Chapter 13
13
“You’re welcome,” Ximena told Tom after patiently listening to his angry, panicked update.
The rain had shifted to snow in the late afternoon, so Tom was able to stand outside the cottage and yell into his phone without disturbing Rosie’s recuperation inside.
“No! I’m not thankful,” Tom sputtered into the phone. “I asked you for help. Not Boyd and his camera crew. Boyd is not help. Boyd is a hazard . What am I supposed to do with him?”
Boyd had peppered Tom with a variety of questions about the repairs while Tom was in the middle of evacuating Rosie to the cabin, and only the presence of many recording devices had prevented Tom from telling Boyd to get back on the private plane he’d borrowed and fly it directly into the sea.
“Oh, come on, he’s a trouper,” Ximena said airily. “And he said he hung drywall for a couple of years in his teens. I’ll supervise him once I get out there.”
Tom growled despairingly in his throat and hung up the phone.
Any hope he’d possessed of demonstrating to Rosie that he had his act together was greatly diminished. As were his hopes of convincing Rosie, or anyone who had access to the Internet, that he wasn’t screwing Boyd Kellagher.
Rosie was beyond pissed at him. She wouldn’t even speak to him. Again.
Tom knocked on the door of the cottage. He’d prevented Boyd from carrying her back here, even though she was wobbly on her feet and wheezing badly. Then he’d gotten their wet clothes off and Rosie clean in the most respectful joint shower he’d ever participated in, but she’d tossed him out as soon as he got all the pool scum out of her hair.
He didn’t know what he’d do if she didn’t let him in now. He supposed he wouldn’t blame her if she still wasn’t talking to him.
“Rosie? It’s me,” he called again. He heard her coughing inside, but she didn’t tell him to come in. After he waited a few more seconds, he pushed the door open anyway.
Rosie was up in the loft along with every blanket in the cottage. When she didn’t yell at him to get out, he climbed up the ladder and hesitated at the top. She was curled in a ball on the far side of the bed, shivering.
When she saw him, she pulled the covers over her head.
Tom scooted to her side on his knees and bent so that his forehead was pressed against the mattress near her chest. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
She was still wheezing, even though her inhaler was on the nightstand next to her.
“What are you sorry for?” Rosie asked, voice inscrutable.
“Um. I’m sorry you fell in the pool because I did a Florida Man thing,” he said.
“Yes. And what else?” she asked.
“I’m sorry the photographer took pictures of you all wet,” he said.
“The Vogue photographer. With fifty thousand Instagram followers,” Rosie said.
“Yes, him. Boyd said he’s leaving tonight,” Tom said.
“Okay, and what else are you sorry about?”
“Um. I am sorry Boyd’s here.” He took a deep breath to prepare for a long explanation, but Rosie popped her face over the covers and glared at him.
“Yes. That. That is what you should be sorry about. I can’t believe I believed you.”
Tom tightened his shoulders and braced himself. He should have thought harder about the potential downsides of saving Boyd’s miserable life.
“Okay, yes, I am sorry, but I didn’t know he was coming. Ximena was supposed to come instead, but she told him I needed help out here and—and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you either of them was coming.”
Rosie banged her tiny, ineffectual fist on the mattress.
“You didn’t have to be sorry, Tom! You didn’t have to lie to me! You know what, don’t be sorry he’s here. Be sorry you lied.”
He swallowed hard. “I didn’t lie to you.”
She met his eyes, and her own were pink and watery.
“Look me in the face again and tell me you have nothing going on with Boyd Kellagher,” she said.
“I have nothing going on with Boyd Kellagher!” he said, leaning over her and grabbing for her hand. She snatched it away and shook her head in slow disbelief, expression only darkening.
“Get out,” she said.
“No, no, wait,” he said frantically. “Look, I went home with him once , when I’d only known him for three days, and the paparazzi happened to catch me leaving his apartment. That is it .”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, shutting her eyes. “I shouldn’t have. I knew better.”
“Go through my phone,” he said. “Ask anyone. Ask my roommate. Hell, ask Adrian. It is just a bunch of weirdos on the Internet who want to see us together—”
“Forget the fan stuff. Forget the photos. He is here , Tom. He chartered a plane and flew to fucking Martha’s Vineyard in the winter for you.”
“Because he’s got boundary problems and no social skills, not because he’s my boyfriend,” Tom insisted.
“Don’t talk about him like that. He didn’t do anything wrong. It was not a problem that you had a boyfriend. We’re divorced! Remember?” Rosie gritted out. “It is the lying about it that I can’t handle. The not telling me about it that I can’t handle.”
Tom clenched his jaw so hard it hurt, because, of all the things he’d done wrong, she couldn’t get him for that. There were plenty of things he didn’t like about himself, but the part of him that was capable of loyalty was the part he did like. He didn’t cheat or steal or betray confidences. He liked it about himself that he’d only ever loved Rosie. She was angry about the wrong things.
“I know when I have a boyfriend, Rosie. It doesn’t happen by accident. See, we sit down and talk about our expectations, our feelings, things we are worried about. You know, all the things you won’t do with me—”
“Oh, do not give me that crap!” she burst out. “ You are the common denominator here, and I happen to know exactly how you could give Boyd the wrong idea about how you feel about him. I really know.”
She swallowed hard again, and Tom saw that she was holding back tears.
“I really know,” she repeated.
Tom’s chest was tight and complaining, and it wasn’t because he’d jumped in a freezing pool and run around wet in the snow. He’d gone from hoping Rosie was right about him, back when he couldn’t believe someone like her thought he was a keeper, to hoping she was wrong.
He braced himself by his elbows on the bedspread. “When did I ever do that?” he asked. “When did you have it wrong? I’ve only ever felt one way about you.”
She wrapped her arms tighter around herself and didn’t respond. But another spasm of coughing soon rattled her chest.
Tom grabbed her rescue inhaler off the nightstand and tried to unfurl her enough to take it, but she waved him away.
“I already took it twice,” she said.
“Where’s your nebulizer, then?” he asked.
“My albuterol is expired.”
“Does it still work?”
“I’m not breathing in expired steroids,” she snapped.
Tom steadied himself. “I’ll pick it up at the pharmacy,” he offered.
I only get one Rosie, and if she breaks, I don’t get another.
“It’s almost five. All the pharmacies will be closed. I’ll get some tomorrow.”
“What if you get worse overnight?” He remembered the spring of their freshman year, when everyone had gotten the flu, and Rosie’d come down with the flu, bronchitis, and pneumonia. He’d dragged his mattress into her dorm room and slept on the floor for a week because he’d worried about her breathing. “I’ll go to a twenty-four-hour pharmacy,” he decided.
“There isn’t one on the island.”
“I guess I’ll take the ferry, then,” he said, backing away toward the ladder.
Rosie’s eyes flew open with surprise. “No, you don’t have to do that ,” she said, not very convincingly. “That’s at least a three-hour round trip from here. And what if you miss the last ferry?”
“I’ll drive fast.”
“It’s snowing.”
“Then I’ll drive slow,” he said.
“That doesn’t make any sense! I’m fine. I don’t want you to do it.”
Tom exhaled in exasperation, because obviously she wasn’t fine and she did want to breathe.
“And you call me a liar.” This was never going to work if she wouldn’t even be honest about what she wanted.
“What?” she cried. “I’m saying you don’t have to go.”
“I dove into a flood for Boyd, and I barely like Boyd. You don’t think I’d take a little boat ride to get your medicine?”
Rosie didn’t say anything, but the tremulous expression in her wet, bloodshot blue eyes was answer enough.
Tom got his boots on and climbed back up the ladder. He went to her bedside and cupped her face between his palms, holding her still when she tried to pull away. “Baby, I love you. I’d swim if I had to.”
Her lower lip quivered, and her face was uncertain.
On a wave of righteous anger—at Boyd, at the decade they’d wasted, even at Rosie for not hearing everything he wanted to tell her—he curled his fingertips into her soft, damp hair, weaving them in so she couldn’t pull away until she heard what he had to say.
“I’ve been crazy about you since the day I met you, and the worst mistake I ever made was walking away instead of fighting it out with you. I’m coming back tonight with your medicine, and I’m not leaving again until we work this out. You’ll have to get one of those vaudeville stage hooks to drag me off the island. Okay?”
Rosie put one palm on his chest as though not certain whether she was going to push him away or hold on tight. She was still breathing faster than he liked. He’d shocked her with that, maybe more than when his supposed boyfriend had showed up to collect him.
“Your threats are more convincing than your promises,” she said.
He huffed out a short laugh. “Yeah, okay,” he said, releasing her and climbing back down the ladder.
She followed far enough to lean out over the platform.
“Are you going to make him leave?” she asked.
“Do you want me to? I will,” Tom said, since he hadn’t decided yet.
She shook her head. “I’m not interested in publicly battling Meteor Man for your love.”
Tom opened the door to go. “Well that’s up to you, babe, as long as you know that you’d always win.”
···
Rose intended to stay up until Tom got back, but she must have fallen asleep despite all the lights she left on, because she woke up in the dark when Tom slid the elastic band that secured the nebulizer mask over the back of her head. Confused, she made a sleepy noise of protest.
“Shh, it’s okay, you don’t have to wake up,” Tom whispered. He turned the machine on, and its familiar hum oriented her as the sticky-sweet mist of the medication began to flow into the mask. “Just sit up a little.”
He gently tilted her up, and she heard the rustle of the covers and felt the dip of the mattress under his weight, but she didn’t get alarmed until she felt his bare skin brush against her arm.
“Wait, are you naked ?” she demanded, lowering the mask.
“I’m wearing underwear,” Tom said defensively, scooting into bed behind her and arranging her so she was lying back against his chest. “I had to take the rest off. It’s as hot as the surface of the sun in here with the fireplace on.”
He pulled the mask back over her face and settled in, his arms clasped loosely over her stomach and stiff body.
If she had a lot of self-respect, she’d tell him to get out of her bed now. He didn’t get extra credit for fixing disasters he’d created. Even assuming he was telling the truth about Boyd, Tom had spent the past three days turning her world upside down and shaking it. This wasn’t the help she’d asked for!
But she was comfortable.
Those new chest muscles of his made a perfectly functional backrest, it turned out, and also, there was the added benefit of being able to breathe for the first time in several days once the medicine started kicking in. Tom might have complained about the heat, but Rose was always, always cold. Adding his body heat underneath the stack of blankets she’d burrowed into meant she was finally at what she considered a reasonable sleeping temperature.
Rose couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like this—warm, safe, coddled. The steady rise and fall of Tom’s breathing against her back felt like medicine, just as much as the mist flowing through the machine.
It didn’t mean anything had changed, she told herself. Tom had always been better in a crisis than expected. He’d always been good when she was sick, or when her childhood cat had run away under suspicious circumstances, or when she’d had a fight with her mother. That he was exactly what she needed in this moment didn’t mean he’d be what she needed on an ordinary Tuesday evening, and her life was going to be made of a lot more ordinary Tuesday evenings than snowy nights when she needed medicine from the mainland.
Still. He was here. He was the only one she could even imagine being here. That was something.
She dozed until the liquid chamber sputtered on empty and Tom flipped the nebulizer off. Rose tensed, not really interested in moving but not sure she ought to be sleeping on Tom’s chest either.
“You seem warm enough now,” Tom said with watchful nonchalance, rolling over to flip off the light. “Do you really need all these blankets?” His tone was innocent, even though he was making a patent play for promotion to the bed.
“I’ll get cold later.”
“I’m sweating,” Tom complained, flapping the covers to air them out.
“Maybe you’d be more comfortable staying in the inn with Boyd,” Rose deflected, hands protectively clutching her pile of blankets.
“No, I’m fine,” Tom backpedaled.
“I thought you were hot.”
“It’s not that hot.” He paused. “Unless…are you going to make me sleep on the love seats again?”
“Are you leaving if I say yes?”
Tom craned his neck to give her a disappointed look. “No, I’m staying regardless because you’re going to need another breathing treatment in four hours.”
Rose chewed on that. When she didn’t roll out the welcome mat for the bed, Tom sighed and sat up. He slid his legs off the mattress, then reached for the covers as though he’d peel her hand off them.
“I guess I just need one if I’m sleeping downstairs,” he said.
She held on to the blanket stubbornly.
“Rosie,” Tom chided her. “You can’t have them all. It’s time to compromise. Give me a blanket or make some room.”
Compromise. He had no idea. She did nothing but compromise! Her entire life was one big compromise between the things she’d wanted and the things she actually expected she could have now.
If she let him back into the bed, it would be wonderful, for tonight at least. She’d pillow her head on that dreamboat chest, luxuriate in his warmth and comfort, and wake up feeling safe and rested.
The thing was, if he slept here tonight, then he’d think her bed was a place he was allowed to sleep. Which would make it into his choice whether he slept there or not. And the very smallest Rose had ever felt was the first night Tom hadn’t come home. If there were going to be nights in the future when Rose’s bed wasn’t the place he most wanted to be, she didn’t want to know about it.
She couldn’t start sleeping next to him again when she didn’t know how to stop sleeping next to him.
So here was the compromise she thought she could live with: she slid her hand onto Tom’s arm to stop him from leaving, letting her fingers trail up the taut swell of muscle. It took him a moment to realize what was happening, but the flash of gratification on his face was flattering. He flipped the top two layers of blankets so they were doubled over her body, then sat back down next to her with hesitation and expectation warring for top billing on his face.
Rose closed her eyes before she kissed him.
She’d thought about this ever since he asked her what she wanted back on the boat, and she’d worried even as she’d wanted him. She didn’t know whether it would be the same or different to kiss him again, and she didn’t know which she was afraid of. If it was the same, would it take her back to who she’d been at twenty-two? Desperately unhappy, trapped, lonely? But what if it was different, or she was bad at it now, and it only proved that she had no business kissing someone like Tom?
She shouldn’t have worried. It was a little awkward because of the angle and the pile of covers, and Rose couldn’t smell or taste anything but the sweetener the manufacturer put in the albuterol to cover the bitterness of the medication. But first kisses were often awkward, and Rose had known that even before she met Tom. It felt like a first kiss: sweet and uncertain and promising. They feinted a bit, hands opening to find spots to press themselves, lips parting and retreating as they explored familiar contours on the other. Then Tom threw himself into it as much as he ever had, planting his forearms on either side of her head and rolling over her so that he could capture her whole mouth against his own. His weight was anchoring, but his heart pounded against hers. He was nervous too.
He would have deepened it if she’d let him. He would have stayed and wrapped that beautiful, warm body around hers all night long. But instead, she pulled away after a hundred unsteady heartbeats. Tom hadn’t been her first kiss. She’d never know if he would be her last kiss. Maybe she could live with that—some days he would be in her life, and some nights she’d kiss him, and she wouldn’t plan on either.
Tom lingered over her with his eyes closed and a blissful expression on his face until she peeled off the top blanket and pushed it against his chest. This much she could live with.
“Thank you,” she said. “Good night, Tom.”