I considered his bookshelves, eyeing the options. I needed a distraction.
‘Sorry, they’re all boys’ books,’ he said. ‘Might not be much that interests you.’
‘Unless they’re written in some sort of secret code that only reveals itself to a Y chromosome, I reckon I’ll be OK,’ I assured him. ‘How isThe Hobbita boys’ book?’
‘Just something Shiv used to say. She wasn’t a big fantasy fan, said it was all male wish fulfilment and going on inefficient quests. She said there was nothing in them for women.’
‘Really? I have some recommendations that could change her mind about that.’
I carefully pried the well-read paperback out from the shelf and walked back to the bed. The fire was dying out and the air was perfectly crisp, the exact right temperature to snuggle under the covers. Callum pushed his glasses back up his nose and gave me a nod, turning his book over and sitting back against the pillows. It was a classic mystery, an Agatha Christie I’d seen on lots of bedside tables at the hospital but never read myself. After puffing up the pillows on my side, I pulled back the covers and slipped into bed, making sure to avoid physical contact. We were both fully dressed, me in my pyjamas and Callum in his grey sweatpants and white T-shirt, but this close, alone, in bed? The vice around my heart squeezed harder, and when my trembling fingers managed to open the book, I had to read the first page three times over before any of the words registered.
The room was so quiet. Old, solid walls, sound didn’t travel, even though Callum had said he could hear me moving around the night before. Side by side, we read in silence, occasionally turning the page at the exact same time, glancing over at each other with a shy smile. The quiet rustle of paper, his furrowed brow, the way he pushed his glasses up his nose every time they slid down. When he brought his right hand up to his tongue to moisten his index finger, I almost gasped.
‘Oh!’ I exclaimed when something brushed against me under the covers.
Callum’s toes.
Were touching.
My toes.
‘Sorry. My bad.’
He let his book fall against his chest but he didn’t move his foot away from mine. ‘Your feet are like ice, woman,’ he said, leaning over to his bedside table, opening a little drawer and pulling out a nubby brown ball. ‘I don’t want to be blamed for you getting frostbite in the night.’
Before I could protest, he had scooted down the mattress, pulled back the covers and carefully rolled a pair of socks up over my feet, one at a time.
If Cinderella had lived in the Highlands.
‘There,’ Callum said, resuming his reading position. ‘Is that better?’
‘Yes,’ I squeaked, breathing for the first time in thirty seconds. ‘Thank you.’
It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most erotic thing that had ever happened to me in my life.
‘I might turn my light off now,’ I added, my voice still too tight and high-pitched. Lying beside him fullyconscious was torture. ‘You carry on reading, don’t worry about me. I can—’
‘Sleep through anything, I remember. Goodnight, Laura, sleep tight.’
‘You too.’
I rolled over to face the window, my back to Callum, replaying the shock of him touching my feet over and over and over until the memory felt more like a dream. When was the last time a man had touched me? A man who wasn’t Joel or a hairdresser or that overly familiar shoe salesman at the supply store who clearly had a fetish but undercharged for Crocs so no one at the hospital complained about it? I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth, slowing down the cycle until I reached a state of homeostasis, even and calm. The sounds of the last flickering flames in the fire conspired with the soft swish of his book to lull me to sleep and with the covers tucked up around my chin, the ebb and flow of Callum’s measured breathing at my side, I let my heavy eyelids close. It was easier than I’d thought it would be. I felt so cosy.
I felt so safe.
‘Laura?’
Somewhere, in a faraway world, someone said my name.
‘Hnnf?’ I replied without opening my mouth or my eyes.
‘Nothing,’ the voice said. ‘We can talk in the morning.’
‘Hnnf,’ I replied again, drifting away from it all with a soft smile on my face.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The sound of a shower running in the next room woke me. Curled up like a dormouse under the covers, I rubbed my eyes. The first thing that came into focus was a paperback copy ofThe Hobbitthat wasn’t mine, next to what had to be a fifty-year-old digital alarm clock that blinked bright red numbers against a black background. It was nine thirty in the morning on Christmas Eve. I’d been asleep for almost eleven hours.
