‘You’re right, that would be weird. Especially with the facial fuzz you got going on at the moment.’ Ha, he’d never guess how obsessed I was with it. How much I wanted to spend time cataloguing the differences to how it felt under my fingertips compared to against my palm, brushed in every direction, or the noise it would make if I scrubbed at it lightly. ‘Go on then. Tell me how awkward-looking you were.’
‘I had the usual spots – a very difficult year when my voice was breaking, and I grew six inches but gained no extra weight. I swear my nose took up ninety per cent of my face at one stage, too. But on the whole, I scraped through OK.’
‘”OK”, he says.’ I scoffed under my breath. Even the best-looking boy at my school wouldn’t have held a candle to him. I shook my head. ‘You can go if you want. I don’t mind doing the babysitting by myself. It’ll give me a chance to write.’
‘You can write now if you want. I’ll keep an ear out for the baby.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course.’ He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs at the ankles. ‘Sitting here with you is more pleasant and more helpful than going home to sit by myself.’ He looked out over the garden, his teeth catching at his bottom lip for a second, like he’d said too much. Was Stephen…lonely? Was that why those distant looks kept creeping over him at my parents’ house?
Being in the centre of a crowd of close-knit people was bound to make you feel isolated, even when he was getting so involved – he had so little family left. When I’d seen him at the Fifth Avenue bar a couple of weeks ago, I’d wanted to figure out who the true Stephen was, like he was a Sudoku puzzle, but I hadn’t thought about the consequences of doing it. I didn’t want to see his hurt and feel this tenderness for him growing in my chest.
‘Being able to sit quietly, companionably, with someone is a novelty,’ I said evenly.
‘Particularly with you,’ he quipped and I cuffed him around the head on my way to get my notebook. I wanted him to grab my wrist and pull me down into his lap. To kiss me boneless. But that wasn’t going to happen. He’d made it clear the ball was in my court where that was concerned; he was going to respect my wishes and I knew better…didn’t I?
We sat in the velvety darkness, a set of tea lights along the railing to my sister’s deck, and I opened my notebook. The stars were overhead, and something was stirring in my mind. I let myself write. Not plan or outline or scratch away at a problem. I just wrote a scene where Kit and Charmaine sat down together and talked, and touched…
And realised that they were falling in love.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Stephen
There were an abundance of green spaces in New York, with plenty near my apartment. I’d mostly chosen to run around the roads of my neighbourhood, sometimes using City Hall Park or Columbus Park as I gradually built up the map of the area in my head, but on Wednesday morning I met Patrick down at the Battery, on the southernmost tip of Manhattan Island.
He took me on a circuitous route, winding our way along dirt packed paths lined by trees and allotments, to paved areas where there always seemed to be a memorial or a monument to someone. When he pointed out a couple of the castles, I had to bite my British tongue so I didn’t end up sounding like that Crocodile Dundee movie my mum had loved.
‘I needed this,’ he panted, once we’d made our way through to the adjoining Robert F Wagner Jr Park and were standing facing the wide estuary from the Atlantic, where the water split to the right into the Hudson and to the left into the East River. Over an expanse of gunmetal water, its surface sparkling like scattered diamonds, an array of islands faced us; Jersey, Governor and Ellis, and Lady Liberty herself. It hadn’t been a taxing run because Patrick was, by his own admission, only a beginner but exercise hadn’t really been the whole point of arranging this. ‘Between the office and the worry at home,’ he re-settled his baseball cap as he took another deep breath, ‘it’s good to clear my head and it’s easier to force myself out if someone else is waiting on me.’
‘How is your wife doing?’ I asked, flipping the lid on my water bottle. I might not have been sweating from exertion, but the sun had been up long enough to begin its slow cook of the city.
‘Honestly, Nadia is terrible at resting, especially because she’s worrying about her blood pressure, early labour, pre-eclampsia, breast-feeding two when they arrive, you name it. Keeping moving keeps her mind off it, but of course, she’s got two babies squashing all her internal organs, so it exhausts her. When I’m home I’ve got to try to be the calm one, y’know? Keep her mind off it, and her feet up.’ He shook his head. ‘Women truly have to cope with some crazy shit.’
‘I cannot argue with that.’ I took a couple of mouthfuls of water, still cold because it had been mostly ice when I left my apartment.
All this talk of pregnancy and babies automatically brought Elle to mind. When I’d been holding her niece, Elle’s arm pressed to mine, her eyes soft with love as she looked at the baby.
That must have been why she’d kissed my cheek to say goodnight to me when I saw her home after baby-sitting. All that affection she had for her family spilling over onto me. That sense of comfort from being around them.
She’d fallen asleep in the back of the Uber I’d called when her sister and Quinn had come home, slumping into my shoulder, her arms folded protectively around her big handbag, the notebook she’d been scribbling into tucked safely inside. Her hair had smelt of sweet smoke and sunshine and it had been a wrench having to nudge her awake and lose the warmth of her pressed up against me.
When I’d directed her up the stairs to her apartment, she’d still been half asleep, and hesitated after unlocking her door before reaching up to give me that kiss on the cheek, which stayed on my skin like a burn long after she’d gone inside. I’d walked home feeling more restless than made any sense following a platonic kiss.
To be honest, I rarely received physical contact in platonic or even fond ways from women. When I was seeing someone, it was all foreplay and sex on repeat. There was no clasping of hands for any reason except a consensual play of restraint. No falling asleep next to the other one. I’d always maintained that I dated, even if I didn’t do relationships, but that growing intimacy was a part of dating and I’d been choosing not to partake in that either.
‘I’ve got a friend who was a midwife,’ I found myself saying, ‘and she’s got twins in her family, too. I could ask her if she’s got some advice, or if you’ve got any particular questions that you’d like some straight answers about? She’s extremely capable and very pragmatic. And she’ll be honest — but not brutally honest. Tough love delivered with kindness, I’d call it.’ I bit the side of my cheek to stop myself from talking.
Patrick quirked his eyebrows but nodded. ‘Thanks, Stephen. I’ll mention it to Nadia and let you know. She’s got a group of expectant moms she made friends with at the birthing classes and such, and obviously her own doctors, but more information is always good.’ He smiled and I ignored the dip of disappointment that I’d have no reason to call Elle immediately and have her tear a strip off me because it was so early.
I hadn’t heard from her since the weekend, and part of me knew she had a book to write, and I hoped she’d finally found her groove with it, but the other part of me was wondering if I wouldn’t hear from her until she’d received an answer from her dad about Trevor’s current address. If I’d been right that she was taking the opportunity to put distance between us.
‘I’m sorry I’ve been so distracted,’ Patrick continued. ‘It’s just…’ he shrugged.
‘Not the priority,’ I finished for him. I understood. It didn’t make it any easier for me that he was dropping the ball in some areas, like setting up client meetings, which meant I was potentially going to have to do them with Georgina, but thiswas the situation and he was clearly doing his best given the circumstances. I’d handle it. ‘Nothing’s more important than your family.’
‘Damn. Don’t go saying things like that in the office,’ he half-joked. ‘Is it like that in London? You can just freely admit to having a life and commitmentsoutsideof work?’
