Chapter 20 #2
“He’s smitten,” he said, gesturing to Abernathy, who was climbing my leg and purring frantically. I gave in, scooping him up and heading for the bed. Once seated, the cat flopped into my lap with a huff, presenting his stomach for a rub.
“He’s just a wittle sweetie!” I cooed, scratching his chest.
Henry snorted. “If I attempted to touch him like that, I’d be heading straight for the emergency room for antibiotics for a cat bite.”
I pinched Abernathy’s cheeks. “No! My sweet boy wouldn’t do that, would he? He’s a pacifist, look at him!”
Abernathy’s purr was a violent, vibrating rumble in my lap, and I smirked at Henry, who mumbled, “Catnip,” while gazing at the pair of us with a soft expression.
In too deep, Irina.
That look on his face … it was too much for me. My eyes fell to the bed. The comforter was mussed, a blanket laying in a tangle at the end. The corner of a book poked out from under it.
I leaned back, ignoring the half-hearted protest from Abernathy that his lap was moving, and tugged the book free.
“The Hunger Games. I thought this was a movie.”
Henry’s eye roll was so exaggerated I had to bite back a giggle. “It was a book before it was a movie. And while the film is, by adaptation standards, very well done, the movies simply can’t convey that feeling of living it with Katniss the way the books do.”
I turned the book over, skimming my eyes over the blurb. I didn’t want to take the time to read it properly because that would be embarrassingly drawn out. English wasn’t my first, or even my second language, and sometimes reading it felt like so much hard work.
“This book has gotten me through some very rough times in my life,” Henry explained softly, his attention on his hand, stroking gently between Trinket’s ears.
“They became a comfort read for me, which is ironic, given the subject matter. But they allowed me to escape the reality of my childhood, many, many times.”
I swallowed around a sudden lump in my throat.
I could relate to the need to escape. Hadn’t I experienced the same so many times in my own childhood?
But I’d turned to swimming when I couldn’t cope with the world around me.
Henry’s coping mechanism … I was holding it in my hand.
It suddenly felt precious: the thing that had brought him through the hard times, to be who he was today.
This kind, generous person sitting in front of me.
“Anyway,” he continued, likely oblivious to the prickling tears in my eyes. “When I experience … what I did earlier today, I still reach for them. They’re familiar, the characters feel like my family, and it helps me to tune out of reality for a bit while my body is calming down from a …”
“From a meltdown” I finished. “It’s okay to say the word. There’s nothing shameful about it. They happen, we got through it.”
Henry grunted softly. “We did. I … I really want to thank you again, for understanding … for helping me. It was unexpected.”
I shrugged. “I only did what anyone else would have.”
Henry shook his head emphatically, his green eyes blazing. “No. Not many people would do what you did, Ri. In fact, I can’t think of one other person in my life who has.”
Grief washed over me for him not having anyone who cared enough, or understood enough, to give him something as simple as the right kind of touch to regulate him. And for Andrei, who I missed so terribly, so intensely, even after all this time.
“Everyone should have a person,” I managed through my thick throat. “A person who just gets them.”
Henry was silent, and when I chanced a glance at him, he was gazing at me in wonder. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen on a man’s face before.
“Well, maybe I should read these books. You know … to research what makes my husband tick.” I winked, forcing myself to throw off the melancholy and the warm, fluttery feelings that were overtaking my stomach. I shifted Abernathy off my lap. He protested with a vigorous yowl.
“Sorry fluffball,” I crooned. “Mummy has to go to work now.”
Henry’s head snapped up. “Work?”
I laughed. “Yes! I’m a very in-demand Tickle creator, didn’t you know? Plus, I have a contract with a certain someone’s ex fiancée to road test her products, and I’m running behind since I took yesterday off to get married.”
Henry’s blush did nothing to alleviate those warm, squishy feelings. “Well,” he choked out. “Sounds like you have a busy evening planned.”
I headed for the door, only as an afterthought glancing back at him, smiling and murmuring something in Romanian that I would never have had the guts to say to him in English.
Why? Because I was a chicken. When it came to Henry Baxter, at least. I’d never, ever, not since arriving in Australia, been backwards in coming forwards with men, women, whoever turned me on.
But there was something about him that turned me into a shyer version of myself. A version where admitting I wanted him was less about just physical desire, and more … well, just more.
His mouth fell open, his flush deepened, and I had a sudden, heart-stopping feeling that maybe even a language barrier couldn’t hide the sentiment I’d just shared. I scuttled out of his room, like the g?in? I was.
I woke in the middle of the night, from the deep sleep of a woman who had given herself multiple heart-stopping orgasms while fantasising about kissing her husband—yes, just kissing; apparently, I didn’t need anything dirtier than his mouth devouring mine to get off—to the sound of Abernathy scratching on my bedroom door.
The yacht moved gently on the water, making my sleepy progress around the bed feel dream-like.
Opening the door a crack so Abernathy could shoot inside, heading straight for my pillow, which he’d claimed the night before too, I noticed a shadowy object on the floor just beside the door.
Bending down, I fumbled in the dark until my fingers wrapped around it and held it up to the moonlight filtering in through the window.
It was Henry’s worn copy of The Hunger Games, the pages velvety soft from years of use. I lifted the cover, noticing handwriting on the title page.
Ri
You’re the Catnip in my life, but I think I might be more Peeta than Gale. Don’t worry, this will make sense to you once you read it.
Yours,
Henry
I climbed back into bed, cradling the book. This was more than just words on a page I was holding. This was a talisman, a warder-away of bad things in Henry’s life.
I closed my eyes, letting one single tear slip out before I placed the book reverently on the nightstand. Andrei, my brother, would have loved Henry.
And what did I feel for him?
I drifted back into slumber before my sleepy mind could grab onto an answer to that.