Chapter 17
CLAIRE
As Ethan pushed the breadbasket toward me, I asked, “Was this on your way too?”
His hand stopped in the middle of the table. Then he smiled. “From my side to yours? It certainly was.”
On this August evening, we’d finally made it into the little restaurant with the yellow light by the window.
The first time we passed in July, it had been full.
Later, we’d come on a day it was closed.
By the time we actually ate there, I knew the ceramic cat by the door with its crooked ear, and Ethan knew I tried to straighten it every time we passed.
“It came out of the kiln that way,” he said.
“I know. That doesn’t have to stop me trying.”
Once this month, he’d picked me up after work, claiming it was on his way.
Then I’d found the lemon pastries I’d mentioned wanting on the passenger seat.
The shop was on the other side of town. I held the paper bag and looked at him.
After two seconds of silence, he said most of the roads in this city connected.
After that, even when he moved a napkin closer for me, I had to ask if it was on his way. He gave me a serious answer every time.
Tonight he was sitting beside me. When the server came to set down our plates, he moved his chair out a little, then back in, his knee touching mine. I’d been about to pick up my water. My fingers paused at the glass.
“Too close?” he asked.
“No.”
I didn’t move my leg away. He stayed there too and lifted the menu to block a shaft of light falling through the window toward me. The sun hadn’t fully set. I could see a faint mark on his wrist where he’d taken off his watch.
We shared a plate of roasted fish. He separated out the small piece with bones and asked how Wednesday’s book group had gone. I told him about the reader who insisted he didn’t read love stories, then borrowed the book we’d discussed and asked me not to spoil the ending.
“Will he peek?”
“That’s what I should be asking you.”
“I haven’t done that in ages.”
“Because you haven’t been reading lately?”
He ducked his head with a laugh. I’d guessed right. “Lately, I’d rather spend my evenings talking to you on the phone.”
I pressed my fork into a slice of potato and waited a while before eating it. Seeing me blush, he leaned a little closer, his voice lower.
“I can keep going.”
“Eat first.”
He obediently picked up his fork, but the smile never left. I pressed my leg a little closer to his. The small movement, hidden by the tablecloth, kept me looking at him for the remaining half of dinner.
Nora was spending the night at Mia’s, baking cookies and watching a movie. My sister sent a photo of the tray. I replied, told Ethan they were fine, and put my phone away.
At the end of dinner, we each had a little water left. I reached for my bag, then settled back into my chair. He waited without getting up to hurry me along.
“Come over to my place for a while,” I said.
He looked at me, his hand slowing as he reached for his coat. “Okay.”
On the short walk home, he drew me away from a puddle, and I stayed close against his side. In the elevator, I watched him untangle my keys from my finger, wanting to kiss him.
Inside, I poured us water. He followed me into the kitchen and took a glass without drinking.
“Claire.”
I turned. He set down his glass, his gaze on my face.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you all evening.”
“Me too.”
He came closer, and I lifted my face. As he kissed me, I caught his arm first, then moved my hand to the back of his neck. All the little touches over dinner, all the things we hadn’t said on the walk, crowded into this moment. When he drew back a little, I pulled him close again.
“Let’s get out of the kitchen,” I said.
He smiled. “Okay. Lead the way.”
We walked over to the sofa and sat down. A book lay out of place at our feet. I bent to pick it up just as he reached for it, and we bumped foreheads. I held my forehead and looked at him. He’d barely said sorry when he saw my expression and began to laugh. I couldn’t help laughing too.
He put the book away. Before I’d straightened, I kissed his cheek. His smile stilled, and he turned to look at me. That intent gaze made me nervous, but it also helped me finally say what I’d been holding back.
“Stay tonight.”
He didn’t answer at once. His eyes moved past me, as if taking in the room again: the blue chair by the window, the low table with only my things on it, the open bedroom door.
“Here?” he asked.
“Here.”
His hand tightened around mine. “Yes.”
I was still looking at him when he leaned in to kiss me, eager enough that I leaned back a little. His hand came up to support my back. When we parted, he stayed close, his forehead nearly against mine.
“I’ve wanted this for a long time,” he said.
The bedroom door was open. Before we went in, I told him there were condoms beside the bed.
I’d gone out to buy them that afternoon and hidden the paper bag at the bottom of my shopping bag when I came home, even though I’d been alone in the apartment.
Saying it now, I was still a little embarrassed.
He squeezed my hand as we went in.
“My shoulder doesn’t usually hurt anymore. If anything feels uncomfortable, I’ll tell you.”
“Okay,” he said.
I switched off the overhead light, leaving the small bedside lamp on. Ethan sat on the edge of the bed and glanced from one pillow to the other. I sat close and smoothed a crease from the sheet. I’d put it on fresh that day.
“This side,” I said, tapping the nearer pillow. “I sleep here.”
He moved over without comment. I’d meant to say something else—that I hadn’t had anyone stay in this bed yet, or that I still knew the weight of his arm—but he turned to kiss me, and I put my hand back on his shoulder. A car passed outside, its lights sweeping beneath the curtains. I didn’t turn.
His shirt still smelled of the night air. Under it he was familiar, and the mattress was not. I felt for the edge of my own pillow with my fingers, just to know where I was.
I kissed him again, slower this time, and slid my hand down the front of his shirt.
The buttons were ordinary. My fingers remembered them anyway.
I undid two, then three, and felt the heat of his chest against my knuckles.
He made a low sound into my mouth and stayed still, as if he were afraid that moving too fast would send me back to the doorway.
“You can take it off,” I said.
He pulled the shirt over his head and dropped it on the chair.
I looked at him in the small lamp’s light: the line of his collarbone, the dark hair on his chest, the faint mark where his watch usually sat.
I had seen all of this for years. Seeing it here, on a bed that had only ever been mine, made my throat tight.
I reached for his belt. He covered my hand for a second, not to stop me, only to feel that I was the one doing it.
Then he let go. I worked the buckle loose and eased the zipper down.
He stood just long enough to step out of his trousers, and I stayed on the edge of the bed watching him, my pulse loud in my ears.
When he sat again, I lifted my arms. He drew my dress up carefully, pausing when the fabric passed my shoulder.
“All right?” he asked.
“Yes. Just don’t lean your weight there.”
He nodded once and finished taking it off. My bra followed. The air in the room was cooler than I expected against my breasts. Ethan looked at me the way he had looked at the empty pillows, as if he needed a moment to understand where he was allowed to put his hands.
I took his wrist and set his palm over my left breast. His thumb brushed my nipple, and the small, sharp pleasure of it made me inhale.
He bent and kissed the same place, then the other, unhurried, learning the new room by way of my skin.
I slid my fingers into his hair and kept him there until the ache between my legs was no longer something I could ignore.
“Lower,” I said.
He kissed down my stomach. I lifted my hips so he could draw my underwear off, and then I was bare on my own sheets, with him kneeling between my knees. For a second I felt exposed in a way I hadn’t in the old house. This was the bed I had chosen. I had asked him to stay in it.
He kissed the inside of my thigh first, then the other, giving me time to get used to being looked at like this again.
When his mouth reached me, I had to grip the sheet.
He licked slowly along my clit, then again, finding the pressure I used to have to guide him toward.
My hips lifted to meet him. He held them lightly and kept going, the wet heat of his tongue so specific I could not pretend this was only comfort.
“There,” I whispered. “Don’t change that.”
He didn’t. He stayed on that one spot until the pleasure built in a tight, concentrated line. I came with one hand in his hair and the other twisted in the sheet, a broken sound leaving me before I could swallow it. He stayed with me through it, gentler at the end, until my legs eased.
When he lifted his head, his mouth was wet.
I pulled him up and kissed him, tasting myself, and reached into his boxers.
His cock was hard against my palm, familiar in weight, startling in how much I wanted it after a year of not having it.
I stroked him once, then again, and he dropped his forehead to my shoulder.
“Claire.”
“I know. Wait.”
I found the box in the nightstand and opened a packet. He took the condom, rolled it on, and looked at me.
I lay back and drew him over me, keeping his weight off my shoulder with my hand at his chest. He pushed in slowly. The stretch made me gasp. He stopped halfway, breathing hard.
“I’m all right,” I said. “Keep going.”
He filled me the rest of the way and held still.
I could feel him shaking. I wrapped my legs around his hips and moved first, a small lift that told him the pace I wanted.
He followed it. Each stroke landed deep and unhurried.
The new mattress gave differently from the old one.
I kept one hand on the edge of my pillow so I would not forget where I was, and the other on his back so I would not forget who was with me.
The rhythm stayed quiet for a long time.
I could hear the small catch in his breathing every time I lifted to meet him.
When it changed, it was because I asked him to.
I pulled him closer with my heel and said his name, and he reached between us and rubbed my clit with his thumb in time with his hips.
The second climax came less sharply than the first, warmer, spreading through my stomach until I tightened around him and could not keep my eyes open.
He watched me through it. Only then did his control slip.
He thrust twice more, buried himself, and came with his mouth against my temple, a rough breath that sounded almost like relief.
I felt the pulse of it through the condom and held him there, my palm spread on his back, until he remembered how to breathe.
We stayed joined until that shaking left him.
He kissed my cheek, then the corner of my mouth, and eased out.
After he tied off the condom and dropped it in the small bin by the bed, he came back and pulled the sheet over us.
I pushed the spare pillow to the head of the bed and lay down with him.
As he lowered his head, I wrapped my arms around him.
Later, I was so sleepy I closed my eyes, my hand still resting on his arm. Ethan reached to switch off the lamp. When he lay back down, the covers shifted beside my shoulder, then went still a little farther away than I expected.
Deep in the night, I woke once and turned to find him. The room was dark. I could only make out the outline of his face.
“Why are you sleeping all the way over there?” I asked.
“I didn’t want to crowd you.”
I lifted a corner of the covers. He moved closer, and I rested my forehead against the front of his shoulder, holding his hand. Half asleep, I felt him kiss my hair and tightened my fingers a little more.
When I woke the next morning, white light showed through the gap in the curtains. Ethan lay on his side, his hair flattened out of shape, his face still a little dazed with sleep. I watched for a few seconds, then couldn’t resist smoothing down a tuft.
He opened his eyes, looking first at me, then at the hand still resting on his head.
“Good morning,” he said.
I said good morning too, my voice absurdly quiet. We’d been so close last night, yet being watched by him in the morning made me shy all over again.
“What are you smiling about?” I asked.
“I’m happy.”
He answered quickly. I’d meant to tell him to stop smiling, but that reply made me smile first. He drew my hand toward him, kissed my fingertips, and asked if we could stay in bed for five more minutes.
I pulled up the covers a little. “Yes. As long as you’re willing to listen to my stomach growl.”
Less than two minutes later, we were both out of bed.
Ethan wanted to fry eggs, but he looked in the wrong cupboard for the frying pan first. I showed him where it was and took out bread and coffee. Watching the stove, he asked where the salt was. This kitchen was still unfamiliar to him.
When he poured my coffee, he left room for milk and set the light-colored mug in front of me. I took it and sat at the little table to wait for the eggs. He brought over the cardigan draped on the blue chair. I put it on and reached out with my foot to touch his ankle.
I still had to pick up Nora from Mia’s in the afternoon, and he was going home soon to change. Wrapping up the leftover bread, I realized I’d already grown used to having him beside me, helping. But when he picked up his coat, my hands stopped anyway.
At the door, he turned to say goodbye. I answered, looking down to gather a few crumbs from the edge of the table, then suddenly thought the gesture looked too much like I was busy bringing something to an end.
“Ethan.”
He stopped. I went over, took his hand, and kissed him again. A little longer than a goodbye needed, until his hand settled at my waist.
“I was happy last night,” I said against his cheek. “This morning too.”
He looked at me, his smile slowly spreading. “Me too.”
I gave his hand another gentle squeeze before letting him go press the elevator button.
On Tuesday, when Ethan brought Nora home, she stopped with one shoe off.
“Are you back together?”
I crouched beside her. “We’re dating again.”
“So Dad’s moving in?”
“We’re still living in our own places,” Ethan said. “Where you stay and who picks you up will be the same. We’ll tell you if that changes.”
She thought about it, then pulled off her other shoe. “So someone’s still taking me to buy colored paper tonight?”
“Yes,” I said.
She dug her list of colors out of her bag and went to find the caregiver. Ethan handed me her backpack.