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“I liked it too.”Way too much.I squeezed the phone, forcing levity back into my tone. “I can’t seem to control my fucking mouth around you.”
“That makes two of us,” she returned, her tone wry and teasing. “Apparently.”
I stared up at the ceiling, smiling as I remembered the feel of her lips on mine. “Say what you will about us, but we never lacked for chemistry.”
“No,” she said, and I could swear she sounded wistful. “We sure didn’t.”
“But I can also see the sense in what you’re saying. It’s better if we focus on being friends.” I paused before adding. “For now.”
Nothing but silence on her end.
An uncomfortable sensation burned behind my breastbone. It could have been heartburn from the pizza I’d had for dinner, but it felt more like heartache. I rubbed my chest, flailing for something to say next. “So…uh, I told my mom about Erin yesterday.”
“How’d that go?”
“Scary as shit. But she took it in stride, all things considered. And she’s thrilled about Erin and the baby, of course.” I sighed and raked a hand through my hair. “She also helpfully reminded me that I’d better tell my ex-wife before I broke the news to our kids, so I got to come clean to Wendy yesterday as well.”
“So what you’re telling me is that you’ve gone over your quota of emotional conversations in the last forty-eight hours.”
“Yeah, I have.” I tried and failed to stifle a yawn. “No wonder I’m so exhausted.”
“You should get some sleep.”
The thought of hanging up left me desolate, but she was right. I had work in the morning. “You too. It’s late.”
“Fine.” She sounded vaguely disgruntled. “I’ll try if you do.”
“Deal,” I said. “Good night, Tess.”
“Go to sleep, Donal.”
I didn’t know if Tess kept up her end of the bargain, but I fell into a deep, peaceful sleep two minutes after getting off the phone. It was my first good night’s sleep in days.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
TESS
Deciphering knitting patterns was like trying to decode a spy cipher. I’d always considered myself an intelligent person, but apparently you needed a PhD in cryptography to understand the damn things.
I’d decided to finish the baby blanket I’d started for Erin when I was pregnant. What with her being pregnant now, there was a nice sort of symmetry to it. Although I wasn’t sure if I’d actually have the courage to give it to her. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
Assuming I could figure out how to recreate the pattern.
The first thing I’d done was watch a bunch of knitting how-to videos. I’d even practiced the basic stitches with a pair of chopsticks and a shoelace. I planned to make a trip to Dawn’s knitting store for proper supplies soon, but in the meantime, I wanted to see if I could still remember how to do it, and I’d had to improvise with what I could find in my apartment.
Bizarrely, my hands seemed to remember the motions even if my head didn’t. The video tutorial hadn’t made any sense the first time I’d watched it, but as soon as I held the chopsticks in my hands like knitting needles something clicked into place. My fingers started moving through the steps automatically—albeit a little clumsily—as if they still knew what to do. Muscle memory was the real deal.
Obviously, I couldn’t actually knit anything with a shoelace, but I’d been able to at least review the basics of casting on, knitting, and purling. And the more I practiced, the more familiar it had started to feel. Amazing how much information our brains kept stored just out of reach.
Now I was on an internet quest to see if I could find the pattern I’d been using—or at least something similar enough to help me reverse engineer it. I’d already identified one of the two repeating stripes as a basic garter stitch, which was easy enough. The other section, however, was proving more of a challenge. It was some kind of lace eyelet pattern, but I hadn’t been able to find an exact match.
I was starting to go cross-eyed from staring at stitch patterns when my phone chirped beside me, offering a welcome distraction. When I saw it was a text from Donal, my stomach performed an ill-considered skydiving maneuver.
Donal: You up?
The fact that those two particular words were the standard booty call opening gambit wasn’t lost on me—or my racing pulse. Suddenly, my thoughts were dominated by a single image: Donal naked in my bed.
Or his bed—either would do fine. Although I’d never seen his bed, so it was difficult to imagine him in it. It was much easier to imagine him naked inmybed.
