Chapter 20
Gabriel
River is hastily fixing the bed, a tornado of efficiency. I can see her in the dark, thanks to the full moon through the bedroom skylights, and it’s mesmerizing. I’d like to thank her grandmother for giving her the bathrobe. I never thought this shade of eggplant could be appealing, but on her, it works.
I grab the end of the blanket she’s trying to position on the bed and smooth it out.
“There.”
River blows a puff of air to move her blonde hair away from her face. “That should do it.”
She pats the large blanket strategically placed down the middle of the bed to separate it into two equal halves. “This queen-sized bed is the only large thing in this house. Certainly two mature adults can share it without incident.”
“If by incident you mean accidental touching, I don’t know.”
I’m teasing, even though I know flirting complicates everything.
She squints at me.
“I’m not going to touch you on purpose.”
I pause. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want to, okay?”
“Okay?”
Her brows arch.
I just send her a look. I don’t want to say I’m attracted to her, that sleeping in the same bed will be torture.
She blinks and worries her lip. “I can go sleep on the couch . . .”
Is that a threat or an act of kindness? “No, no. This is perfect. We each have our own little area.”
I lie down and stretch out. “See? Tons of room.”
I roll over to my side and that’s when the bottom half of our barrier blanket gets swept up with me.
Her sigh has a playful undercurrent. “Come on. We just fixed it.”
We straighten it out again. She hands me one edge of the blanket, and I smooth it into a long column. We repeat our movements on the other side, then settle our pillows in. It’s a kind of dance. “What we really need is one of those wooden Amish bed barriers,” I say.
She holds out her palms. “I don’t even want to know if that’s a real thing.”
She hesitates and then continues. “Just a sec, I . . . just have to . . .”
She turns around and as she slides the robe off her shoulders, I catch a glimpse of a short, loose T-shirt and what looks like striped boxers underneath that. I glue my eyes shut.
I wait for her to settle on her side, not touching, of course, before I peek. “You good?” I ask.
“All good.”
Her voice is thin. Strained.
“Thanks, River.”
“It was your bed to begin with. Besides, no one should have to sleep on a hardwood floor without cushioning of any kind.”
“I couldn’t stand the thought of you out there on the floor.”
Her laugh is nothing more than a breath of air. “Well now, neither of us have to be. Good night,”
she says. “Again.”
“Good night,”
I say, wondering how long I’m going to be awake.
It’ll be a miracle if I can sleep at all.
I wake to the warm pressure and rhythmic breathing of River tucked into my side. She’s taken over my section of the bed, her hand resting on my chest. The barrier blanket must be on the floor somewhere. Or twisted around our legs in the chaos of the bedding. Because there is nothing between River and me—except for our pajamas.
Without thinking, I press a light kiss in her hair. My shirt is warm where her hand is. She’s got her knee up on my knee.
Miracles do happen, apparently, because that was the best night’s sleep I’ve had
since before Prague.
What time did she curl up next to me, I wonder. And can I not break the spell yet? I hold my body still as I rotate my head to look at the small clock on the nightstand.
It reads eight a.m.
We slept in! I don’t know what time River had intended to get up, but I know it was earlier than this. Everything in me pulses with the thought that she cannot be late for work or else my brothers might give her a hard time, or at the very least, give me a hard time later for keeping her up.
They think this is a real marriage and that we’re having a physical relationship.
A man can wish.
Was it the sheer exhaustion that whole debacle caused that made me have the best sleep, the deepest sleep in recent memory? Or the fact that River was by my side?
I feel well rested. I want nothing more than to get up and face the day and work on the idea for the non-profit I’ve had swirling in my head. After I stay here with River as long as I can, of course.
After a few more minutes, and agonizing whether or not to wake her, she stirs, licking her lips and sighing, pressing her body into my side.
Okay. If I’m going to stay in charge of my faculties, I need to get out of this situation. I start to rub her back with the arm that’s been cradling her and press another kiss on the top of her head.
That does the trick. “Gabriel!”
There’s a sharp, hoarse whisper from her as her eyes spring open and she shoots up to a sitting position, the pads of her fingertips clawing at her sleep-worn face. Her head is classic bedhead, with bunny ears of hair all along the side.
“We slept in!”
She clutches the sheet to her chest. “How did that . . .?”
She blinks rapidly and hauls herself off the bed, still grasping the sheet.
“Looks like we did,”
I say lazily.
She heaves the sheet back on the bed in a heap and throws open a drawer. “I need a ride to the office.”
She tosses back a glance at me as she moves to riffle through the closet, scraping hangers along the bar. “Please,” she adds.
“Of course. Breakfast?”
“I’m fine.”
Now she’s got a hairbrush and is trying to make sense of her bedhead.
“You sure? I could get you something fast.”
She hesitates. “Okay. Thank you.”
I’ll make the dish that a housekeeper we had growing up used to make: egg in the hole. I use the rim of a glass to cut a hole out of the bread, butter the remainder, and place it in a small sauté pan. I crack open an egg and let it drop into the hole, and by the time it’s finished and I’m dressed and ready to drive her, she’s out of the bathroom, wearing a white and grey pinstriped suit.
Sleepy, pared down River is fused in my memory, but this is nice, too.
I’m ready sooner than she is.
She wolfs down the food in between putting on her shoes and fluffing her hair in the bathroom mirror. I’m mesmerized by the way she takes a bite from her plate on the countertop and then runs to the bathroom, does who knows what with her appearance, and then runs back to get another bite, grabbing a purse from a hook in the mudroom in the process.
The way her curves look as she bends down to fasten a shoe. The planes of her collarbone as she throws a long, thin chain necklace over her head.
No. I can’t be this attracted to her. The success of this whole plan rests on the simple fact that feelings of any kind cannot be a part of this equation. My father has to think there are feelings . . . big, soaring ones. But there can’t actually be.
I let out a hot breath and try to focus on something else. Scrubbing the egg off the pan and drying and putting it away. Finding my own shoes and putting them on.
It’s not really working, especially when she squeezes past me again, a brief sensation of our bodies touching as she moves past, chewing her bite of food as she makes it to the bathroom.
“You could just bring your plate in there,”
I suggest through the open door.
“Ew.”
She shoots a look of disgust and chews while she applies makeup to one eye.
She repeats the process of running back and forth from the counter to grab a bite and sometimes the bedroom for something else, all while texting or leaving voice memos to co-workers.
Finally, she’s ready to go and grabs the last triangle of toast off her plate, raising it in the air and tipping her head at me. “Thanks for the food.”
She dashes to the bathroom to brush her teeth. One last glance at the house before we leave, and I almost comment on how it looks like a tornado hit.
But I don’t. My mom taught me better than that.
As we reach the car, I remind her of an important section in the contract. “You know, if you’d let me get you a nicer car, you could be driving yourself to work.”
“Sorry about the inconvenience to you.”
“No, I don’t mind. I just wanted you to remember that you have options.”
I open her door for her. “Thanks, but I can’t get rid of the car.”
She slides onto the passenger seat. “I’m going to drive it as long as possible and then park it on the front lawn and fill it with potted flowers and watch as it goes to rust the next fifty years.”
At my look of horror, she laughs. “I’m kidding about the rusty flower garden part. But not about keeping it. It was my dad’s.”
We drive down the mountain to the resort and the whole way down, River is on her phone. “Trying to get caught up on emails but the service up here isn’t great.”
I press on the gas, sending her flying backwards as she grips the door handle with a “Whoa.”
And then, a “Let’s go!”
I appreciate a woman who appreciates my ability to drive fast. Warmth seeps through my chest. It’s the same feeling I had this morning when I woke up to her in my arms, and every time I realize that I’m wearing a wedding ring.
This warmth is not a good thing to have, it’s a complication. I clear my throat and focus on trying to get River—my wife—to work safely and on time.
Except, I have to tell her something first, and I have no idea how she’s going to receive it.