13. Lucille #2
“I’m holding.” His voice is strained. “I’m holding very still. I’m holding so still I might actually stop breathing.”
I extend the tape to his ankle and read the measurement. Thirty-four. Exactly what I need.
But I don’t stand up immediately.
I’m kneeling in front of my husband, my face level with his belt buckle, and some terrible part of me wants to stay here. Wants to look up. Wants to see what’s in his eyes when I’m in this position.
I look up.
He’s staring down at me with an expression that makes my blood run hot. His fists are white-knuckled at his sides, his breathing shallow, his jaw clenched so tight I can see the muscles jumping.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I say.
“Tell me where to look instead.”
I don’t have an answer.
The silence stretches between us, charged with everything we’re not saying, everything we’ve been carefully not saying for weeks. The tension is a living thing, coiling around us both, and I know, I know, that if I stay in this position for one more second, a line is going to be crossed.
I stand up too quickly.
“Done,” I announce, my voice too loud. “I have everything I need.”
I turn to my notepad and start writing down the measurements, but my hands are unsteady and the numbers come out wrong. Thirty-six instead of thirty-four. I scratch it out and try again.
Hugo is still standing where I left him, still watching me with that intensity that makes me want to either flee or combust.
“The seamstress will be here in forty-five minutes,” I say without looking at him. “Thank you for your help. You can go.”
“Lucille.”
“I said thank you. I mean it. But I need to work now, and I can’t work with you standing there looking at me like… like…”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to…” I stop, my cheeks burning. “It doesn’t matter. Just go.”
He doesn’t go.
Instead, he crosses the room to where I’m standing at my worktable, frantically scribbling numbers that don’t make sense, and he stops directly behind me.
“You’re bleeding.”
“What?”
He takes my left hand, and I look down in surprise to see blood welling from a small cut on my index finger. A pin. I must have stuck myself without noticing, too distracted by the measurements, by his body, by everything I’ve been trying not to feel.
“I didn’t…” I start.
“I know.” His voice is gentle. “You were focused. You do that sometimes. Forget to take care of yourself when you’re working.”
He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, actual cloth, monogrammed with his initials, old-fashioned and expensive, and wraps it carefully around my finger. His hands are steady, precise, focused entirely on the task.
“It’s not deep,” he says, examining the cut. “But you should clean it properly once I leave.”
I should pull my hand back. I should thank him briskly and return to my work and not stand here letting him tend to me like I’m a precious thing he’s afraid to break.
But his hands are so gentle. And his face is so close. And I’ve spent two years yearning for exactly this kind of attention from him, soft, focused, present, and now that I have it, I can’t seem to refuse it.
He finishes wrapping the handkerchief and looks up at me.
“There,” he says quietly.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He doesn’t let go of my hand.
Instead, he lifts it to his mouth and presses a soft kiss to my knuckle, just above the makeshift bandage. His lips are warm, gentle, and the contact lasts only a second, but I feel it everywhere.
Then he steps back.
“Good luck with the seamstress,” he says. “I’ll let myself out.”
He collects his jacket, tucks the flower onto my desk beside the coffee that’s gone cold, and walks out of my studio without another word.
The door closes with a thud behind him.
I stand there holding my hand to my chest.
My finger throbs faintly under the handkerchief, but that’s not what I’m feeling. What I’m feeling is the ghost of his lips on my skin, the imprint of his gentleness, the terrible knowledge that he saw me bleeding before I did and his first instinct was to take care of it.
Of me.
This is what I wanted. This is what I begged him for, in a thousand different ways, for two years. Attention. Presence. The feeling that I mattered enough to be noticed.
And now he’s giving it to me.
Now, when I’ve already decided to leave. Now, when I’ve built a life of my own that doesn’t depend on him. Now, when I was finally starting to feel like myself again.
I look down at the handkerchief wrapped around my finger. His initials are embroidered in navy thread, elegant and understated. H.K. Hugo Kensington.
He left a piece of himself behind.
And I’m holding it against my heart like I don’t know how to remove it.
***
The seamstress knocks at four o’clock exactly, and I let her in, and we work on the measurements until evening, and I don’t think about Hugo at all.
Except I do.
I think about the goosebumps on his neck when my breath touched his skin. I think about his hands curled into fists while I knelt in front of him. I think about the way he said my name, like it mattered, like it was worth savoring.
I think about the kiss on my knuckle, gentle as a promise.
And I’m not certain what I should do with any of it.
The showcase is in two weeks. My whole future is riding on ten pieces that need to be perfect. I don’t have time for whatever is happening between me and my almost-ex-husband.
But when I lock up the studio that night, I find myself tucking his handkerchief into my bag instead of leaving it behind.
I tell myself it’s because I need to return it.
I know that’s not why.