“It is all happening very fast,” I muttered. His face dropped slightly. I quickly added: “But I’m glad you’ve found somebody.”
We moved the few things we had into the house. I chose the bedroom on the ground floor, the one at the back which overlooked the back garden. Somebody, the previous owners maybe, had planted roses and tulips along the back of the garden, where the hedges split off and a shaft of sunlight shone straight onto the lush green grass. It was the smallest bedroom, but I liked small bedrooms. They made me feel wrapped-up, like I was being hugged by the walls. I hated sleeping in big rooms, feeling like I could roll over and land on the floor and keep on rolling forever. No, I was a small-bedroom type of girl.
I was looking around the room, planning where to put the bed, the small desk, the bookshelves, when Dad knocked on the door. I opened it to see his wide-grinning face. He was grinning no more than I had seen him grin in years. “They’re here!” he cried, clapping his hands together like a young boy. It would’ve been annoying, grating, if I wasn’t happy for him. I swallowed, and wore my best smile. This was a happy moment, I reminded myself. This was a happy moment between two fiancés and their children. There had been no steamy night, no connection, no writhing in a hotel room while wearing masks.
I could’ve convinced myself of this, could’ve tricked myself into really believing it, if the memory of that night didn’t make my pussy ache so hard, didn’t make my clit yearn to be touched, didn’t make my nipples hard. Flesh, writhing, moaning, white-hot pleasure . . . all of them burnt in my mind like the trail of a comet, blazing through my consciousness, distracting when I wanted to focus, titillating when I wanted to calm. I remembered the feel of his rock-hard cock in my hand, and the way it had slid into me, hot and huge, stretching me.
I rubbed my eyes with my thumbs, rubbing away the images, blurring them. Dad had left the room, his footsteps receding on the hardwood floor. Now the footsteps returned. He poked his head around the edge of the doorframe. “You coming?” he said.
I nodded, perhaps a little overenthusiastically. “I’ll be there in a second,” I said.
Perhaps he would creep into my bedroom after we turned out the lights, perhaps he would lift my covers and climb in with me—
“Jess!” Dad called.
“Coming!” I called back, pacing from the room.
Eli
From my bed I had a clear view of the sky. My window opened out upon the wide-open night, and I laid there for around half an hour without even trying to sleep, just watching the stars. But I wasn’t just doing that at all. My eyes were watching the stars, but I wasn’t really seeing them. I was going over and over the last two days in my mind. It turned out that Andrew had strongly hinted to Mom that he was going to propose, and had intimated that he had bought a house for them. I learned about this from Mom, who woke me that morning with a smiling face.
“I knew he’d do it,” she’d said, before I even had a chance to rub sleep from my eyes. I’d risen in bed and watched as she paced up and down the room, excitement causing her to turn around every couple of seconds. “I just knew he would. I knew it. He’s such an amazing man. He told me on the web chat, pretty much. He basically said he was going to propose. And, do you know what? He’d already bought the house!”
I agreed that this was amazing. Her laughing, smiling face wouldn’t accept any less. Now, two days after I’d known daughter or father, I laid awake and pictured Jessica’s face. When we were moving furniture in earlier, positioning it after the delivers had brought it in, I thought I’d seen some freckles on her cheeks. They were light-colored, almost the color of her pale skin, but they were there. I thought about what it would be like to kiss those freckles. I hadn’t had that chance—before. Before, I hadn’t had the chance to kiss her at all. The masks hadn’t allowed for that.
I sighed and sat up in bed, my body aching from my workout earlier (nothing fancy, just some free weights I’d had since I was fifteen). The hardwood floor was cold, though it was a warm night. I padded across the room and opened the windows. Warm air filtered in, and the smell of fresh-cut grass made me think of Jessica, of that night.
I knew I wouldn’t get much sleep for a while. It was one am, and I was wide awake. I had gone past sleep, the way you do sometimes when you’re dog-tired one second and bright and ready for the morning the next. I walked back across the room and opened the bedroom door to the hallway. I had the upstairs bedroom two doors down from Mom’s and Andrew’s. I crept quietly, not knowing if anybody was awake, not in the mood to smile and laugh with Andrew and Mom, and padded down the stairs.