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He shies very slightly. “What are you doing?”
“I’m appreciating you.”
“I own a mirror. There’s not much to appreciate.”
“Oh, come on,” I say. “I love looking at you.”
Scepticism settles over Jonathan’s face like frost over the lawn. “We might need to take you back to the doctors.”
“I mean it. I’m not claiming you’re Henry Cavill. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to like. Y’know, visually.”
“Sam.” He comes over all stern or tries to. I think he might be embarrassed. “This is very nice and I don’t mean to be ungrateful. But we have limited time and I don’t need to…” He waves a confused hand between us. “Need whatever it is you think you’re doing here.”
“You don’t need someone to treat you nice?”
“If I did, I’d be fucked. In case you haven’t noticed, there are very few volunteers.”
“Well, I’m volunteering.”
“Yes, but…” He closes his eyes, looking genuinely pained. “This can’t last. I can’t get used to this.”
My heart feels like someone’s jammed a corkscrew into it and started twisting, because the last thing I want to do is hurt him. I started out thinking I was being slightly selfish here but maybe I’m being very selfish. Even very, very selfish. “We can stop if you—”
“No.” His hands tighten in my T-shirt.
“I don’t want to make you feel—”
“I don’t care.”
So I kiss him again. I kiss him the way he’s maybe scared to be kissed and the way I think he deserves to be kissed. I kiss him softly, then deeply, letting it flow between us, natural like, all heat and hope and tenderness, as if he’s the best thing that’s happened to me in a long while. And Jonathan Forest forgets, for a moment—for more than a moment—that he’s a hard man who doesn’t have time for anyone. Because in my arms he’s as generous, as kind, as giving and as open as I need him to be.
I should have listened to him, though. We can’t get used to this. Unfortunately, I think I already am. And what’s waiting for me on the other side is looking very bleak indeed.
CHAPTER 25
It’s even harder to sleep in Jonathan’s bed now we’ve, y’know, kissed again, and in a less oh-my-God-this-was-a-mistake way than last time. Mind you, it’s a better sort of sleeplessness than the one I started the evening with. I’d gone downstairs with the intention of telling him that he didn’t have to the take the sofa, but we parted on the understanding that he definitely, definitely did because while we can make a one-time-kissing exception, that’s as far as things can go while the employee thing and the amnesia thing and all the other things are still, well, things.
I try to shut my eyes for a couple of minutes at least, but the moment the sunlight starts creeping in the windows I decide I might as well give it up as a bad job and make a start on the day. Which turns out to be very much the path of least resistance because the Forests—and I should have predicted this—are all very much make-a-start-on-the-day type of people, and they tend to make their starts very, very loudly.
“Tell you what,” Wendy is yelling from one part of downstairs to a different part of downstairs, though yelling in one part of a house is like smoking in one part of a restaurant or pissing in one part of a swimming pool, “them showers is well good in’t they?”
“Like a bloody hotel,” agrees Uncle Johnny.
I hear the sound of water running as the downstairs taps comeon, and then Wendy’s voice saying, “You don’t have to do that,” followed by a voice that I’m pretty sure is Agnieszka’s saying something about it being her job.
“Here”—that’s Uncle Johnny’s voice again—“how many eggs does young Johnny want?”
“Jonathan, how many eggs do you want?” relays Wendy.
“…will be fine…” Jonathan’s reply is quieter, although not so much quieter that I can’t hear most of it by the time I make my way into the front room. “And can you please keep your voices down? Sam’s probably still asleep.”
I emerge from the stairway to find the whole family engaging in some unfathomably complex breakfast operation involving multiple frying pans, everyone swapping mugs like it’sAlice in Wonderland, and an awful lot of shouting at people too close to need shouting at.
“See”—Wendy beams triumphantly when she sees me—“he’s up like the rest of us and he’ll be wanting breakfast.”
“How many eggs?” asks Uncle Johnny.
“Two,” I say. From the look of him it’s the lowest answer he’ll accept.
