Bea isn’t scheduled for her shift for another few hours.
I take a deep breath and rub the back of my aching neck. And for reasons I couldn’t articulate if I had to, I offer, “We could go look at it now, if you like? I mean . . . I could go with you.”
He narrows his eyes. “It’s not your concern—and you’re practicing—I wouldn’t want to get between you and your chicken’s feet.”
“No, it’s fine—truly.” I switch off the lamp. “I can do with some fresh air—and a break.”
The smile he gives me is warm and grateful. “All right, then. Let’s go.”
And though it’s just a small thing—the change in my routine, the newness of going to a different place, with this man beside me—it feels like an adventure.
* * *
Tommy Sullivan’s prospective flat is located on the other side of town, near the river, a few miles from my building. I wouldn’t consider it a “bad” part of town, but it’s noticeably older, slightly more run-down than my area. We take his car and though there’s no odor, I scowl fiercely at the pack of cigarettes and lighter nestled in the center console.
When we pull up to the building, I want to grab them and toss them in the bin—but I don’t think I can manage it without him catching me in the act.
The Realtor is a bristly, brusque woman with dark hair pulled up into an overly tightened bun. She unlocks the door to the fourth-floor flat, ushering us in and rattling off the amenities.
“Just a block from the tube station, oak floors throughout, new kitchen appliances, two bedrooms, two full baths. Plenty of space for a couple . . .” she glances at me “. . . or a growing family.”
A moment later, she excuses herself to take a call in the hallway, closing the door behind her.
Leaving just the two of us. Alone.
The front room is bare, lampless, and the newly polished floors give off a pleasant, earthy wood-oil scent. The moonlight coming from the large windows that line the rear wall casts everything in soft shadows and gray hues. The streets below are unusually quiet, and it feels isolated, but not in an uncomfortable way. More . . . intimate. Secluded. Like Tommy Sullivan and I could be the only two people in the whole world.
Silently, we walk through the rooms, passing the kitchen with an overhead light above the stainless-steel sink. Until we end up in the back room—the master bedroom.
Sarcasm isn’t my forte, but I give it a go now, gesturing to the painted walls. “Would you look at that . . . beige. Must be a popular color.”
“Your favorite,” he concedes.
“It’s a very nice place,” I say.
“It is.” He nods, then leans back against the wall beside the bedroom door, crossing his arms, watching me.
My shoes click on the floor as I drift around, seeing what it could be in my mind.
“You could put a standing mirror in the corner, here. And there’s room for a bureau there. And a television here on the wall, if you’re into that sort of thing.”
He chuckles and the sound strikes the strangest chord in me. I’m not a naturally jovial person and I don’t make people laugh—but I seem to amuse him often and without even trying.
“Such a planner you are.”
I move to the wall opposite the windows, closer to the corner where he stands.
“The bed would go here, I think.”
He hums in agreement. And I’m close enough to see his eyes now—trained on me—golden brown and heated. Like he’s imagining it all in the most vivid detail—the bureau, the bed . . .
“It would be a large bed,” he says in that soft, decadent tone. “I like room . . . to move.”
There’s nothing overtly inappropriate about the words, but the way he says them—the tone of his voice, the shape of his mouth—makes the skin of my chest go warm and flushed.
Because now I’m doing it too—imagining how Tommy Sullivan would move in his very large bed. What he would look like with the moonlight caressing the ripples and ridges of his arms, his back—and lower. How it would feel to move with him.
My voice has a breathy, hazy air to it. “That sounds about right.”
I swallow, pulling my gaze from his to the window.
“Oh, look! You can see the hospital from here.”
I move across the room, bracing my hands on the light wood windowsill, gazing at the tall rectangular building dotted with bright, white-lit windows.
“That’s the surgical floor,” I say, pointing, “the fifth one down from the top. That corner window there is just outside Operating Room C—the largest operating room. It’s used for procedures that require multiple teams like transplants or especially risky procedures. They separated conjoined twins there two years back.”