave is lower than the damage it would cause.”
Nora’s expression doesn’t change. She just listens, wine glass held against her collarbone, the same way I’ve seen her listen at the school when a parent is explaining something difficult.
“It’s not about you,” I continue, which is a lie so transparent I can feel it crumbling as I say it.
“It’s about what I can afford to risk. Michaela has already lost one parent.
I can’t put her in a position where she gets attached to someone and then—” I stop.
Swallow. “It’s a rule. I made it when she was small. And I’ve kept it because it works.”
Something shifts in Nora’s face. Just slightly. A softening at the corners of her mouth that could be sympathy or recognition or something else entirely.
“I understand,” she says. And I breathe out a sigh of relief.
“You do?”
“You’re celibate by choice.” She says it with a straight face, and I don’t know if she’s teasing me, goading me, or seeing what I’ll do if pushed a little further.
I almost laugh, except I’m too wound up for it. “Not . . . exactly.”
She sips her wine. “It’s impressive. I mean that.”
“It’s not impressive. I have the libido of a normal person, believe me.” I swirl my own glass, watching the deep red make slow, sticky waves. “But sometimes you have to make rules. And sometimes you have to keep them, even when you really don’t want to.”
“Rules are easy to keep until they’re not,” she says. “Then they show you whether they’re about protecting someone else or just about protecting yourself.”
That’s closer to the truth than I want to admit. More than Kelsie. More than Michaela. It’s about protecting the part of myself that’s scared to fuck things up twice. I almost say it, but the words wedge in my throat.
I drink instead. The wine isn’t fancy, but it’s good. Dry, with enough bite to keep me honest.
She sets her glass down again. This time she stays closer, barely a foot between us at the edge of her tiny kitchen. Archie has made his peace with my presence and flops to the floor like a sheepskin rug, clearly used to late-night conversation.
She looks down at Archie, then back up at me. “He’s a very good listener, but he’s terrible with nuance. So for the sake of the dog, maybe be more specific.”
Despite myself, I huff out a laugh. “You do that on purpose.”
“Use humor to manage escalating tension?” Her mouth curves. “Constantly.”
I look at her for a beat too long. “It’s not helping.”
Her eyes flick to my mouth. Back up. “No,” she says quietly. “It probably isn’t.”
She doesn’t move. But she doesn’t step back either, and the space between us goes from deliberate to dangerous.
I set my glass down beside hers because I no longer trust my hands with breakable objects. “Nora.”
She licks her lips and I lose the last clean line of my thinking.
Maybe she sees it happen. Maybe I make some sound—low, rough, already halfway gone. Whatever it is, her breath catches. And then we’re moving at the same time.
“Don’t say Principal Harrison,” she says, and that dry little edge in her voice nearly finishes me on the spot.
My hand closes around her waist. “I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
Then I kiss her.
There’s nothing careful about it this time.
No panic. No accident. No grief masquerading as need.
Just need, clean and brutal and deliberate.
Her mouth opens under mine with a soft sound that punches straight through my chest, and when she grips the front of my shirt like she’s holding on, whatever remains of my restraint detonates.
I walk her backward two steps until her hips hit the kitchen counter.
She gasps against my mouth. “David.”
“I know.” My hands are everywhere—her waist, her ass, under the hem of that soft gray shirt. Warm skin. Softer than I remembered. And I remembered too much. “Tell me to stop.”
She looks at me over those flushed cheeks, glasses still pushed up in her hair, lips swollen from my mouth. “Do I look like I want you to stop?”
“No,” I say honestly.
“Then stop talking.”
I laugh once—shocked, wrecked by her—and kiss her again. She makes an impatient sound and hooks her fingers in my tie, tugging me closer. Then her hands are at my jacket, shoving it down my shoulders. I shrug out of it and let it fall somewhere behind me, not remotely concerned with where it lands.
Her nails drag through my hair, and I catch her bottom lip between my teeth. She moans into my mouth.
I’m hard as stone, painfully tight inside my suit pants, and I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted anything in my life the way I want to see her come apart for me.
Nora’s hands are on my chest, then under my shirt, palms splayed hot and hungry.
She digs her nails into my sides, and I nearly come undone, the sting of it painting lightning through my whole body.
I push her T-shirt up, and her breasts spill into my hands, perfect and warm.
When I run my thumbs over her nipples, she arches against me.
“Take it off,” she whispers. “Please.”
I step back half an inch and yank the T-shirt up and over her head.
The glasses go with it, landing somewhere in the sink.
Nora’s hair tumbles wild around her face, brighter with the static of the shirt.
The sight is enough to make me pause—she’s fucking gorgeous, flushed and a little bit reckless, and all of it for me.
She grabs for my belt, deft fingers working the buckle like she’s done it a thousand times. The next second, my pants are undone, and she slides her hands inside, palm wrapping around my cock.
I hiss through my teeth and brace both hands on either side of her, caging her in against the counter.
“Fuck.” It comes out a ragged gasp.
Nora strokes me once, slow and deliberate, and the world whites out at the edges. “Better?” she asks, sly.
“Not even close.” I find the button on her flannel pants and pop it open, drag them down until they pool at her ankles. Her underwear is dark blue cotton, almost the same color as my tie. I run a thumb along the elastic, and she shivers. “Turn around.”