21. Chapter 21
Luna
I toss and turn, unable to fall asleep. My mind is in overdrive. It has been since Isaac crowded me on his parents’ two-seater sofa, his hard thigh pressed into mine. It felt like it was too close after how we’d been these last weeks.
It has been a week, and I still feel the warmth from his thigh bleeding into mine, and my body having that knee-jerk reaction to having him close. If I didn’t know any better, I would have guessed he planned the entire thing.
I can’t forget the flicker under my skin, like pinpoint sparks lighting up places I’ve been deliberately ignoring.
It’s been weeks since he’s touched me because I couldn’t bear to have him close.
And now, even a week later, my body remembers that irresistible pull of Isaac.
It unsettles me.
I turn to my side, trying to get comfortable. When we left, he deliberately reached for my hand, and I … I didn’t pull away.
I remember that tentative look in his pale blue eyes as his fingers closed around mine, like he was giving me the chance to pull away. And that sensation … It was electric.
Ridiculous that something so simple can feel like that.
It travelled up my arm, and I could feel the flush stain my neck and face. It felt like coming alive again after being asleep for so long.
I didn’t look at him, but I didn’t let go either. It felt like that first time he held my hand.
When Chloe called out, it seemed like that brief moment was over as I felt him withdraw into himself. Unsettling that I can read him so well.
I watched the exchange like a spectator. Her predictable, wide-eyed tricks. A leaky sink? Couldn’t she find something less cliché?
I huff and pout as I hug my pillow. I miss hogging the duvet and edging him to the end of the bed. I miss waking up draped over him like a spider monkey.
The ugly, honest part of me wanted him to call her out for the fake little bitch she is. To put Chloe in her place.
So disappointing that he didn’t.
So polite. Such a good boy. I hate that a little … Maybe a lot.
Later, much later, when we were home, and Amelie had produced one of her truly impressive nappies, I said it. I had been debating on whether I wanted to speak to him. But anger is exhausting and I finally gave in
He was bent over the changing table, making a scrunchy face.
“How does someone so cute make something this awful?” he muttered to Amelie, who was masterfully sucking on her fist while watching him.
I leaned against the doorframe, drinking the bottle of water he had handed me almost as soon as we cleared the door. It had been hard, denying myself those moments.
“She’s gifted,” I said drily. “Wonder where she gets it.”
He snorted but didn’t look away from our precious daughter.
“I’m calling you Stink Bomb when you grow up,” he told Amelie, wiping her carefully. “In front of your boyfriend.”
I couldn’t stop the smile. “Boyfriend, huh?”
“When you’re allowed to date at fifty,” he added with a grumpy smile.
I snorted water through my nose before I could stop myself. The sound surprised both of us. He always called me his little piggie when I did that. His eyes dropped to my lips for a long moment before turning back to Amelie. It had been a while since we had laughed together.
Then I said it because I couldn’t keep it in.
“That thing with Chloe at your mum’s place … was odd.”
He paused for a second, then blew a raspberry on Amelie’s belly.
“I know,” he said.
I waited for more. Ever since that showdown, I had been greedy for more.
“I was afraid,” he added, as if carefully measuring his words, “that if I spoke to her any longer than was polite, you’d think there was something there.”
I couldn’t answer immediately because I was watching them like an eagle.
“I still wish you could have torn her a brand-new arsehole,” I admitted after a gulp of water. “It’s what I would have done.”
He huffed out a breath, almost a laugh.
“Believe me,” he said, fastening Amelie’s fresh nappy. “I am not so stupid. Chloe … She is very good at manipulating the situation. I just wanted to get out of there. She already knows I don’t want her anywhere near us. And that is not going to change even if you decide not to give us a chance …”
I watched him for a second longer before pushing myself off the doorframe.
We didn’t say anything else.
But something between us felt … different. Like we had turned a corner.
***
I toss and turn until midnight, but sleep doesn’t come.
Between Mum and Isaac, I am spoilt. they barely let me lift a finger.
Mum is leaving in a day, and instead of our neighbour, Laisa, keeping me company, Isaac has convinced his boss to let him work from home again with one day at the office every fortnight.
When I asked him why, he only said that it would look better if social services decide on a surprise visit. I didn’t ask any more questions.
A whimper from the crib has me rising from the bed. Amelie is just lying here, watching the glowing baby mobile. But as soon as she senses me, the little madam is hungry.
“Alright, then. Let’s not raise the dead, boss,” I tell her as I quickly change her wet nappy and settle her in the crook of my arm. She needs no encouragement to latch on as soon as I raise my T-shirt.
Time passes, and soon, it’s time to change sides.
My eyes half-closed, I shush her as she fusses, and turn her to the other breast. Only now do I look up to catch Isaac leaning against the doorway, watching us.
Or rather, Amelie sucking on my exposed breast. Almost automatically, I start to pull my T-shirt down.
“Please,” he says, holding my eyes with his burning ones. When I make no move to cover myself, he gingerly makes his way to sit next to me.
A trembling hand pulls the T-shirt up … and I don’t stop him.
“Let me see … please,” he pleads.
This is what we have missed … these moments that I had dreamed about.
I let him stay, his hand alternating between stroking my breast and Amelie’s cheek. My skin tingles where he left his fingerprints.
When she drops off to sleep, her lips lax and shiny with milk, he carefully takes her and settles her in the crib. And as he moves to leave, I grab his hand and pull him to bed.
For a moment, he freezes with shock. A tremor runs through him, and his hand squeezes mine a little too hard.
“Are you sure?” he asks in a voice gone rough, as if not believing it.
“If you prefer the sofa, be my guest,” I grumble as I settle under the duvet and pull it to my neck. “Don’t be whinging about a backache and blaming me for it.”
I feel him pull the duvet and slide his feet next to mine. I turn away and concentrate on breathing evenly in and out, relaxing my body, and playing dead.
I pretend I don’t feel him snuggle close to my back, the big spoon to my little one.
I pretend to be asleep while he sighs and smells my hair.
I pretend I don’t feel it when he gingerly slides an arm around my waist. I pretend not to know that he cries silently for the longest time before drifting off to sleep.
I pretend a lot of things …
We have so much to talk about, so much unresolved. And that doesn’t change the one thing I can’t control.
I love him too much to let him go.