Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Sophie changed the sheets before Jesse came for dinner. They needed changing, and the pillowcase he preferred had been pushed behind the spare blankets. She found it, put it on the bed, then replaced it with another before going downstairs to check the oven.
Jesse stood outside holding a paper bag. He had shaved, and the sight of the clean line of his jaw made her regret every decision she had made since inviting him.
“I bought two,” he said, lifting the bag. “They were small.”
“Of course you did.” Sophie let him in.
He stopped in the hall when he saw the lamp from the market. It stood on a narrow table beneath the stairs, its shade throwing a warm circle against the wall. He touched the switch lightly, then looked at Sophie.
“You found a place,” he said. He put the bread on the table. “I thought it might end up in the garage.”
“Kelly said that too.” He looked down. “She was wrong,” Sophie added.
He smiled. In the kitchen he took plates from the cupboard, then asked how many she needed though there were only two of them. Sophie gave him the bread knife and told him to start with half a loaf.
Dinner was ordinary in ways that almost hurt. He wanted more salt; she had forgotten to put any on the table. She told him about a sponsor who had arrived in a suit and left with glue on one sleeve, and he laughed at the part she knew he would find funny.
He asked about the new group, and Sophie told him one child had spent the afternoon putting all the paintbrushes into a row and refusing to use any.
Jesse said he sounded like the apprentice who’d spent a week sorting the van instead of asking where a tool was, and Sophie laughed because she knew exactly which boy he meant.
“He made me a list,” Jesse said. He tore the bread in half and gave her the larger piece. “Every tool. Everything he’d moved. I still couldn’t find the damn meter.”
After dinner he washed while she dried. Sophie told him where she wanted to put a shelf, forgetting she’d bought it while he was gone, and he asked how deep it was before measuring the space with his hands.
She fetched it from the study. He held it against the wall where she pointed, moving it twice before she was happy, then put it on the table beside his jacket. The new shelf lay between them while he dried his hands.
Jesse dried his hands and glanced toward his jacket. “I should go.” He made no move to collect it.
“I don’t want you to.” She made herself meet his eyes.
He came closer, and Sophie caught the front of his sweater before he reached her. She pulled him against the counter and kissed him with the bread knife still lying beside her elbow.
The kiss was clumsy at first because she was shaking.
Then his hand settled against her waist, and she leaned into him with an urgency that frightened her less than the thought of letting him go.
He backed her against the counter and bent his head to her neck, kissing the place he had found behind the hedge on their wedding day.
Sophie slid her hands beneath his sweater. His skin was warm, familiar, and she pressed her palms flat against his back while he drew her closer. For a few seconds she could think only of the weight of him and the sound he made when she kissed him harder.
His fingers found the fastening beneath her hair. The little hook came free, and she felt the cold place below it as clearly as she felt his hand against her back.
“Wait,” Sophie said, catching his wrist. He stopped with his mouth still near hers, then drew back far enough to see her face.
She pulled the fabric together. “I shouldn’t have eaten so much,” she said. Her fingers wouldn’t find the hook, and she turned away to try it in the reflection of the window.
Jesse went to the sink for a glass of water and asked whether she’d rather sit in the other room.
“You don’t have to go.” Sophie abandoned the hook, leaving the neckline loose. “I didn’t say you had to go.”
“I heard you.” He put the glass down harder than he needed to. “I’m getting water, Soph.”
She went to the sofa and turned on the television. He came in after a minute carrying the glass and sat at the other end, leaving a cushion between them.
Sophie watched half a news item without understanding it. When Jesse reached for his water, she took the cushion away and moved nearer, tucking her foot beneath his thigh.
They watched a film she’d seen before. Sophie told him the ending by accident while trying to explain why she disliked the man in it.
“Thanks,” he said. He took the remote when she offered it and found something else, keeping her foot beneath his leg until she began to fall asleep.
At the door she kissed him and held on to his sleeve. He stayed close while she finished, then pulled up his collar against the cold and went to the truck. Upstairs, Sophie took the unused pillow off his side of the bed before lying down.
The next Friday, Jesse took her bowling. He had suggested it over the phone with such determination that Sophie agreed before remembering the last time he had played, when he spent most of the evening insisting something was wrong with the lane.
He was waiting inside when she arrived. The place smelled of frying oil and the spray used on the rental shoes, and a group of teenagers occupied the bench beside him. Jesse had folded himself into the remaining space with his coat across his knees.
“I should have booked.” He stood, letting a girl sit in the warm spot he’d left. “Twenty minutes, apparently.”
Sophie unfastened her coat. Beneath it she wore a close-fitting black sweater she had tried on with three different pairs of jeans, and his attention dropped to it before he made himself look at her face.
“Is this all right?” A crash of pins nearly swallowed the question. “We can go somewhere else.”
“I’ve come prepared to win.” Sophie took his coat. “I’m not leaving.”
They found a table near the snack counter. Jesse came back with beer, fries, and a number for their lane, explaining that the wait would be longer because a machine had broken. Sophie took a fry from the basket and burned the roof of her mouth.
“Hot,” he said, too late. He pushed her drink closer while she glared at him.
She laughed after swallowing. He smiled back, and she put her hand on his forearm because she had meant to touch him when she came in and somehow hadn’t managed it.
His sleeve was soft beneath her fingers. He moved his arm a little closer and stole a fry with his free hand, blowing on it while she told him about a teacher who had sent photographs of the children’s finished work.
“Show me.” He moved his chair around the table, knee brushing hers.
Sophie brought up the pictures. A boy who had refused to paint during the first session had made an enormous brown dog, and she enlarged the photograph until its uneven eyes filled the screen. Jesse leaned nearer, smelling faintly of soap and the cold air outside.
“That’s good.” He took the phone. “He got the feet right.”
“Those are wheels.” Sophie pointed to the smaller photograph beside it. “He decided it was a bus.”
Jesse studied it again. “I still like it,” he said, and she laughed against his shoulder.
Their lane became available while they were finishing the fries. Jesse collected their shoes and waited beside the bench as Sophie tugged off a boot. Her sock came halfway with it, and he put the shoes down before taking the boot from her.
“Pull.” She braced her foot against his knee. “The heel catches.”
He got it off with an effort that nearly sent him backward. Sophie caught his sleeve, laughing, and for a moment he stayed bent over her with her boot in one hand and his other hand warm around her ankle.
“There,” he said. His thumb moved once above her sock before he let go. “Try to stay upright in these.”
She put on the rental shoes while he entered their names into the screen. Then he selected a ball, changed it for a heavier one, and returned to the first when Sophie began smiling.
“My hand doesn’t fit,” he said. He held up his fingers for inspection. “That isn’t an excuse.”
Sophie nodded gravely and took her turn. The ball left two pins standing at opposite sides of the lane. She missed both on her second roll and turned with her arms raised anyway. Jesse clapped once before reaching for his ball.
His first roll went into the gutter. He stood at the line watching it disappear, then glanced back at her with the stubborn expression she remembered.
“Don’t say it.” He waited for the ball. “I know.”
“I didn’t say anything.” Sophie tucked one leg beneath her. “There’s still another go.”
He hit three pins that time. She applauded, and he passed close enough to pull lightly at the end of her ponytail before sitting down.
By the fifth frame he was improving. By the seventh, when he managed a strike, he had begun offering her advice she hadn’t requested. Sophie missed an easy spare while he explained something about her wrist and came back to find him trying to hide a smile behind his glass.
“You did that on purpose.” She took his glass and drank the last of his beer.
“I was helping.” He reclaimed the empty glass. “You looked very good doing it, though.”
She leaned close as he stood. “So do you,” she said, letting her fingers brush the front of his jeans where no one else could see.
His hand closed around hers. He held it against his hip for a moment, his eyes on her mouth, before returning to the lane. The ball traveled farther along the gutter than either of them needed to watch.
Sophie bent over laughing. He came back shaking his head and sat beside her instead of opposite, catching her around the waist while she tried to get up for her turn.
“You can wait a second,” he said against her ear. His mouth touched the skin just below it. “They’ll manage.”
She settled back against him. A teenager at the next lane shouted when all his pins fell, and Sophie clapped with the others while Jesse’s hand remained beneath the edge of her sweater. His thumb rested against the bare strip of her waist.
She won the game. Jesse bought a second one before she could take off her shoes, then accused her of choosing this moment to remember she had work in the morning.
“I do have work,” Sophie said, retying a shoelace. “You’re going to have to lose faster.”
He grinned. She had missed that particular expression, the one he wore when he intended to be difficult and expected her to like him anyway. She went back to the rack for a lighter ball and refused to let him choose it for her.
This time he stayed ahead until near the end. Sophie grew quiet, trying to remember what she had done on the rolls that went well, and he watched without offering more advice. When she finished, they both looked up at the score.
She’d beaten him by three points. Jesse sat down heavily, and Sophie held out a hand.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll buy you something on the way home.”
He caught her hand and pulled her onto the bench. “You know I’m going to practice. I can’t leave it like that.”
Sophie put her head against his shoulder. “Book it,” she said, and stayed there until the attendant came to ask whether they wanted another game. Jesse shook his head and began untying his shoes.
Outside she followed him to the truck, then remembered she’d driven there herself. Her car stood at the far end of the parking lot, and she looked at the keys in her hand without turning toward it.
“I could drive you back in the morning,” he said. He unlocked the truck, then held the door without adding anything.
Sophie put her keys in her bag and climbed into the truck. “Eight,” she said. “I’ve got to be back here by eight.”
“I’ll be there.” He went around the truck, his face briefly bright in the headlights of a passing car.
On the drive home she put her hand on his thigh. At a red light he covered it with his own, then kissed her knuckles before the car behind them sounded its horn. Sophie laughed and told him to drive.
In her driveway he turned off the engine. She undid her seat belt and moved across the seat, catching his face between her hands before he could begin saying good night. He met her halfway, his arm coming around her back, and the hard press of his mouth made her pull him closer.
His hand slid beneath her sweater. She leaned into it, kissing him until the glass beside them clouded and she had to stop for breath. He rested his forehead against hers while she touched the rough hair at the back of his neck.
“Eight,” she said. She kissed him once more, then sat back and reached for her coat. “Don’t make me late.”
He let her move back across the seat. “I’m setting an alarm before I leave the driveway,” he said, and she was still smiling when she reached her front door.
He arrived at ten to eight with coffee. Sophie came downstairs carrying her shoes, finished putting them on in the truck, and discovered a packet of the oat bars she liked tucked beside her cup. She ate one and left the packet there for next time.