Chapter 20
20
The first thing Rose saw when she woke up was the pillow where Tom had slept the night before. She instinctively reached out to touch it, but he’d left long enough ago that it was cool now. Still, unlike all the other mornings she’d woken up to look at an empty pillow next to her, there was no denying he’d slept there. His jeans were still on the floor next to the bed, and the sheets were crumpled.
Rose went down the ladder and looked at the kitchen. He’d left her half a pot of coffee on the burner again and a couple of hard-boiled eggs in the fridge for breakfast.
She hadn’t showered the night before, so she went into the bathroom to get ready, scooping up discarded towels off the floor as she went. She looked at the toothpaste and single toothbrush they were apparently sharing as she put on her makeup.
Across the street, the inn was bustling with activity. Boyd was enthusiastically leading the demolition of built-ins down in the basement to make room for the stage. Ximena was headed out to the hardware store with Snowy to get more paint. The Great Puffin was making a chickpea and red onion salad in the spotless kitchen to go with the lunch Rose had planned.
“Oh, I can eat that,” Rose said, pleasantly surprised.
“I know,” the girl said, pouting dramatically. “Who’s allergic to celery ?”
“Me,” said Rose.
“I know,” Puff said again, rolling her eyes toward a sheet of paper on the range hood titled Kills Rosie . The list was thorough and complete, apples to zucchini. At the bottom of the list was a handwritten addendum, Safe for Rosie , in Tom’s messy handwriting.
The kitchen smelled like paint where the baseboards and crown molding had been touched up in gleaming white. When Rose imagined the bird-print wallpaper replacing the blue nautical theme, the place looked even brighter in her mind. Her younger brother’s oldest kid was six; this summer she’d be old enough to start learning some of the family recipes. Rose’s mind cautiously populated the inn. There are birds now , she’d tell her family, and they’d just have to deal with that.
“Is Tom here?” Rose asked Puff, who pointed upstairs.
Rose opened doors until she found him in the bathroom of the honeymoon suite. He was carefully applying silicone caulk to the cracks around the window frame, his back to her.
He turned his head to smile at her when she came in, but he didn’t stop working. He’d found an ancient battery-powered radio somewhere, and it sat in the open window, turned to the Tisbury community station. It felt like spring today; the tips of the tangled brown branches forming the property line had not yet swollen to bud, but the breeze had a drier, warmer scent to it.
Tom wore a faded yellow T-shirt advertising a charity poker night Rose had organized their junior year. Rose was pretty sure he’d misappropriated this precise shirt from Adrian or Rose at some point, because it stretched across his shoulders, and Rose had ordered them roomy enough to sleep in.
She walked up behind him and pressed her cheek between his shoulder blades, arms not around him but tucked against his broad back. He felt warm and solid, and he smelled familiar. They’d been using the same shampoo and soap and detergent for several loads of laundry now.
“What are you thinking this morning?” she asked.
Tom finished applying a strip of gel before he answered. His tone was thoughtful and impassioned.
“So, I was just thinking that ‘Take the Money and Run’ doesn’t deliver on its narrative promises,” Tom told her. “It seems like it’s going to be a three-act story, because the beginning is brilliant. Bobbie Sue and Billie Joe are small town kids, there’s this call to adventure, and they start robbing houses. Okay, so then the narrator introduces this Billie Mack character. There’s a buildup, and we’re like, oh no, what will our heroes do? They’re on a clear collision course. But then there’s no denouement! How does Bobbie Sue slip away? The ending image, where they’re still running today, it feels unearned. There should have been another verse with a shootout or something. The song’s too short. Taylor did it better in ‘Getaway Car.’?”
“Oh,” Rose said, lifting her eyebrows. “Was it on the radio?”
“Yeah, a little earlier,” Tom said. He cleaned the nozzle of the caulk gun on a bit of paper towel and ran his fingers down the other edge of the window to check the seal.
The pleasant sounds of the morning filled the ensuing silence. There was the distant, muffled cracking of wood. The plaintive hoots of the turkeys off in the trees. The radio station playing Boomer standards.
“Or did you mean about last night specifically?” Tom asked, as though it had only just occurred to him to have more serious thoughts.
“Yeah.”
Tom’s big shoulders bunched and relaxed in a half shrug. “I’ve decided you’re cut off from any kinky shit until you get better at getting words from here to here.” He craned one arm behind him so he could tap her temple and her lower lip, but his look back was only mildly concerned. “Why, what were you thinking?”
Rose swallowed hard, because this wasn’t easy. “I think I’m going to move into the suite. Now that the bees are gone, it’s just as usable as the rest of the inn, and I’m still afraid we’ll get arrested for trespassing.”
“Okay,” Tom said, looking through the doorway at the empty bedroom. “We can clean out the cottage after lunch.”
Rose braced herself. “And I think you should stay in one of the other rooms.”
Tom did not like that.
“What? What’d I do now ?” he demanded, eyes going wide with surprised betrayal.
“Nothing,” Rose said, putting her hands up on his chest. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Why am I getting kicked out, then?”
“I’m not kicking you out,” she said. She licked her lips. “I’m thinking about whether we should get back together. You know. After…after we’re both home. What that would look like.”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing all along?” Tom asked, thick dark brows lowering in confusion.
Rose pressed her lips together. She’d thought they might do any of several different things, but none of them had involved any degree of back . She’d buried the dream of Tom as someone she’d spend the rest of her life with so deep that just to name it felt like breaking her own heart again.
She shook her head. Her fingertips snagged in his shirt.
“But is that…is that what you really want?” she asked.
Tom’s mouth twisted, and he tried to run a hand through his hair, finding it tied back instead.
“I meant what I said at the beginning,” he said slowly.
Although it was hard to breathe normally, she tried. She nodded. She’d try to think about it.
“Let’s not just fall into things, okay?” she said, trying to sound like she knew what she was doing. “Let’s be thoughtful about this. Aware of who we are and what we need to be happy.”
Tom sighed. “Okay, Rosie. Okay.” He slung an arm around the back of her neck and pulled her in to his chest. “Whatever you think is best.” He kissed the part in her hair and left his chin digging into her scalp. She squirmed, but not to get away. It felt heavy and urgent.
“But I just need the same thing I always needed,” he said, and she supposed he got to put all his cards on the table too. “You.”
Rose closed her eyes and breathed against the V of his collarbones. If this was going to work, they needed to start being honest with each other. Even about the things that scared her.
“I love you too,” she said.