39. Keeley
KEELEY
T hough I’m listening for him, I don’t wake when he gets in, and he’s gone when I get up. I check the kitchen for a note from him, perhaps sarcastically asking me not to eat all the fruit as if I’d ever willingly eat fruit, but there’s nothing.
He’s just gone, and the apartment has never felt so empty. I didn’t realize how much I liked hearing him demand projections and bark orders I don’t understand as I got ready for work.
I take Mark his breakfast, something Graham does at least half the time now and stop for a second though I know I’m going to be double booked all day.
“Did Graham get out okay this morning?” Mark asks. “That was a tough break, Prescott leaving like that.”
“Prescott?” I repeat weakly.
“The guy running the New York office. We’ll see if Jody can step up but I kind of doubt it. And not because she’s a woman. I just don’t think she’s going to be forceful enough for that crew.”
I know none of this, yet Graham knows all about Dr. Fox and her weekly appointment to get her roots done, and how Trinny was doing a juice fast and got the runs.
Is it Graham’s fault for not telling me, or my fault for not asking?
It’s not as if he greets me at the door every night saying, “tell me everything . ” I just do, and he does not.
“How do you know about all that?”
Mark shrugs. “I had the same job, you know, and it’s stressful as hell. Graham’s a young guy with a good head on his shoulders. I’m just keeping tabs to make sure it stays that way.”
“Maybe I should have been asking more questions,” I say quietly.
Mark shakes his head. “You’re already performing the most important role, and it’s the one thing I really needed back then.”
“What’s that?”
“You give him a reason to wake up in the morning, Keeley.” He laughs when my mouth opens to argue. “No, not the baby. You .”
I get through another long day at work, followed by a lonely night without him.
By Thursday, I miss him so much I can barely stand it.
I walk into his room—the door is open, it’s not like I’m prying—and sit on his bed.
The pillow smells like his shampoo. On the right wall, he’s begun to consolidate his stuff so there’ll be room to place the crib on the left.
It’s already beginning, this process of him separating himself from us.
Maybe that’s part of the reason he went back to New York.
I lie down on my side and cry, realizing far too late that my mascara is all over his pillowcase. “Well done, Keeley,” I sigh. Rosa’s not even in for the rest of the week, and I’m never getting that stain out on my own. I’ll blame it on the crib delivery guys, I guess.
Once I’ve pulled myself together, I call him. He’s out, though it’s late there—I hear glasses clinking and laughter.
“Is everything okay?” he shouts over the din.
I briefly consider claiming my water has broken, but that’ll be hard to play off when it breaks a second time later on. “It’s fine!” I shout back. “I had a question about the crib but it can wait!”
A text comes through only a second later.
Graham: Sorry about that. You said something about the crib?
Me: I figured it out, but thanks.
Graham: Is everything okay?
I hesitate. No, nothing is okay. I’m sad, and I miss him, and I don’t know why he hasn’t told me any of things other people seem to know. Graham is the type of guy who keeps it all close to his vest, or so I thought, but if he can tell Mark something, surely he can tell me?
Me: Why didn’t you tell me Presley quit?
Graham: Prescott? How do you even know who Prescott *is*?
Me: Mark. You can tell me that stuff, you know.
Graham: I thought you said everything about my work was boring.
Me: It is. It’s super boring. But I still want to know.
Graham: I feel like this isn’t really about Prescott.
Me: Ignore me. I’ve had a hard week. You have, too, apparently.
I wait for him to ask how my week was hard, because he’d usually ask, or to tell me something more.
I wait and wait, but he doesn’t even reply.
Friday feels like the world’s longest day, though I leave at a reasonable hour for once.
When I get to my building, I stop by the front desk to thank Jacobson for letting the delivery guys into my apartment, and he waves me off. “I didn’t need to. Graham took care of it.”
“He’s here?” I ask, my heart racing.
Jacobson raises a brow. “I figured you’d be the first to know.”
I’m never the first to know, but he’s here and I’m too excited to be sad about that. I walk-run to the elevator and then down my hall, bursting into my apartment with no couth whatsoever.
He’s in the kitchen, in shorts and a t-shirt, making a pie. I don’t know why the sight of him makes my trachea feel half its normal size.
“You’re home,” I say, then swallow hard. Oh God, do not let me cry over this. Do not.
He gives me an uncertain smile. “ You’re home . Hours early.”
“I lied about a doctor’s appointment so I could leave,” I admit, and he laughs. “What happened? You said you’d be gone until Wednesday.”
“I’ve got to head back in the morning. I just thought—” He looks at me, his tongue prodding his cheek. “You said you’d had a hard week. I thought maybe I ought to be here.”
I open my mouth to tell him he didn’t need to do that, and instead burst into tears.
In seconds, his arms are around me. “Keeley, what’s going on? Is this just a pregnancy thing or is it something else?”
I sob against his chest. “You haven’t been weird at all,” I cry. “Ever since we slept together, you haven’t been weird at all.”
He laughs quietly. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“ No . Why hasn’t it been weird for you? Because it’s been different for me, but you’re just business as usual. It’s like it was meaningless.”
He’s quiet for a moment, and then his arms tighten around me. “Keeley, if I don’t seem any different…it’s because I’m not. I’ve been trying to get over you for months, and…I’m still trying. I’m going to be trying for a long while. This is just what it looks like.”
A tiny flame ignites inside me, flickering at first and then growing stronger. He wants this. He wants us. And it’s incredibly risky and doomed to failure, but I want it too.
I place my palms on his chest as I look up at him. “I don’t want you to get over it, Graham.”
He swallows, hope and uncertainty dancing in his eyes. “You once said you were a butterfly who couldn’t stay in one place for long.”
I take a deep breath before I answer. “Maybe I just needed a safe place to land.”
He searches my face just long enough to make sure I mean it, and then he leans down with a quiet groan and kisses me.
He smells like cinnamon and soap; he tastes like apples and mint.
His arms—not too tight and not too loose—surround me in a wall of muscle he’ll use to shield me from the world if necessary. His mouth on mine is urgent and perfect . For five days, I’ve missed this and dreamed about it, and it’s even better than I remember.
It’s messy, desperate, and when his hand finally slides inside my panties I gasp in relief. “Fucking finally,” I say, and his laughter is strained.
He pulls the shirt over my head and pushes my skirt around my hips. When I reach into his boxers and palm him, exactly the way he likes, air hisses between his teeth, and then he lifts me onto the counter.
“I’ve got to fuck you now because I can’t stand not to,” he says. “And I apologize in advance for its brevity.”
His mouth tugs at one nipple as he shoves his shorts and boxers down and steps close.
When he pushes inside me, my teeth sink into his shoulder. “This is another really good position,” I gasp.
“I told you,” he says against my ear, his voice tight, “I’ve given it a lot of thought.”
He’s careful with me, more careful than he is in those slivers of memory from January.
He moves in and out slowly, his jaw flexed as he tries not to come.
I know he’s scared about the pregnancy, being gentler than he otherwise would be.
I wish I’d paid more attention during my obstetrics rotation…
maybe I’d know enough to assure him it isn’t a concern.
His brow is damp, his eyes are dark and drugged. “Are you close?”
“I am. Just do it harder,” I beg. “Stop holding back.”
“Fuck. I shouldn’t,” he says, but everything about his clenched jaw, his tight grip on my hips, tells me he wants to. “Just for a minute.” He gives in with a muffled cry, as if some part of him has finally been set free.
In seconds, he has me going off like a bomb.
“God, I love that,” he hisses and then his thrusts come fast and sharp, and he lets go, too, throwing his head back, his eyes squeezed tight.
When they finally open again, I reach up to his throat. “You have my favorite thyroid cartilage in the entire world.”
He laughs. “That’s probably the weirdest compliment I’ve ever received.”
“All the blood may have rushed from my brain. I’m not thinking all that clearly right now.”
His mouth curls into a hint of a smile—a smug, smug smile—and then he lifts me up, wrapping my legs around his waist as he carries me.
“What are you doing?”
He walks into his room and deposits me carefully on the bed. “Making sure you keep not thinking clearly. Traditionally, that’s worked out really well for me.”
The second time is long and luxurious, and he refuses to do it hard, the way I ask, but goes down on me instead, and I guess I really have no complaints about this in the end.
When it’s over, though, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. If he’s flying out in the morning, he might want the room to himself. Maybe he’s got to repack. Maybe he wants to do laundry.
“Well,” I begin, sliding away.
“Keeley,” he says. “Don’t.”
I’m not sure what he’s telling me not to do, at first, but then he pulls the blankets over us both and his hand lands on my hip.
Ah , I think, smiling. Don’t leave .
He tugs my back to his chest, his knees sliding into the curve of mine, his arms around me so that I am covered in him, as close as we can possibly be. And like that we remain for the entire night.
It’s the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had.