5. Jade #2
The first time I saw Ryan naked I was surprised.
He was bigger than I'd had before. The first time he was inside me he had to go slow.
Then he covered up every time after that.
Two years of condoms. I've never had him on my skin without rubber between us.
I've never had a man finish in me bare in my adult life.
If Cormac is bigger than Ryan was—and looking at the rest of him I'm starting to think he might be—I don't know what I'm going to do with that.
I look at Killian for half a second. Same shoulders. Same forearms. Probably the same gift, give or take. Killian wouldn't waste it the way Ryan did.
Heat lands low between my legs. My thighs press together under the table. The pulse in my throat goes loud.
I set down my mug.
I think about genetics for two full seconds and then I get a grip.
This is what you do, I think, addressing myself directly and without charity. You've been in this man's house for less than twenty hours and you're sitting at his breakfast table imagining his hypothetical children. With his eggs on your plate. Excellent work. Very normal.
"Jade."
I look up. Killian is watching me with that patient, focused quality, like he's been waiting to catch me at something, and my heart does a stupid thing before I remember: he can't know. I've been staring at my coffee cup for five seconds. That's all.
"Did you want more?" He's holding the pot.
"Yes," I say. "Thank you."
He pours it. His eyes don't move from my face the whole time, and the coffee gets to the mug without spilling, which is either proof he's done this before or that he can do anything without looking. I don't know which one. My hands aren't steady.
I tell them I'm staying after breakfast, while Ryan is doing the dishes.
I tell Ryan, because his back is to me and it's easier that way. "I think I should sort through the boxes properly," I say. "It makes more sense than carrying everything back to the car and unpacking it again later."
The water keeps running. "Okay," he says.
I don't look at Cormac, but I'm aware of him crossing behind me toward the counter, registering what I just said the way weather moves in—before it's named, before it arrives, just a change in the pressure of the room.
"Alright," he says. Not to me, not quite to anyone. Just confirming what was already going to happen.
He turns then. Looks at me directly—the full, unhurried attention.
"Harvest is twelve days out," he says. "Stay through it, if you want."
Not phrased as a question. Same register as guest room's made up last night—a door held open, not a request for anything.
I think about my apartment. The west-facing windows that get afternoon light I never use. The month-to-month lease. The freelance calendar with nothing critical for three more weeks. The bag I packed for the drive home still sitting in my car, untouched.
I came here for two boxes. I labeled them myself.
"Okay," I say.
He nods once. Goes back to the ledger.
From the table, Killian's voice: "I'm on the north slope until three." Nobody responds to this. Nobody needs to.
I get through half a box.
The cereal bowls come out first, wrapped in newspaper, and I set them on the counter and look at them for longer than necessary.
My cereal bowls. In Cormac Flanagan's kitchen.
In a house he built and a life he's been building since before I was born, next to a guest room I have no real reason to still be in.
I re-wrap one of the bowls and put it back.
He finds me at quarter past noon standing at the back window with my jacket already on, looking at the slope.
"Come see the rows," he says.
Not a question. I follow him out.
The vines are going gold at the edges—the autumn slowdown, the final push before harvest, color in the leaves that means something I'm only starting to be able to read.
Cormac walks me through the rows the way he walks through everything: at a pace he's already decided, pausing where he decides to pause, no hurry about any of it.
He touches the vines when he wants to explain something, pinches a leaf and holds it out for me to smell.
"Green and a little bitter," I say. "Tannin?"
"Getting there." He moves down the row. "Another week."
He stops at a vine and lifts a cluster carefully. "See how the berries are sized?"
"Tight together."
"Too tight. They'll fight for the same sugar."
"And the leaves?"
"The color shift. There." He points. "When the edge goes yellow before the rest, that's the vine struggling."
He moves on. He's wearing the work pants today, fitted at the hip.
When he turns to point at the next cluster I let my eyes drop.
The shape of him through the fabric. As broad through there as he is everywhere else.
My nipples tighten under the cotton of my shirt.
I shift my weight and pretend I'm thinking about clusters.
"Some vines come on hard," he says, oblivious or deciding to be. "Too heavy a set. More than they can ripen."
"What do you do?"
"Thin them. Take some of the load off." He looks at me. "Better to give a plant less to bear than ask it to do more than it should."
I keep my face still.
"How do you know if a vine's a good one?" I ask.
"The way she sets fruit. Some plants take the season and make something out of it. Some don't." He touches a leaf and lets it drop. "These do. They've been bearing on this slope for forty years."
"How long does she produce?"
"Sixty. Eighty if you treat her right."
He says her without flinching. I don't ask if he meant the vine.
We're in the fourth row from the east fence when I reach out to lift a cluster from the trellis—just to see what he means about the hang of it—and his hand covers mine. Not grabbing. Just there, warm and certain, correcting my grip.
"From underneath," he says. He guides my hand, tilts the cluster the right way.
The heat of his palm goes up my arm and into my chest. My stomach drops. The pulse low between my legs gets louder. I don't move. I want him to keep his hand there. He doesn't. He lifts it after three seconds.
I'm going to be feeling those three seconds in my body for the rest of the day.
He steps back. The wind catches my hair and pushes it across my face. He reaches up and tucks it behind my ear with one finger. The back of his thumb grazes my jaw on the way down. I don't move. He keeps walking.
"These two vines had the most fruit last season. East exposure. Better drainage." He moves to the next section. "I want to see if the yield holds."
"Does it usually?"
"If the ground holds the heat." He's already walking. "This land rewards patience."
I follow him down the row. The slope is going gold in the afternoon light, the rows running out toward the tree line in long even lines, and behind us the house sits square and solid on the rise.
The kitchen window, the east-facing curtains of the guest room, the whole shape of the thing I've spent eight months carefully not looking at directly.
I'm starting to understand what the rest of it looks like from here.
Dinner is ready at six. I come downstairs and the table is set for four.
My glass is already poured.
I take my seat. None of them looks at me. All of them are watching me.