21. Chapter 21
Chapter twenty-one
Jessica
Jon opens the door with a wooden spoon in his hand.
"You're early."
"Do you want me to wait out here?"
"No." He steps back and holds the door with his shoulder. "Come in. Don't look at the sink."
I look at the sink immediately. There's a pot, a colander, and something green stuck to both.
"Dirty dishes don’t offend me."
"I wanted it to be perfect."
"Jon. I am really glad you invited me."
He smiles at me and turns around. Which gives me time to check him out, yummy.
The cottage is warm and cozy with the fireplace crackling. And through the open door I see Pickles in his palace of a habitat.
He glances back at me, and the corner of his mouth lifts. "I'm glad you came."
Dinner is pasta with feta and a salad
"Sit down," Jon says. "It's nearly—"
"No."
"No?"
"I'm not sitting at your table watching you cook for me." I roll my sleeves. "Give me a job."
He hesitates, then hands me a knife and a chopping board and points at the garlic.
"Fine. That. Not too thin, or it burns."
"I’m on it.”
I do it wrong.
"Those are going to burn."
"You watched me cut up an entire clove."
"I was giving you a chance." He takes the board, and tips it into the pan, and hands it back.
We work around each other in his kitchen. He pushes his sleeves up to the elbow, one cuff and then the other, folded twice, and starts pulling leaves off a stalk of something with his thumb, and I have to concentrate very hard on the pot.
"You have too many mugs," I tell him.
"I have exactly enough mugs."
"Why do you need fourteen?"
"I entertain."
"You entertain a lizard." I take the one from behind the kettle, which is the only one that isn't dusty. "What's wrong with this one?"
"Nothing. It's the perfect mug."
"So you really don’t need the rest of them."
"They are part of the decor."
Jon reaches past me for the salt, his arm crossing in front of me. He smells like clean cedar, and he doesn't move away as fast as he used to.
Neither do I.
Halfway through dinner, I put my fork down.
"What do you like about teaching?"
Jon looks up. "That's a strange question."
"It's not. I've known you for two years and I don't know enough about you." I lean back. "I don't know one thing you like besides my lizard."
“And you.” He smiles at me and puts his fork down.
"The second week," he says.
"Of what?"
"Any course. The first week everyone writes down whatever I say. By the second, somebody's read enough to realize the lecture and the reading don't always quite agree."
"And you like that?"
"I like watching them decide whether they're going to tell me I'm wrong."
I laugh. "Of course you do."
"It's a good moment." He turns his glass a quarter turn. "Your turn."
"My turn what?"
"What do you like?"
"I like lots of things."
"Nothing about the archive. Nothing about the Fourth House."
I think about it.
"Maps," I say. "I like picking somewhere I've never been and imagining a trip."
"Where would you go?"
"North. The fjord side, where the roads stop and it's all water and ferry timetables." I turn my glass. "I've planned that trip about four times. I've never gone anywhere near it."
"What's in the plan?"
"Nothing. That's the point of it. A boat, a town with one shop, weather that's rude to you, and no reason to be there."
He starts clearing the plates and then he starts explaining something.
I don't even catch what — something about the reading for next week and how it would make more sense if I came at it through a different chapter first, and would I like him to write down the order, and there's a copy on the shelf he could lend me—
"Jon."
He stops with a plate in each hand.
"I didn't come here for a reading list."
He looks at me for a second, then puts the plates down.
"Sorry."
"Don't be."
"Habit."
"I know."
We end up on the two-seat sofa by the fire, because the armchair is full of blankets and neither of us suggests moving them.
There's nothing on the low table. No student work or journals.
I've almost never seen Jon relaxed like this. In a lecture hall he's always standing.
Here he's got one arm along the back of the sofa and his legs stretched out, sleeves still pushed up, and a mark on his shirt from the pot.
He keeps looking at me. He used to look away when I caught him.
Tonight he doesn't.
"You're staring," I tell him.
"I am."
"Aren’t you still supposed to be avoiding me?"
"I've tried avoiding you," Jon says. "But it hurts right here." He rubs his chest.
I put my hand over his. His arm goes still under my hand.
Then he turns his hand over and laces his fingers through mine.
"I’m still not supposed to touch you," he says quietly.
"I think it should be allowed."
He looks down at our hands for a second.
"Please," I say.
He leans in. I meet him halfway, and both hands come up to cradle my face.
When I make a sound against his mouth, his fingers slide into my hair, he tilts my head and he kisses me harder.
"God," he says, against my mouth.
"Don't do it."
"What?"
"The thing where you stop and say something responsible."
"I wasn't going to say anything responsible," Jon says. "I've forgotten how sentences work."
I laugh into the kiss, and he laughs too.
I end up half across him, one knee folded beside his thigh, my hand flat on his chest, his heart pounding under my palm. His hand rests against my ribs through my shirt, his thumb moving once against my side.
When I pull back to breathe, his hair is wrecked and his breathing isn't much better than mine.
"Look at you," I say.
"Don't."
"Your hair is a catastrophe."
"Your fault."
"Absolutely my fault." I put my forehead against his. “How long do we have to wait?”
He nods. "Until you aren’t a student or I’m not a professor."
"Don’t say that."
His hand tightens slightly at my waist.
His arm comes around my back, and instead of moving away he pulls me in so I'm tucked against his side with my head under his jaw.
I start telling him about my classes. The mirror exercise and Voss saying my wolf did not help me once, and he says, “He's right,” and I hit him, and he catches my hand and keeps it.
By the time I stand, the fire is low and I have a practical in the morning. My left foot has gone completely numb.
Jon walks me to the door and leans on the frame while I find my coat.
"Jessica."
"Mm."
"Don’t give up on me," he says.
I stand there holding my coat.
"I won’t," I say.
He grins, then catches the front of my coat and pulls me back for one more kiss, his hand at my jaw and his thumb along my cheek.
"Good night Jon."