Chapter Thirty-Four
Thirty-Four
It did turn out to be a whole production, having to use the bathroom before bed.
I didn’t bother putting any clothes back on to venture down the stairs and do everything I needed to do.
I even went ahead and brushed my teeth, because I figured if we were going to go to sleep I didn’t want to have to come back down for any reason.
When I returned to Eamonn’s room he was lying back on top of the covers, watching me in the flickering candlelight as I slid into the bed next to him.
He kissed me before disappearing downstairs himself, and when he returned I was in the same position he’d been, lying naked on top of his covers.
I would’ve normally felt self-conscious about that kind of thing—there was something about being naked in front of someone, even someone you’d already had sex with, when the context was no longer as sexual.
And I knew Eamonn didn’t like it when I made a big deal about our age difference, but it was something I couldn’t help but be aware of, especially when he was looking at my body.
Were my breasts perky enough, was my stomach too soft, could he see the cellulite on my thighs.
But for whatever reason, I didn’t really feel it.
I liked the way he looked at me. And I liked looking at him, still felt a kick in my stomach that I was allowed to look at him like this at all.
He stood naked in the doorway, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand in a gesture that suddenly struck me as very sweet.
He’d barely gotten any sleep in the past couple days, less than me, even.
“Can dogs do spiral staircases?” I asked.
If he was surprised by my random question, he didn’t show it. He blew out the candle, turning the covers back, urging me over while he pulled them up over both of us.
“They have a harder time going down,” he said. “Sometimes they’re scared of it. You might have to train them to know how to approach the stairs, and I think it’s better if there’s carpeting or something to help with grip. Why?”
I didn’t even fully know how to put everything I was thinking and feeling into words, the way my heart felt so full but so heavy, too.
I was bone-tired, the kind of tired that came from running around doing so much over the past two days, putting my body through so much, and barely stopping to rest. I was still scared of sleep, and didn’t know what to expect whenever I woke back up.
But it was a good kind of tired, too, with Eamonn’s arm around me, the sound of the rain, the bed warm and heavenly to sink down into. Somehow I’d known that he’d have an answer to my question. It told me everything, that he already knew the answer.
“Do you want me to be happy?” I asked.
I could almost feel his confusion in the darkness, the line that would’ve formed between his brows as he faced me.
“Why would—”
But I wasn’t done. “Going dancing or taking an art class or falling in love—those are all things you’d want for me, right? That you think I deserve.”
“Jess,” he said. “Of course.”
“Do you think you deserve to be happy?”
He huffed a laugh, smoothing one hand over my hair, tucking it behind my ear. “Is this about what Joe said, you think because I read Ulysses there’s something wrong with me?”
He had to know my question had been a serious one, so it was a clear deflection—that he’d answered it with a joke, a callback to that waiter at the restaurant in our first hours together. I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.
“I mean it,” I said. “Do you think you deserve to be happy?”
“Ah,” he said, and I could hear a thousand answers in that one syllable.
He’d say what did it mean to even deserve something, when it came down to it nobody deserved anything in this world.
He’d say what did it even mean to be happy, that the word itself was so mutable and changing, impossible to pin down.
But I could hear him swallowing, and he didn’t end up saying any of that.
“You take care of cars the way you want to take care of people,” I said. “I think you should let yourself do it. And I think you should get a dog.”
I turned over in his arms, snuggling against him, and he hugged me close, pressing a kiss to the back of my head. “I don’t deserve you,” he said gruffly. “I know that much.”
“Well, too late,” I said. “If this were real, I’d be halfway in love with you already.”
His arms tightened around me. “If this were real.”
“Mm-hmm.” It was difficult to keep my eyes open, as badly as I wanted to. Sleep was settling over me like a fog, and any thought I’d had to try to resist it seemed futile. It felt so good to give in, to let myself float.
“I know it’s not real,” he said from behind me, his voice low and comforting even as I vaguely registered that there was something a little keyed up and desperate under the words.
It was like one part of my brain could register what he was saying, and the other part had already checked out.
“I know it can’t be real. And unfortunately it occurred to me that tomorrow’s a holiday, the embassy will be closed again.
You’ll have to stay with me another day, and then I’ll drive you to the embassy. All right? I promise.”
A holiday. I felt like I should know something about this already, but my thoughts were wisps, I couldn’t hold on to them. “Tomorrow…”
“Tomorrow we’ll wake up, and sunlight’s going to be coming through that window right about”—he squeezed my hip, then splayed his hand out over my thigh—“here. And I’ll make you some tea, we can get breakfast. Jess, I’ll take you to the fucking parade if you want to go.
We’ll figure it all out. We still have time. ”
Time. He thought a lot about time. I remembered that about him.
“Jess?”
That sounds nice, I thought but couldn’t say, as I sank all the way down into sleep.