Chapter 28. Lenore
Lenore
I stir awake to a faint buzzing sound. My phone lights up in the dark, shimmying across the nightstand.
I lift it and squint hard at the screen.
Incoming Video Call: Damien French. It feels like an ungodly hour for him to be calling, but one look at the upper-left-hand corner informs me that it’s eight at night.
I shift into sitting position with my back against the headboard and reach over to click on the bedside lamp.
I’m naked. Callan is in a deep sleep beside me on his stomach, a sheet twisted around his waist, his beautiful shoulders and arms on full display.
Which is a problem. “Cal,” I hiss, and shake him gently.
His answering sound is more an incoherent grumble than actual words. “Cal, my brother is calling.”
He lifts his head, hair sticking out in every direction, and squints one bleary eye at me. “What?”
“We’re supposed to do a video call so that I can meet the baby,” I whisper, panicked.
He blinks hard. “Tell him you can’t.”
“With what excuse,” I say. “They have a literal baby and they still found the time.”
“Okay,” Cal says, face screwed up in concentration. “Okay.” He pushes into a sitting position, sheet slipping down his body, and looks around the room. “Where are our clothes?”
I fling out my arm in a hopeless gesture. “Everywhere.”
Finally, the call rings out. I fire off a quick text:
Call you back in a min
I toss my phone on the bed. We both scramble to our feet and gather our clothes, tugging them on. Damien’s reply rolls through within seconds. I lean over to read it.
hurry up. wake windows are short
over here
I wrestle the faded Boulder Beach T-shirt over my head and then hold it out by the hem, staring down at the peeling design. “Does Damien know this shirt?”
Cal glances up in the middle of tying the drawstring on his sweatpants, a groove appearing between his brows. “What?”
“This is your shirt,” I say, carefully enunciating each word. “Do you think he’ll recognize it?”
“Nore,” he says flatly, “you’re in my bedroom. I don’t think the shirt’s the dead giveaway here.”
“Shit.” I rake my fingers through my unruly hair, shoving it behind my ears and letting my hands slide down the sides of my neck. “I don’t think I’m ready for him to know. About us.”
Cal’s head whips up, hurt flashing in his eyes. “You want to keep us a secret?”
“No!” I cry. “We’re adults. Obviously. My brother has no bearing whatsoever on whatever we choose to do.”
Relief flickers in his expression. “But?”
“I think we could pick a more appropriate moment to break the news,” I say, my eyes dropping to the hickey beside his Adam’s apple.
Cal touches the side of his neck and turns to check his reflection in the mirror above the dresser. “Fair point.” We both look around the room. “You could call him back in the bathroom.”
I burrow my teeth into my bottom lip. “Won’t he recognize your bathroom?”
“I don’t know, Lenore, it’s a bathroom!”
I ease the cracked door open, and light spills into the bedroom.
Cal brushes past me and scoops his shaving equipment from the counter, shoving it loose and haphazard under the sink.
We skirt past each other in the doorway, and he grabs the back of my head, burying a swift kiss in my hair before the door clicks shut behind him.
My reflection in the mirror looks a bit ragged. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep with damp hair. After raking my fingers through it to work out a few tangles, I settle on the lip of the bathtub and press my thumb to return the missed video call.
Damien appears on screen, sporting a five o’clock shadow and stupid mustache.
“What the hell is on your face,” I say.
He ignores me. “Where are you, in the fucking hospital?”
I glance over my shoulder at the stark white tile lining the shower.
“Language, both of you,” Katie says, somewhere off camera.
“She’s two days old; she doesn’t know English yet,” Damien points out.
“I’m at a hotel,” I invent at random, “in the bathroom.”
“Why are you in a hotel,” he demands. “Wait—better question, why are you in the bathroom?”
I shrug. “The lighting is better in here.” Eager to change the subject, I add, “I would like to see the baby now, please.”
Damien flips the camera onto Katie, sitting cross-legged on the bed in a button-down pajama set.
Her sleek black hair is wadded into a loose bun, slumping to one side of her head, but she looks great for having gone through childbirth less than forty-eight hours ago.
The camera closes in on the tiny baby cradled on her lap, swaddled like a burrito.
I gasp. “Oh my gosh, you are perfect.”
“Isn’t she?” Damien says behind the phone.
“How’s motherhood treating you so far?” I ask Katie. “If my brother isn’t waiting on you hand and foot, I swear, I’ll drive down there and beat him up myself.”
“I’m great,” she says. “Exhausted, obviously, and my vagina hurts like a mother”—her eyes dart past the camera guiltily—“mothertrucker, but we’re doing good. Damien has been wonderful.”
“The wife has spoken,” Damien says in a goofy voice. “And here’s Greg.” The camera pans to reveal a giant, shaggy bernedoodle curled at the foot of the bed.
“Good evening, Gregory,” I say, and he gives me whale eye. “I don’t like how he’s looking at me.”
“What do you mean? That’s how he looks.”
“Exactly. It’s like there’s a human soul trapped in there, behind the eyes.”
“I’m going to put Eloise down,” Katie says.
I call out a good night and Katie waves before the camera flips back around to Damien. “What about you,” he says. “Are you doing all right?”
My eyes flick to the closed bathroom door. “Why are you asking about me right now? I’m fine.”
“You said you’re staying at a hotel,” he says dubiously.
Right. Now I have to come up with more lies to cover up my lies. “I needed to spend a night away from the house. It’s—it gets spooky in there. And there was a break-in.”
“What?” he barks.
“Just some teenagers,” I rush to explain. Best to stick as close to the truth as possible. “Nothing to be concerned about.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Damien. Maybe because you have a brand-new infant child.”
His nostrils flare in a disapproving sigh. “I just—”
“—worry about me.” I fold my free arm across my knees, resting my chin on it. “Yeah. You’ve mentioned that.”
Damien gives me a skeptical look, but before he’s able to argue the point further, Eloise wails in the background. I hear Katie somewhere off camera. “Where is her pacifier? Damien?”
“I put it on the nightstand.”
“Well, it’s not on the nightstand—”
He casts a distracted glance at his phone. “I gotta go. Shoot me a text to let me know when you’re back at the farmhouse. Yeah?”
“All right,” I say, resigned.
We hang up and I step out from the bathroom.
The bedside lamp casts warm light across the rumpled bed, where Cal sits with his hands braced on the edge of the mattress.
I use my leg to nudge his knees wider, standing in the V of his thighs.
I loop my arms around his shoulders. “How’d it go? ” he asks, looking up at me.
“Well, my niece is perfect,” I say.
Cal studies me for a quiet moment. His hands find my waist and he presses a kiss to my stomach that sends butterflies scattering through me, delicate wings batting against the inside of my rib cage.
I feel oddly fragile right now, and he must sense it, because his touch is gentle as he pulls me down to meet his mouth.
We fall back into bed together, into sex and sleep, moments bleeding together in the dark as we drift in and out of consciousness. There is a comfortable familiarity in the way we are together, like we were always a little bit inevitable, and I can’t seem to get enough of it.
I don’t want to leave. Not when it feels like I’m barely finding my footing. It’s too soon, four walls pressing in around me, until there’s no space left to move, let alone get anything done.
I must voice this thought aloud at some point, because he mumbles into my hair, “You could just stay here.”
It’s one of those off-handed suggestions people make, the kind that is so sure to be rejected that they almost pass it off as a joke. I don’t even know whether he means here in Vermont or here in his bedroom. I’m tempted to take him up on it either way.