“I never told her. She just thinks I have trouble sleeping.”
Repeating what she said, I feel unexpectedly guilty for maligning her. She’s not been unpleasant to me exactly—territorial, yes, but that’s forgivable. “She asked if I knew what was in your notebook.”
“She’s bluffing,” he says. “I don’t let it out of my sight.”
We talk some more. He tells me his sister, Tamsin, will be pregnant next year—I can barely fathom the idea that he knows this ahead oftime—and then he sketches out the mechanics of sleep cycles against my palm with one finger, turning my insides to skittles. He shows me his notebook, tells me he’s tried self-medicating—with lavender and warm milk, getting blackout drunk, herbal teas, sleeping tablets, supplements, and white noise. But none of it ever works.
For his own sanity he limits sleep these days, and has cut down on booze, believes exercise helps his mood.
“Is there anything you can do?” I ask him then. “To stop the dreams... coming true?”
“Things like accidents, if I can get there in time.” He swallows. “Stuff like cancer’s harder. Or impossible.”
I take his hand, feel the weight of his burden as if it were my own.
•••
Much later, once we’re back at the house, Joel says, out of nowhere, “I’ll look after Murph, if you like. When you start at Waterfen.”
My mind about-turns. I’d been reluctantly investigating doggie day care. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
I look down at Murphy gazing up at me. “Because that’s too big an ask.”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering. I’m around during the day. I’ll watch him, take him out with the other dogs. He’ll love it.”
I’m hugely touched. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes.”
“I... that would be...”
“It’s no problem, really.”
An image of Joel-the-vet alights in my mind. I already know he would have been steady-handed and temperate, reassuring and kind. “I can just picture you as a vet,” I say.
He looks down at our hallway carpet, stuffs his hands into his pockets. “I wouldn’t,” he says gruffly. “I wasn’t very good at it.”
“How do you mean?”
“That day at the coffee shop, when I fell asleep—that’s who I’d become at work. The only difference was, I left before they asked me to.”
“How long is it since you quit?”
“Three years.” He clears his throat. “Plowed every spare penny I had into savings before that. Dull as hell, but I guess I thought I might need them one day.”
“There’s nothing dull about buying yourself freedom.”
He smiles as though that’s just about the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to him. And all at once, I’m leaning forward to kiss him. Everything inside me ignites as I lose myself in him, against him, his mouth moving to my neck, my collarbone, back to my neck. I push his T-shirt up, feel the firmness of his stomach, his bare skin hot beneath my fingers. Our kissing becomes fiercer, and we move back against the wall, bodies hot-wired and mouths wild, every movement a tiny frenzy as we let each other know just how much we want this.
It takes a superhuman effort to part, minutes later.
Breathing in shivers, I push back my hair. “I should...”
Joel’s chest is heaving too. He reaches out to touch my wrist. “See you tomorrow?”
The most thrilling of promises. “Yes. See you tomorrow. Yes.”
