‘What’s that?’
I tugged and she gasped as the covers came away. ‘Why are you all the way over there?’
My body was desperate for more sleep. Stephen had left me utterly, bone-meltingly satisfied in his bed. The sheets were cool, just the right side of worn, and full of his scent. But if I went to sleep now, with a week of only getting three to four hours a night of shut-eye behind me, I wouldn’t wake up until he got back from work. And tempting as it was to lie there waiting for his gorgeous, talented self to join me again, I figured it wouldn’t give him the right impression. Camping out in someone’s apartment, even if they’d said it was okay, didn’t give off casual vibes.
I’d experienced my fair share of commitment-phobic men. I knew the signs, the things that made them uncomfortable, the things that they wanted to avoid. I didn’t want to freak him out when he’d been so conscientious about making sure I knew what I could and couldn’t expect from this new phase in our relationship. I really didn’t want it to be over before it had even started, so he had to understand that I wasn’t one of those women who thought I could reform a bachelor. I wasn’t trying to do that. I wasn’t.
Not that I thought Stephen needed to change in order to be suitable for a long-term commitment. He just needed to accept the fact that he wasn’t tainted by his father’s lack of moral fibre. It was a realignment of perception he required, not a personality transplant, and if I could help him with that, it didn’t mean I was being foolish and getting my hopes up. It was totally different. Wasn’t it?
Regardless of all the relationship stuff I’d landed myself in, I still had a deadline.
After a shower and a cup of coffee from the pot he’d left brewing for me, I got back into my dirty clothes from yesterday, gathered my stuff and went home to change. I plugged in my dead cell phone and groaned at the number of messages and notifications I was going to have to trawl through once I got my book off. I answered one from Kaylee I’d received on Wednesday though.
Kaylee: How is the book shaping up? Not
heard from you for days so I guess you’re
working hard. Let me know if you need
anything.
Me: Hey, honey. I have been hard at it. Nearly
there. Are you free this morning? It would be
amazing to have another set of eyes to read
through it, if you’ve got time.
By the time I’d changed into some clean clothes and repacked my bag of notebooks and laptop she’d messaged me back to meet her at the library. She was such a star.
‘Oh my God, Noelle, this is sooo good,’ Kaylee whispered to me as we sat side by side at the table in the library. She was on her laptop, reading through the manuscript I’d emailed her with track changes on and I was reading backwards through a paper version I’d printed out.
‘You’re not supposed to be looking at it for story,’ I murmured back, turning another page and adding it to the pile. ‘Just basic sense, so Patti doesn’t think I’ve been suffering from heatstroke.’
‘I can’t help it.’ She deleted a word on the screen, eyes still glued to the page. ‘I’m actually a little upset with you for making out it was in such bad shape. There’s no way it was as awful as you were saying, and it got this good in a few weeks.’
I wrinkled my nose, trying to contain a smile. ‘Cut it out. D’you mean it?’ My heart fluttered with hope. ‘Does it work now?’
She nodded, her curly black hair bouncing in the high ponytail she was wearing.
‘The love story, Noelle.’ She grabbed my elbows. ‘It’s such a delicious slow burn, but also the mystery, oh my heart. I fell in love with Kit. If Patti doesn’t think he is a million-billion times better than that sleazy James, I think she has issues.’
‘Oh my God, thank you.’ Tears of relief touched my eyes and I hugged her. I felt like I’d hit a groove with the story once the inspiration came to me that night in my sister’s garden when we’d been babysitting. But I made all the changes in such a frenzied blur, I had no distance from it to figure out whether it had worked out for the better. Kaylee was only one reader, but she was an experienced author and a fan of cosy mysteries and thank God,thank God. ‘Thank you.’
‘You don’t need to thank me. I didn’t do anything.’
‘You’ve helped me loads, Kay. I’m taking you out to treat you next week okay?’
‘If you insist.’
I practically bounced home. Or I would have done if the stack of A4 I had held together with elastic bands wasn’t so heavy. It took me another few hours to work through the errors we’d both found, sitting at my desk in the dingy light but I finally hit send at around eight in the evening.
‘Woohoo!’ I flicked on one of the songs from the playlist Beth sent me and did a dance around my living room.
Was it too late to call Stephen? He’d probably like to know. Maybe he’d want to celebrate with me. Or maybe he was out having Friday night drinks at a swanky bar with his work colleagues. I picked up my cell phone and chewed on the end of my hair, wondering just how casually I was going to play this thing with him. I mean, I wanted to see him; that was the point of crossing the line with him the night before…and this morning…but he hadn’t called me today or sent me a message or anything.
He was probably busy. And giving me the space to work that I’d told him I needed. I still couldn’t get over how perfectly he’d given me what I wanted.
