Chapter Seventeen
It was the first day Abel wasn’t out of bed before me. And the first day I didn’t wake to the disorientation of not knowing quite where I was.
I felt him before I even opened my eyes. I was on my side, his body behind mine, the angles of our knees and hips matching, his hand on my belly. I’d slept here all night. All night.
I knew something would be gone forever as soon as I got up. Probably for the best, because my ability to control my body and its behaviour was diminishing with each passing hour in Abel’s company. Even so, something held me there, not wanting to move or break the moment.
I stored the feeling in my experiences of goodness. This was what goodness felt like. One day, I should find more of it and work out a way of keeping it in my life.
As though sensing my wakefulness, his body shifted.
I could almost feel the blood coursing through him, the air sucking into his lungs, the way it made him adjust his joints and stretch his toes.
A sleepy groan from deep in his chest followed by a protective sort of clenching in on me.
Pulling my body closer to him, his face nuzzling my neck.
He must be asleep. He must be dreaming about someone else. Should I burst the bubble before he starts murmuring someone else’s name? Except it was so good. The way he was moving his hips against me. The way his bristles scratched my neck and his breath tickled my jaw. God.
His phone started buzzing gently on the top of the bed post, accompanied by the gentlest tinkling noise that I assumed was his alarm.
‘Shit!’ He grabbed the phone and sat up.
He looked down at me still lying there in his bed and I flushed. Was he appalled that I was there? But his face just shifted into a pleasantly surprised smile.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello.’ I gave an apologetic wince.
‘You slept here all night,’ he said, almost amused.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s perfect.’ He touched my hair like I should stay there and pulled his covers back on the other side, shifting to the end of the bed, where he pulled his trousers on. He’d had only his underpants and a thermal top on.
I was still grasping the impossibility of the fact I’d slept the night beside him, barely clothed, when he continued: ‘Slept through the alarm. Twice. You take your time. I’ll go get some things ready.’
He left the room and I lay there, my mind scrambling to catch up. I felt all over the place.
Today would be the last day. Then back to reality. Back to Vivian’s ‘Granny Flat’. The emergency department. Mum and Ebony. It was almost too much to comprehend. All the complexities of normal life. Just the thought was … exhausting.
It felt as though normality was already starting to reach me and the trance I’d been in was breaking. The reality of having shared such intimate conversations and moments with Abel seemed increasingly shocking, and I practically avoided him for the rest of the morning.
Our last activity was a sort of navigation exercise using compasses and maps to locate a number of points.
But my mind was elsewhere, trying to make sense of the way I’d behaved over the last few days, why my body responded so much to Abel, how I’d let myself be so bold – so stupid, really.
Had I actually contemplated making a move on him last night?
I’d been tempted. Extremely tempted. Was I completely insane?
This was someone I would probably work with again.
Would he tell everyone at work that Mary Roberts was a complete floozy and prone to jumping into bed with her colleagues?
The whole thing was mortifying.
When my group found the last of the points in the navigation exercise it was time to pack our gear.
I dallied, busying myself with rearranging the tables in the tutorial room until I was sure I’d allowed enough time for Abel to clear his stuff out so we wouldn’t cross paths in our cabin.
Finally, when I felt I couldn’t stall any longer, I reluctantly went to pack.
The room sounded empty from the outside and when I opened the door, Abel wasn’t there – but he wasn’t packed either. Which meant I needed to be very speedy to prevent another moment in this dangerous cabin with this stupidly gorgeous man.
As though the world was secretly making a joke of me, I’d just started stuffing my few belongings in my bag when the door swung open and in walked the giant man-hunk himself.
I tried not to groan as I carried on packing my clothes.
I didn’t even make eye contact. I was being rude but I couldn’t help it.
I just felt like a total idiot and I needed this all to come to an end.
I could feel his eyes on me and could almost see the slightly amused lift of his eyebrows. But looking at him would be a mistake – an unravelling – so I just carried on with my packing and stuffing.
My wet underwear from last night’s swim was hanging on the curtain rail. A cruel reminder of my completely uncharacteristic behaviour.
‘Ugh,’ I grunted, pulling them down.
‘Everything okay?’ he asked, that disturbingly beautiful tease audible in his voice.
‘Fine,’ I said without letting myself meet his eye. I was being awful. Abel had been nothing but kind, and I was being rude as hell. But what else was I supposed to do? Carry on salivating over the man and thinking improper thoughts? Not an option.
It almost hurt when I finally pulled my bag onto my back, ready to walk through the door.
That room had been like heaven for the last four nights.
That room where he’d read to me and held me and tickled me and listened to my pathetic little life story.
I wished I was big enough a person to acknowledge his kindness, thank him for saving this trip.
Thank him for being the most beautiful man I’d ever come across.
So, when his hand gripped mine just before I walked through the door, I was almost relieved. It wasn’t quite over yet.
‘Are you okay?’ His eyes were all concern, all tenderness.
That made me scowl even more. ‘Why are you so nice?’ I demanded before I could stop myself. Filterless Mary.
‘Excuse me?’ He looked taken aback, perhaps because my tone and my question didn’t match.
‘Why are you so nice to me?’ I repeated, angrier this time.
‘I … I …’
‘Helping me. And reading to me. And making me feel brave. Why?’
‘Because … because I’m a normal person? Who has a normal level of care for other people?’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
Now he was the one frowning. ‘Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?’
‘Because it’s … very, very confusing for me, Abel.’ I felt like a two-year-old having a tantrum. Where was I going with this? What was I even hoping to achieve?
‘Confusing?
‘Yes.’
‘Right.’
‘Right.’
‘So, you’d rather I wasn’t nice to you.’
‘It would make things a lot more straightforward, yes.’
‘Right.’ He was chewing the inside of his mouth and looking at the ground, nodding slowly to himself. ‘Because you’re busy getting over Felix.’
‘What?’
‘You want me to give you some space.’
‘I don’t know. Yes. Maybe.’ What was I even saying? There was no part of me that wanted Abel to give me space.
He nodded again and I felt awful. Scared. I’d been trying to let him off the hook, but somehow I felt as though I’d done something terrible. This was so fucking confusing.
‘I was just trying to be a friend, Mary.’
It was like I’d been kicked. He was being a friend? While I was picturing him doing dirty, pornographic things to me? And now he thought I was telling him to back off, like some ungrateful bitch. This was so screwed up.
‘Is this … is this how you usually act around your friends?’ Before I could stop myself, I’d gestured to his bed and last night’s scene flashed through my brain, making me flush with embarrassment. Filterless Mary out again.
I saw something give on his face. Poor man. I’d made him so dreadfully uncomfortable.
‘Okay.’ He nodded. ‘I’m sorry if I got carried away.’
‘You got carried away?’
‘I’d meant just to help turn your lips from blue to pink again.’
Now I was thinking of my mouth, and my teeth scraped involuntarily over my lower lip. His eyes landed right where I’d bit, before looking out the window to the trees swaying.
‘And I didn’t mean to spend the whole night in your bed.’ I studied the opposite wall.
‘It’s fine. I didn’t mind.’
Suddenly, my anger evaporated. It had been little more than a pretence anyway. A mask on what was really going on. I slumped onto my made-up bed. Maybe a minute passed.
‘I think I meant to say thank you.’ My voice was quiet. A little shameful, but finally honest.
‘Thank you?’ He’d sat down on his bed too, our knees just touching.
I shrugged. ‘For … being so nice.’ Wow. I was really making a mess of this. ‘I’ve not felt myself these last few days and I’ve been a total idiot in front of you but you’ve been really … nice.’
I finally looked up and met his eye.
‘Nice.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m a nice man.’ He said it almost like it was an insult.
‘Very nice.’
‘Nice’ felt like the only thing I could say out loud, but it was such a vanilla way to describe this everything man that the irony was laughable.
‘Strong’, ‘sexy’, ‘masculine’, ‘orgasm-worthy’ and the other obscene adjectives I could use to describe him probably shouldn’t be spoken.
At least that much of my filter was still functional.
‘Well. Good. I’m glad you find me nice.’ His eyes teased. A smile tugged at his lips. ‘Though if you think I’m being nice out of some sense of duty, then I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you, Mary. Perhaps I’m not that nice after all.’
I couldn’t even remember what the word meant anymore. It was like when Ebony and I were kids and we would chant something over and over until we were in hysterics at how stupid the word sounded. How it became random vowels and consonants. Weird and meaningless.
Nice. Nice. Nice. Nyce. Nais. Niys.
I locked eyes with him. This wasn’t part of the plan, I heard myself whining inside. Why couldn’t I just have packed the bag, walked out and carried on being cross as I’d intended?
‘And while we’re on the topic of descriptors,’ he continued.
‘If I was looking to summarise my experience of the last few days, or all the words that best describe the qualities of you, Mary Roberts, I can assure you that “nice” would get trumped by a considerable number of other things. And while I could spend all day perfecting those descriptors—’ His eyes traced over me, audacious and undisguised, neck to chest to waist and back, and I was left feeling like the heater had just fanned across my body. ‘—we do have a bus to pack.’
He stood and grabbed the last of his belongings, hoisted his bag on a shoulder and held the door open for me. ‘Shall we?’
I followed him, considerably more confused than I ever had been before.