24. Harry
— ? —
Harry
The rain starts around noon and doesn’t stop.
I stand at my study window watching the water sheet down the glass. There was supposed to be a rooftop tonight, with dinner under the stars and a view of the whole city spread out below us.
What I have is a downpour, and my carefully planned evening is underwater.
“That bad?”
I turn. Jules is standing in the doorway in jeans and an old sweater with her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail.
“I had reservations,” I say. “A rooftop place downtown.”
“In this?” She gestures at the storm.
“It wasn’t raining when I made the reservation.”
“Well.” She walks into the study and perches on the edge of my desk. “I guess we’re staying in.”
I should be disappointed, and I am disappointed. But she’s sitting on my desk looking at me as if she doesn’t mind at all that our plans fell through, and suddenly staying in doesn’t seem so bad.
“I could cook,” I offer.
Her eyebrows shoot up. “You can cook more than eggs?”
“I can follow a recipe.”
“Those are two very different things.”
“It’s close enough.”
She hops off the desk. “Fine. But I’m supervising.”
***
The kitchen is a disaster within thirty minutes.
I found a recipe online for pasta from scratch. It looked simple, with clear instructions and basic ingredients.
It is not simple.
There’s flour on the counter, on the floor, and in places flour has no business being. Jules is leaning against the refrigerator with her arms crossed, watching me wrestle with a lump of dough that refuses to cooperate.
“You’re supposed to knead it,” she says. “Not beat it into submission.”
“I am kneading it.”
“That’s not kneading. That’s assault.”
I look down at my hands. She’s right. I’m basically punching the dough.
She sighs. “Fine. I can’t watch this anymore.”
She moves to the counter beside me, pulls a cutting board from the cabinet and grabs an onion from the bowl near the stove.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Making sure we actually eat tonight.” She starts chopping, and her knife moves in quick, efficient strokes. “You handle the dough. I’ll handle the part that requires skill.”
“I have skill.”
“You have enthusiasm. It’s not the same.”
We work in silence for a few minutes. The rain drums against the windows, and the kitchen is warm and steamy from the pot of water I put on to boil before I realized the pasta wasn’t going to cooperate.
“The literacy initiative has its first school visit next week,” she says, scraping onion into a bowl. “It’s the first of the twelve. They voted it through while I was still in the hospital, so I never even got to give the damn presentation.”
“The pilot year.”
“Yeah. We’re bringing books and reading volunteers, and we’re meeting the parents.” She reaches for a tomato. “I’m nervous.”
“Why?”
“Because if the first year goes well, we get to take it to fifty schools. If it doesn’t, the old guy who never wanted it gets to say he told me so.”
“It’ll go well.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.” I glance over at her. “You don’t do anything halfway.”
She doesn’t respond, but the corner of her mouth twitches.
It’s the most ordinary hour we’ve had since the fire. We’re side by side in the kitchen, talking about her work, with no crisis and no drama, and I want a thousand more hours exactly like it.
Eventually she wipes her hands and looks over at my dough, which has not improved.
“Show me, then,” I say.
“Absolutely not.” She holds up her hands. “This is your disaster. I’m just here to document it.”
“Document it?”
“For posterity.” She pulls out her phone. “Future Jules will want to remember the night Harrison Winslow was defeated by flour and water.”
“Put that away.”
“Smile.”
“Jules.”
“Say cheese.”
I throw a handful of flour at her.
She shrieks and ducks, and the flour explodes against the refrigerator door. She stares at me with white powder dusting her hair and shoulders and her mouth open in outrage.
“You did not.”
“I did.”
“Oh, you’re dead.”
She grabs a handful of flour from the bag on the counter and hurls it at my face.
What follows is the most undignified ten minutes of my adult life.
By the end of it the whole kitchen is white. We’re both covered head to toe in flour, laughing so hard we can barely breathe. She’s backed up against the counter, laughing against my chest, and at some point in the chaos my hands ended up on her waist.
She tips her head back, still laughing. Flour is streaked across her cheek and caught in her eyelashes. She looks ridiculous and beautiful, and I want to kiss her so badly I can’t think straight.
“Truce?” I say.
“Truce.” She’s breathless. “But only because I’m out of ammunition.”
“We should clean up.”
“We should.”
Neither of us moves.
Her laughter fades, and her eyes meet mine.
“Harry.”
“Yeah?”
“Who keeps…”
I know what she’s going to ask before she finishes. It’s the calls she noticed on our first date, and the doubt that keeps creeping in despite everything.
I don’t hesitate. I pull my phone out of my pocket, unlock it, and put it in her hand before she gets to the end of the sentence.
She blinks. “What are you doing?”
“Look.”
She stares at me for a long second, and then she looks down at the phone.
I watch her scroll through the call log, through the missed calls and the declined calls and the voicemails I haven’t listened to.
“Your number two,” she says finally.
“Yeah.”
“What does he want?”
“It’s the overseas deal. The one you watched me hand off.”
Her brow furrows. “I thought you were done with that.”
“I am. I told him to handle it. But they won’t sign unless I’m there in person. They want me over there for six months, minimum.”
“Six months?”
“It could be longer.”
She looks up at me. “And you said no?”
“I said no.”
“Harry, that’s…” She shakes her head. “That deal was most of a year of your life. You can’t just walk away from it.”
“I can do whatever I want. It’s my company.”
“But if it’s that important…”
“It’s not.”
“Harry.”
“Jules.” I take the phone from her and set it on the counter. “I grew up with nothing. I know what it’s like to be hungry and cold and scared and alone. I clawed my way out of that life with my fingernails, and I swore I’d never go back.”
She’s watching me carefully.
“I’ve been poor,” I say. “And I survived it. It was brutal and it was terrifying, but I survived, and I could survive it again if I had to.” I hold her gaze. “I wouldn’t survive losing you.”
Her breath catches.
“So no. I’m not taking the deal, and I’m not getting on a plane. I’m not putting six months and an ocean between us when we’re just starting to figure this out. My number two can close it without me or he can let it go.”
She stares at me.
Then she grabs my shirt and pulls me down.
The kiss is desperate and hungry. Her hands fist in my flour covered shirt and drag me closer.
“Jules.” I pull back just enough to speak. “We should…”
“Shut up.”
She kisses me again, harder. Her teeth catch my bottom lip, and I groan.
We end up at the counter. It’s the same counter from the night before our anniversary, when everything was still good and I still believed I could have it all without choosing.
I lift her onto it. Her legs wrap around me and pull me between her thighs.
“I want you,” she says against my mouth.
I sink to my knees.
Her breath stutters. “Harry…”
“Let me.”
I pull her jeans down her hips, and her underwear with them. She’s wet. I can feel it the moment my fingers brush against her, slick and hot and ready.
I press my mouth to her thigh and then higher, teasing, taking my time.
“Harry.” Her voice is strained. “Please.”
I give her what she wants.
My tongue traces a slow path through her folds and circles her clit, and she squirms. She gasps, her hands find my hair, and her thighs fall open.
I take my time with long, slow strokes and teasing pressure. I build her up and back off, and build her up and back off, until she’s writhing against my mouth.
“More.” She’s pulling at my hair, trying to drag me closer. “Please, I need more.”
I slide two fingers inside her and close my mouth over her clit.
She cries out, and her whole body arches off the counter. I can feel her tightening around my fingers, getting close, so close.
I pull back.
“No.” She grabs my hair and tries to drag me back. “No, don’t stop. What are you doing?”
“Jules.”
“I was right there. I was so close. Why did you…”
I stand up and cup her face in my hands.
“I can’t,” I say.
She stares at me, flushed and panting and furious. “What do you mean you can’t?”
“I meant what I said.” My voice is rough and strained. Every instinct I have is telling me to bury myself inside her and not stop until neither of us can stand. “You don’t get me for one night. You get all of me, or you wait. Not just sex. Not just wanting. All of it.”
“Harry.”
“I need to know this means more than tonight. I need to know you’re choosing this, and choosing us.” I press my forehead against hers. “If I have you right now, I won’t be able to let go. And I need to know you’re ready for that. I need to know you’re my wife again, and that you mean it.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I’m so turned on I can barely think, and you’re standing there talking about meaning and choices.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re the worst.”
“Probably.”
She glares at me. Her chest is heaving, and her hands are still fisted in my shirt.
Then her expression changes, and the frustration gives way to a softer look I haven’t seen in a long time.
“You really mean it,” she says quietly. “This isn’t a game.”
“It was never a game.”
She looks at me for a long moment, and whatever she sees in my face makes her exhale slowly.
“Okay,” she says.
“Okay?”
“Okay.” She unclenches her hands from my shirt and smooths down the fabric. “We’ll do it your way.”
I help her down from the counter and hand her back her clothes, and I try not to think about how close I came to saying fuck it and taking what we both wanted.
She gets dressed and runs a hand through her flour streaked hair. She’s still breathing unevenly.
We end up on the floor. I don’t know how it happens. One minute she’s standing at the counter, and the next we’re both sitting with our backs against the cabinets and our legs stretched out in front of us, breathing hard.
The rain is still coming down outside, harder now.
“How hard was that?” she asks.
“What?”
“Stopping.”
I let out a breath. “It’s up there with offering to carry your suitcase.”
“Really?”
“I’m not exaggerating.” I tip my head back against the cabinet. “Every part of me wanted to keep going. Every single part.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because I meant what I said.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “I’m still furious with you.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
“My whole body is still…” She waves a hand vaguely. “You know.”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re just sitting there.”
“I’m sitting here reminding myself why I stopped.”
“Is it working?”
“Barely.”
She laughs, a short, frustrated sound that isn’t quite angry anymore.
Then she leans her shoulder against mine.
We sit there listening to the rain, with her warmth against my side and the flour drying on both of us. It’s nowhere near enough, and it’s honest, and right now I’ll take honest.
“Do you still carry them?” she asks suddenly. “The rings?”
I reach into my pocket and pull out the small plastic bag. It’s creased and worn now, with the edges gone soft from weeks of being carried everywhere.
She takes it from me and turns it over in her hands. The rings clink softly against each other inside the bag.
She looks at them for a long time.
“Not yet,” she says.