“At this time of night?” Nora teased now, clucking her tongue. “You’ll get indigestion.” That sounded exactly like something Nonna would say, and Nora felt her heart squeeze happily at the memory, the echo. The way she kept Nonna alive.
Will dropped his head back, making a funny, frustratedhmphnoise, and Nora admired the line of his throat, the ridge of his Adam’s apple. The desire she felt stir within her was both familiar and different—no less intense, but somehow less insistent. Maybe it was the change to their routine—their project not yet started, their interlude postponed. Maybe it was the glass of wine she’d had, always likely to make her a little sleepy.
Or maybe it was the mood that had descended upon her when she’d closed her laptop screen after signing off with Dee. It wasn’t that the call ended badly—in fact, it’d ended with Nora clamping a hand over her laughing mouth at a particularly vulgar suggestion Dee had made for tonight’s trade-off (notpasta-related!). But almost immediately, Nora had felt the full weight of having had a very bad day at work, followed by having heard the wholly justified, but still upsetting, plans of her friend.
So now, when she looked over at Will, what she wanted most was to crawl closer to him, to put her head on his shoulder or against his thigh, to have him stroke her back or put his hands in her hair.I know, baby, she remembered him saying, that day when she was sick, and it wasn’t that shewantedto be called that, but also . . .
Also, she definitely did.
“I don’t think I ate since breakfast,” Will said, snapping her out of her thoughts. Good job, thinking about infantilizing, problematic pet names when Will had beensaving livesandstarving himselfall day.
She held out her hand. “I’ll get you more.”
He shook his head, which was still tipped back. “You’re right. Probably too late to eat seconds.” His eyelids drooped and he smiled. “Man, these carbs.”
She laughed. “We can skip the light tonight.”
He looked over at her. “I don’t want to,” he said, his voice somehow both serious and playful, and she knew he wasn’t talking about the light. He leaned forward to set his dish on the coffee table, then collapsed back into his former posture, eyes drooping again almost immediately.
“I’ll sit here for five minutes,” he asserted. Practical, responsible Will.
But he didn’t look like he’d be awake in five minutes.
“It was a busy day?” she asked.
He gusted out a sigh. “The usual.” He shifted, locking his fingers together to rest over the flat, firm expanse of his abdomen.Four minutes, she thought.If he fights for it.
“How’s it going downstairs?” he said, his voice low and sleepy. That was a guard-down question, to ask about the rental. For the most part, they avoided it during his visits. But already this visit was like no other one: not exactly light. Not exactly specific.
“Never mind,” he said. “I shouldn’t have asked. It’s not your—”
“It’s okay,” she rushed out, strangely eager to keep the guard-down mood of it all. It was nice, this way. It felt . . . not even like dating, really. It felt like something else, something more. “It’s fine. Everything’s been fine.”
He nodded once, and quieted again. But after a pause, he said, “Emily is okay?”
Nora blinked over at him, surprised, but he kept his eyes low, away from hers. She tried to think of a time when she’d mentioned Emily specifically to Will, but she couldn’t think of a single thing.
“Marian mentioned she had some . . . anxiety. About this,” he said.
“Mariantold you that?”
Now he looked over, probably shocked into it by the sharp increase in the volume of her voice. “She might have mentioned,” he said, his lips curving, “That you weren’t the only person in the building who sometimes fought going to see a doctor.”
Nora had a feeling she was gaping.
“I gave Marian a few suggestions. For providers who might be good for Emily. I think they were going to make some calls.”
Now sheknewshe was gaping. What abouthersuggestions! She had definitely made a few.
He laughed softly at her expression, rolling his head back. “You’re so surprised. It took me a while with this crowd, but I’ve got a way with people, you know.”
“You’re not Marian’s type,” she said, and he snorted.
Two minutes, she thought. She leaned the side of her head against the sofa cushion, watching him. Hedidhave a way with people, even with people who ought to, by all rights, be suspicious of him. She supposed his job helped with that. He probably spent all day around people who were wary of him, people who thought he was coming to deliver bad news, or to make something worse before it started to get better.
“I’m your type,” he said, opening one eye and then closing it again once he’d caught her. “If this staring you’re doing is any indication.”
“Hmm,” she said, noncommittal, but she didn’t really stop staring. For all the images she’d been storing up over the last two weeks, she had a feeling this one might be stubborn, too: Will’s long, lean body in profile, his expression entirely relaxed. She felt her own body sinking into something similar, a drowsy comfort that made her wish the lights were lower. This was a sort of claiming, too. A kind of intimacy she’d never experienced here.
