Chapter 34 1964
I refuse to let Calliope ruin this night the same way she ruined the night of the party with her stupid fortune-telling antics.
I forget about her, think instead of Theo.
Soon I’m drifting in and out of scorching dreams until, at five in the morning it occurs to me that Theo didn’t tell me what time to come for breakfast. Five o’clock is too early, but maybe six?
I usually collect Adele at eight, so presumably breakfast is sometime before that. Seven?
That’s two hours away.
I groan, bury my face in the pillow, and impart a few important facts to my wayward body.
One: Adele will be at breakfast. Two: Adele will be with me all day.
Nothing can happen until later. So I ought to go to sleep properly or Theo will take one look at the bags under my eyes and ask if I’d like the bellboy to help with my baggage.
But when I close my eyes, I hear Theo saying my name.
My eyes fly open. I did go to sleep. The clock on my bedside table says it’s half past seven. And the voice isn’t a dream. It’s coming from the other side of the door!
I leap up and there he is, looking at my sapphire silk pajamas as if he could melt them away with just one of his signature glares.
“Aria,” he says, voice very husky. “I rehearsed an entire speech and all of my behavior. You were meant to be dressed and definitely not wearing these.” He risks dropping one hand to the silk, then snatches it away like he just touched fire.
“Nor were you meant to look quite so much like you just rolled out of bed and wanted to be rolled right back into it. I was supposed to tell you that Adele’s made waffles and then we’d walk to the penthouse like two mature adults.
But now I can barely remember what a waffle is, let alone the way back to my room. ”
I open the door wider. “You know, as soon as we get this over with, we’ll be much better at concentrating.”
“Aria…” There it is, my name in his mouth again. “We’re not just getting anything over with. Once we start, there’ll be no stopping us.”
Oh, Jesus. Now I’m the one who can’t remember what a waffle is.
Theo grins and walks away and I have to get dressed and go upstairs and make small talk with Adele as if I can’t feel the hot thumbprint of her father’s hand on my cheek.
I put on a pair of white cropped trousers, a navy ribbed T-shirt, brown belt, and ballet flats—professional, but yes, I choose the pants because I like the way my legs look in them and I hope Theo will too.
I don’t even have to knock. The door flies open.
“Finally,” Adele says, eyeing the waffles the same way Theo’s eyeing me. “I’m starving. And Dad’s pacing around like a maniac.”
Dad. I’ve never heard Adele call Theo that before. I look over at him and his smile is shaky and his eyes are shiny, like he’s been split into heart and ache at the very same time.
“Smells good,” I say to Adele, giving him a moment to recover.
When we’ve finished eating, the phone rings. I can hear Theo talking to someone about bedtimes and supervision.
When he hangs up he says to Adele, “That was your friend Diana’s mother.”
Adele gapes at him. “You were talking to Diana’s mom about bedtimes? You’re so embarrassing.” Then she grins, drops her faux-whiny voice and says, “Can I please go?”
It transpires that Adele’s friend, the one she met at Schwab’s, is turning fifteen and her parents want to take both girls out to dinner and then—I almost can’t believe the Fates could be so kind—Adele will stay for a sleepover.
Tonight.
I’ll have Theo all to myself.
While Theo drives Adele to her friend’s house, I bathe, shave, consider my wardrobe, and settle on my silk pajamas. I’m not planning to wear anything for longer than I have to and they had the desired effect this morning.
I let myself into the penthouse and wait on the balcony.
God, it’s beautiful out here before all the city lights turn on.
Day has melted into night, and the sky is the color of ripe apricots in a white porcelain bowl.
The wind has calmed, the gardens are empty, and there’s a space in time that’s been carved out just for us.
I hear the click of the penthouse door.
I don’t turn around. I listen to Theo’s footsteps coming closer, but slowly, as if he’s drawing out this moment, and I close my eyes and feel all the skin at the back of my neck ache for his lips, or his fingers, or any part of him at all.
Then he’s right behind me.
I shiver. “Theo.”
“Mmmmm.” He slips his arms around me, hands coming to rest on my waist. He isn’t breathing.
Nor am I.
Then he turns his face into my hair and whispers my name. I let my head tip back so he can have my throat if he wants to—can have all of me, everything.
“Come inside,” he whispers.
But I can’t move. His hand has slipped beneath my pajama top and his fingers are circling my navel. When his other hand joins in and starts to climb slowly higher, I have to bite my lip so nobody hears the sound my body wants to make.
“Come inside,” he repeats, and this time I do. And once there, I lose myself forever in the look in his eyes that tells me he is all my wishes come true, at last.
Hours pass in which we’re nothing but bodies at the whim of one another’s touch.
Finally, Theo lies on his back, bringing my head down to his shoulder and wrapping his arm around me like he doesn’t want me to leave—like he doesn’t just want me to help him reach high noon, but to lie quietly with in the predawn hours too.
It’s so lovely, just lying here with him.
“I never knew that this time afterwards is a different kind of pleasure,” I say sleepily. “I don’t know if there’s a word for it. Afterplay?”
He smiles. “I like that. But honestly…mostly people just get up and leave.”
“Well, we should make afterplay compulsory for us. I like it.”
“I like it too.” He draws my mouth up to his and for a moment he looks so beautiful I want to cry.
“Aria?” he says, sensing the shift in my mood.
“This…” I gesture to the bed, try to explain. “Us…it all felt too fine for a moment.”
“What if it’s not too anything? What if it’s exactly how it’s supposed to be?”
What if…?
What if I have a new dream—to keep doing this, with him.
It’s two weeks until December the first. The day I’m meant to leave.
I stare at the halo of light around the edge of the curtains, wishing I knew what to do. But there are so many wishes made inside the Marmont that, if wishes were kindling, we’d burn the place down.
I’m lying on my side, wrapped in Theo, his thumb making tiny promises over my skin, when I open one unwilling eye to look at the clock.
“Theo?” I mumble. “What time is Adele coming home?”
“She’s being dropped off at ten.” He stretches a little too tantalizingly. “I was trying to be a good father and not leave her to run wild all day. But now I hate that good father because something tells me—”
“It’s ten minutes to ten.” I roll onto my back.
Theo drops his mouth onto my stomach, shifts a little lower.
“Stop.” I laugh, pushing him away. “If Adele finds her father and her tutor-governess-whatever in bed together, she won’t speak to either of us for at least a week.”
“All right. Let’s get dressed and arrange ourselves like disinterested adults at the kitchen counter.”
Which would be fine, except…“I wore my pajamas here. Disinterested adults do not have coffee in their pajamas. Luckily I’ve seen enough women creatively putting men’s wardrobes to use the morning after. I just need one of your T-shirts—”
“You’re half my size. There’s no way she’s going to believe that my T-shirt is yours.”
I climb out of bed, smiling at the way his eyes roam my body. “Obviously I’m not going to wear it as a T-shirt. Let’s see…” I stand in front of the dresser, bend over just enough to show off my derriere.
Theo groans and pulls the pillow over his head.
When he emerges, I’m wearing a mini dress made from a Theo Winchester band T-shirt cinched with a brown belt. He’s on his feet the very next minute, determined to find out if I’m wearing anything under the shirt, but I bat him away, laughing, always laughing.
I’d forgotten there was so much laughter inside me.
Five minutes later, Theo’s making coffee. I fill a glass with water, then open the freezer to get ice, wanting to settle the flush on my cheeks from the evening’s entertainment.
There are two bottles of vodka in there.
I have an unhealthy need to test myself, Theo told me. To have a bottle in reach but to not reach for it.
Wouldn’t one bottle suffice? And he gave me whiskey, not vodka, the night he nearly burned. Which means there’s at least another bottle in the penthouse somewhere.
“Theo…”
“Hi!” Adele strolls in, looking happy, like she found her laughter too.
I close the freezer door.
“How was your night?” Theo asks.
“We watched TV until midnight, then told scary stories, like this one…” She starts to recount something about a big old house that’s haunted by a witch and I wonder—why is it always the women who are said to do the haunting; why are we always the ones locked up alone in the empty houses?
The next two weeks pass thusly: breakfast with Theo and Adele; school in the turret; dinner with Theo and Adele, then hours upon hours of Theo.
I know it can’t go on like this. That soon we’ll have to get some proper sleep at the very least. But bliss is its own addiction and, man, those highs.
Like Quaaludes, they wipe away my worries about Calliope and Flitter and Bob.
About screams in the night and fires. And nothing bad happens. Only good.
Theo and I have two serious conversations. The first is about Adele.
“She knows,” he says to me one night as I lie horizontally across the bed, my head on his chest while he smokes.
“Knows what?” I mumble, watching a smoke ring melt into the air.
“Adele told me this morning that we were treating her like a baby and did we really think she was that much of an idiot.”
“Oh.” I frown. “I thought we were doing a really good job of hiding it.”