Page 19

"I'm reading."

A pause. "You haven't looked at me in forty minutes."

I turn a page. "I've been reading for forty minutes."

"I know." Another pause. "You also haven't touched my hair."

I put the book down.

I look at him. He turns onto his side to face me with the expression of someone who is aware they are being unreasonable and has decided to proceed anyway. This is, I have come to understand, a Patrick thing. He is not actually distressed. He is warm and content and slightly bored and is communicating this in the way of a person who has decided that mild dramatisation is more entertaining than simply saying I would like your attention.

"You're very high maintenance," I say.

"I'm a little high maintenance," he says. "There's a difference."

"You're complaining that I haven't touched your hair."

"I'm noting it," he says. "As an observation. For your information."

I look at him for a long moment. At the entirely unconvincing neutrality of his expression. At the fact that Patrick Sutton, who lands a Boeing 787 with the ease of someone parking a bicycle and commands a room without trying, is lying in a hotel bed in Cape Town waiting for me to touch his hair.

"Come here," I say.

He moves immediately. No negotiation, no performance of reluctance. He shifts across the bed and I put my book on the nightstand and he settles against me, his head on my chest, one arm across my stomach, and I feel him exhale completely.

I put my hand in his hair.

He goes still.

Patrick likes contact the way some people like warmth: not as a treat, as a baseline. When someone he trusts touches him, he goes quiet. Still.

I find I like being the person who can do that to him.

I run my hand through his hair. He makes a sound that is not quite a word.

"There," I say. "Satisfied."

"Mm," he says.

"Dramatic," I say.

"A little," he agrees, from somewhere in my neck.

I look at the ceiling. The Cape Town night outside. His weight against me, his breathing slowing. His hand finding mine on the duvet without him looking, the same way he always does, like it's a reflex, like I am where his hand goes.

I let him hold it.

I am, I find, very happy.

Before he posts the first photographs, he shows me the screen.

"You're visible in two of these," he says. "Is that okay?"

I look. A shoulder. My hand on the table. Half my profile against the water.

"Yes," I say.

He posts them.