I gather up the remnants of cotton and slip the needle back through the reel, and her eyes are on me. Her expression is one of reverence, and it thrills me. Her smile is adoring.
She leans in before I get to my feet, and her soft lips touch my cheek.
“Thank you.”
I fight the urge to pull her close and hold her. Fight the urge to feel her little body against mine.
“You’re very welcome, Laine.” I pat the bear’s head. “And so is Ted.” I gesture to the stairs. “I think we’d better get him settled in to his new home. He’s had a long day.”
“Home,” she repeats, and it’s barely more than a breath. “I think he’s going to like it here…”
Her smile is so bright. The most beautiful smile in the world. “…I think we both are.”Laine“You have a choice,” he says as we get to the landing, and there’s something heavy in his tone. Something that gives me nervous flutters. “About where you sleep.”
My heart thumps at the thought of sleeping with him. In his room. In his bed.
But that’s not what he means.
I can’t help but feel a little disappointed.
“I thought Jane’s room would help you relax,” he says. “But there is another room if you would prefer. A guest room.”
He opens the door at the end of the landing.
I step on through and it’s nice in there. Nice and airy and all creams and whites. Nice and grown up.
And boring.
I get a horrible lurch in my belly at the thought of saying goodbye to Jane’s beautiful room.
“And it’s a choice?” I ask.
He nods.
“Jane’s room,” I say quickly. “I’d like to stay there please.”
He smiles, and I see something pass across his features.
I wonder if I’ve made the wrong call. If I should have gone for the grown up room.
Maybe now he’ll see me as a little girl who needs looking after, and part of me wants that. Part of me wants to be his little girl.
But another part doesn’t.
Another part wants other things. Things that make me tingle.
Tingle down there.
We carry my things through to Jane’s room, and he opens the wardrobe. It’s empty.
“Make yourself at home,” he says. “This room is yours, for as long as you want it.”
I wonder again about Jane. Surely she visits? How will she feel to turn up at home and find some strange girl in her bed?
I don’t want to ask, and I don’t, just smile and start unpacking my new clothes, hanging them up so neatly on the hangers.
He stays while I do it, sits himself down on the bed and places Ted on my pillow.
“My bedroom is the one on the left,” he says. “Just next door.”
“Just through the wall.”
“Yes.”
I smile at him. “That’s nice to know.”
I place all my new underwear in the drawer, and put my college books on the bookshelf, and the room is beginning to feel a little bit more like mine.
I want to stay here all afternoon, forever, but Nick has other plans.
He cooks dinner while I sit at the table and tell him about my college studies. We eat at the dining table and he makes me eat all my carrots like a good girl.
“You need your vitamins,” he tells me.
I help him load up the dishwasher and I ask him about his job.
He’s an accountant, a partner in his firm. He says he’s always liked numbers. He likes the order and the control. Likes the logic of it. Likes being able to make things add up.
He tells me he works Monday through Friday in an office in town, but that he’ll be able to drop me at college and pick me up again.
I tell him I’ll be able to walk, that his house isn’t too far away from Brighton College, not really, but he insists.
I get those tingles again at the thought of him dropping me at the college gates and giving me a kiss goodbye.
“I’ll make you a packed lunch,” he says. “You’ll have to let me know what you like in your sandwiches.”
Nobody’s ever made me sandwiches before.
I tell him so and he looks sad. It’s that pity thing again, like Kelly Anne’s mum, and I don’t like it. I don’t want a man like Nick to pity me. I want him to see I’m a woman, a proper woman, even if I don’t want to be one. Even if I want to be the little girl who draws him DaDDy pictures and has a packed lunch.
“I can look after myself,” I say. “I’m an adult now.”
“You don’t need to look after yourself. Not anymore, Laine.”
“Still,” I say. “I can.”
“I’m sure you can.”
But he doesn’t look sure. He doesn’t look sure at all.
He checks his watch and stretches his arms above his head. His shirt rides up, just enough to see the flat ridge of his stomach, and I remember him in the shower.