Chapter Twenty One
Jonah had read the tea box three times without filling the kettle. There were instructions in two languages, neither of which helped him decide whether he wanted tea. He put the box down when he heard Summer on the stairs.
“The bed’s cold,” she said. She stood in the doorway with her cardigan held shut. “How long have you been down here?”
He looked at the clock. Half past two; he remembered seeing one forty-something when he came down, but the last number wouldn’t return. “About an hour.” He reached for the kettle. “Did I wake you?”
“I woke up and you weren’t there.” She came into the kitchen, the floorboards cold enough to make her curl her toes. “You said you’d come back.”
“I was going to.” Jonah put the empty kettle under the tap. “You can go up. I’ll be a minute.”
“You said that last night.” Summer opened the cupboard and shut it again. “I waited until four.”
He turned off the water too hard. The sound seemed loud in the small kitchen, and he wished she’d waited until morning to be angry.
“I’m not enjoying myself,” he said. He kept looking at the kettle. “I can’t sleep.”
“I’m not asking you to apologize,” Summer said. “I’m asking you to stop saying you’ll be a minute.”
“I didn’t apologize,” he said. “I came down to make tea.”
Summer went quiet. Jonah put the kettle on its base and stood waiting for it to heat.
He could manage an appointment now, a visit from his father, half an hour looking at an estimate, and still find himself here at two in the morning.
Summer took two cups from the cupboard and waited for him to move out of her way.
“Do you want tea?” she asked. Her voice was tired rather than angry now.
“Yes.” He found the box he’d just put down. “Thank you.”
They carried the cups into the sitting room. Summer sat at one end of the sofa, and Jonah took the other, though he wanted to lie with his head in her lap. He rested his head against the cushion instead, leaving his tea on the table between them.
She pulled her feet beneath the cardigan. He reached for the blanket over the chair and passed it to her. She spread it across her legs without looking at him.
“When I wake up, I have to find you,” she said. She held the mug with both hands. “Even when I know you’re down here.”
“I was going to come back,” Jonah said. “You could’ve stayed in bed. You need the sleep.”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” Summer said, putting her cup down. “I lay there listening. I can’t go back to sleep until I’ve seen you.”
“Sometimes you put your arm around me when you’re asleep,” he said. “I wake up and it’s fine. Then it isn’t, and I have to get out.” He could hear his own breathing, too fast for someone sitting still. “I don’t want to wake you up like that. You’d think you’d hurt me.”
Summer sat very still. He waited for her to ask how often it happened, already trying to work out an answer. He didn’t want her lying awake afraid to touch him.
“Wake me,” she said. “I won’t like it, but I’m not liking this either.”
“You’re up at five,” he said. “You came home yesterday and went straight to bed.”
“I was awake until four last night.” Summer held out her hand. “At least I could turn the light on. I’d like to know I can turn the light on without waking you when you aren’t even there.”
He took her hand. Her fingers were warm from the mug, and he could look at them here in the light without seeing anything else.
“I don’t want every night to be about me,” he said. He hadn’t meant to sound so bitter.
Summer let out a weary breath. “I came down here to complain. I wasn’t planning to be helpful.”
He laughed before she did. Summer moved into the space beside him, and he pulled her closer until her head rested against his shoulder.
They stayed on the sofa instead of taking the tea back upstairs. He woke to gray light at the window and Summer lying half across him, her cheek on his chest.
His arm had gone numb beneath her. He flexed his fingers and shifted enough to bring the blanket back over her feet.
Summer opened her eyes. “Morning?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep. She didn’t lift her head.
“Nearly.” He put his hand on her back. “You’re going to have a stiff neck.”
“So are you.” She closed her eyes again. “Five minutes.”
He gave her ten. When she finally sat up, she complained about her shoulder and made him move his arm so she could stand. He stretched his own stiff arm and went to make fresh tea. By the time it was ready she was back, dressed for work and looking for the phone she’d left beneath the blanket.
They didn’t sleep well every night after that.
Sometimes waking her helped; sometimes he came downstairs anyway, with her awake enough to know where he had gone.
There were mornings when they both snapped over nothing, and one when Summer left for the bakery without kissing him, then called from the car to say she was sorry about the milk.
By the next Friday, Jonah had managed both mornings he had agreed to spend at the office. He worked from home on the other days, sending Ben questions when the figures stopped making sense instead of staring at them until he wanted to shut the laptop.
At four, Summer came home with a bag of groceries and a bunch of dark red flowers. He looked up from the laptop, startled by how much he wanted to see her.
“What are those for?” he asked. He pushed the laptop aside.
“The table.” She put the flowers down and took off her coat. “Unless you’ve developed a better use.”
“I meant the occasion.” He touched a damp leaf, then caught her hand instead. “Is there one?”
“Friday.” She bent to kiss him. “And I wanted them.”
He held her there a moment longer. She kissed him again, then straightened with her cheeks warmer than when she’d come in.
“What did you get for dinner?” he asked. His hand hadn’t quite left hers.
“Something that only needs heating.” Summer unpacked a foil tray. “I’m refusing to apologize for it.”
“Good.” He closed the laptop. “Neither am I.”
They ate with the flowers between them until Summer moved them because she couldn’t see his face. Jonah found a movie she’d mentioned wanting to watch, and she sat beside him with her feet in his lap.
For the first half hour he watched the movie. Then she shifted, her toes moving beneath his hand, and his attention went somewhere else.
Summer looked down at his hand on her ankle. “You’ve missed about ten minutes,” she said. “Are you going to ask me what happened?”
“Probably.” Jonah let her foot go. “Come here first.”
Summer moved closer. “I thought you wanted to see this,” she said.
He kissed her slowly. She turned fully toward him, one hand behind his neck, and the eager pressure of her mouth brought a rush of wanting he hadn’t felt without interruption for weeks.
He drew her closer. She came partly into his lap, her knee against his thigh, and his hand moved beneath the hem of her sweater.
Warm skin, the narrow curve of her waist. Summer made a small sound against his mouth and caught his wrist, drawing his hand farther.
For a moment there was only her. Then the weight across his legs became something else, and he went rigid before he could hide it. Summer stopped. She moved back at once, her eyes searching his face.
“Jonah?” she said. Her hand stayed at his shoulder. “I’m here.”
He couldn’t catch his breath. Summer’s hand was still on his shoulder, the familiar seam of her sweater beneath his palm. He tried to keep her there when she began to move away.
“Wait,” he said. “Don’t go yet.” She stopped beside him, and he looked at the little gold earring she’d put on that morning, then the red flowers beyond her shoulder.
The movie kept playing. Somebody on the screen slammed a door, and he flinched, angry enough now that he reached past her for the remote and turned it off.
“I was all right a minute ago,” Jonah said, unable to look at her. “I don’t understand.”
“We can stop,” Summer said. She sat back far enough to give him room, her sweater twisted at the waist. “We can just stay here.”
“I didn’t want to stop,” he said. His voice was sharp enough that she took her hand away.
“Neither did I.” Summer straightened the hem of her sweater. “I was enjoying myself.”
He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. She stayed beside him, close enough for their arms to touch, and he reached for the hand she’d withdrawn. “You could tell, couldn’t you?” he asked. “That I wanted to?”
Summer left her hand on his thigh, well away from where he’d startled. “Yes. I could tell.”
He laughed once, without much humor. Then he looked at her and saw the smile she hadn’t been sure she could give him.
“Can you keep that hand there?” he asked. He put his own over it. “Just there.”
She nodded and left it. His breathing eased slowly, with her thumb moving over the denim and the room quiet around them.
After a while Summer leaned her head against his shoulder. He turned and kissed her hair, then her forehead when she lifted her face.
“I still want to kiss you,” Summer murmured against his cheek. “That part was going rather well.” He kissed her.
When they drew apart, she kept her nose against his cheek. “I hate her,” she said. Her voice was low and fierce.
He closed his eyes. “So do I,” he said. He held Summer’s hand more tightly.
They stayed there until her feet got cold. Jonah pulled the blanket over them, and she leaned against him while he restarted the movie ten minutes earlier than they had left it. He missed most of that part too. Her hand was warm beneath his, and he kept looking at it.
On Sunday he went to his parents’ house for the guitar.
His father had said it was in the back room, then sent a photograph of the case in case Jonah no longer remembered what it looked like.
Jonah had answered that he’d bought it, which earned him a question mark and a call he hadn’t meant to provoke.
He parked behind the house and went in through the garage. His father was waiting beside the inner door with the case at his feet and a new packet of strings in his hand.