Joe looked up. Tears shimmered in his eyes, but his gaze held steady. 'You don't know me as well as you think.'
I shook my head. I didn't share my other fear, the one that shadowed - and deepened - all my reasonable protests. If Joe denied half his sexuality, would he live to regret his choice? I had no doubt he would deny it, either; a man like Joe would honour his marriage vows.
Joe would not let the matter drop. He waited until Sean fell asleep, then hauled me out of bed and down the stairs to the sitting-room.
I plopped on to the sofa, my limbs heavy with interrupted sleep. Joe knelt in front of me and gripped my legs just above the knee. Bleary or not, I could scarcely bear to face his stubborn hope.
'Kate, I love you. More than my family. More than music. I want to spend my life with you. That's why I want us to marry. Not because I'm afraid of being alone - and I know you love me, too,’ he added, the one statement I could not debate.
'I just can't do it,’ I said. 'It wouldn't be fair.'
He growled, a sound of anger and frustration words could not express. His head rolled back and forth across my knees.
'You're afraid,’ he accused, the words muffled by the leg of my paisley silk pyjamas. 'You're afraid I'll turn out like your ex. But he was an idiot. I know what I've found with you, and I'm smart enough to hang on to it.'
I said nothing. The urge to succumb to his arguments was so strong I dared not open my mouth. Already, the pain of losing him was physical. My chest ached with stifled sobs and my throat felt raw. I hugged my waist to hold myself together.
He lifted his head. 'Would you marry Sean if he asked you?'
I started. 'What?'
'You heard me.'
'He wouldn't ask me.' I resettled my arms, folding them beneath my breasts.
'But if he did ask, would you marry him?'
'No,’ I snapped, but for one weird second I wasn't sure it was true. Joe saw my hesitation. The skin around his eyes tightened.
'No,’ I said more firmly. 'He needs too much control and too much freedom. I couldn't live in a way that would make him happy.'
Joe's mouth twisted. 'But he's not too young.'
'Sometimes I think Sean is older than I am,’ I said, without considering how that would sound.
He blinked at me, absorbing the implied insult: that he wasn't too young in years, he was too immature.
I squeezed his forearm. 'Being young is not a bad thing. God willing, you'll never be as old as Sean.'
He turned his head to the cold, ash-strewn grate, getting older - or at least more haggard - as I watched. 'I'm wasting my breath, aren't I? You don't believe I really love you. You don't believe anything I feel is going to last. No matter what I say, you'll have an argument against it.'
'I'm not doing this to hurt you,’ I said. Even I could hear the plea in my voice, but it did not move him.
'You could have fooled me,’ he said.
For six long months those words would haunt me. You could have fooled me.
Chapter Twelve
Birds of a Feather
‘When Joe jumped ship, I thought Sean would, too. I couldn't imagine he enjoyed my brooding company. We weren't having sex. When he started sleeping in his own bed, I assumed he was halfway out of the door.
But, apart from the switch to private sleeping quarters, he made no move to leave. Every morning he stumbled downstairs in time to pat my bottom out through the door, and every evening he parked his bulging briefcase beneath the Queen Anne side table in the hall.
The first thing I did when I came home from work was look for that briefcase. I couldn't relax until I saw it. To tell the truth, though, I almost wished the territorial marker would disappear - so I could get used to being alone again.
One Friday, weeks after Joe's departure, we sat in the living room watching TV - with me curled up on the couch and Sean on the floor, both in sloppy tracksuits. The evening news served in place of conversation as we delved for our dinner from an assortment of takeaway cartons.
Sean had swung by Susanna Foo's in Chinatown on the way home. He'd brought me pheasant dumplings with shiitake mushroom sauce - real Chinese comfort
food. The chocolate-covered fortune cookies weren't bad, either.
Feeding me was Sean's way of proving he cared. I'd lost weight since Joe left. He'd gained it. I left him grapefruit halves for breakfast. He brought me dumplings for dinner. The perverse symmetry of it made us both chuckle.
Feeling more content than I had in weeks, I tucked my feet into the space between the sofa cushions. Maybe we could survive as housemates.
But Sean's next words blew that fantasy out of the water.
'I've been thinking of moving out,' he said. His gaze darted between me and the TV. 'It's not that I don't like living with you. I do. In fact -' he struggled a moment for words '-I like you more than just about anyone I know.'