Two years later
Nora made it onto the balcony first.
She hadn’t been the one to wake first, not today, not with all the restless, nervous energy Will had been carrying with him all week. He first stirred at two, and then three, and then three thirty, each time reaching immediately for his phone, checking the time and holding back a groan of frustration before turning over again, seeking Nora’s warm, soft skin with his hands, pressing his body back against her so he could doze again. She slept on soundly, tired from a couple of late nights this past week, work on site redesign for one of the first major clients she’d taken on as a freelancer.
Like clockwork, though, she started to stir around four, her body waking slowly, little murmurs of wakefulness that Will thought were the best alarm clock in the whole world. When she turned toward him, pressing her lips against his bare chest and stroking her soft fingers along his stomach, all the restless energy that had been keeping him awake transformed, his body turning hard and hungry for her in the way it always did. He dipped his head, nuzzling at her neck, listening as those waking noises turned into wanting noises, Nora’s hands finding him with more focused attention to all the places he liked to be touched best.
When he pulled her over him, she came easily, smoothly, like they’d done this—or some version of this—hundreds of mornings, and after two years he liked to think they had, though he supposed he hadn’t made a habit of counting. But even with the earned familiarity they had with each other’s bodies; even though he knew she would start in this position slow, sliding down his length with delicious, torturous control, and end it fast, rubbing herself against him as he gripped her hips roughly, it still always felt like a first. When she came around him, when he let himself go inside her, he would always feel it like new; he would always tell her he loved her, like he’d wanted to that very first time, back when they were both still hiding their feelings.
“I love you, too,” she breathed, collapsing against his chest, and then she said it again, the way he always wanted her to. He tucked his hand beneath her hair, up to where her hairline met her nape, and relished the dampness there, a telling tale of her pleasure.
He breathed in deep, some of the nervousness gone, and he kissed the top of her head, silently thanking her for the relief she didn’t even know she’d provided. It’d been awful keeping a secret from her this long, and when she climbed over him, giving him another smacking, satisfied, good-morning kiss, he finally allowed himself a few lazy minutes of thinking through the night ahead.
But eventually he, too, got up, sliding on his glasses and stopping by the bathroom before pouring a cup of coffee and joining her outside. He handed over the fresh cup and took hers, already half gone, a familiar routine—he still got most of his coffee midmorning, from Janine. They stood beside each other, waking up slow as the smattering of city-visible stars faded with oncoming daylight.
“It’s going to be a good evening for it,” she said eventually, when she was about halfway through her new cup, and a little pulse of that nervous energy returned.
“Mmm,” he said, reluctant to start talking about it. He didn’t trust his poker face around Nora.
“Oh, I see,” she teased. “Hardly a full year of living together and you’re already done with morning conversation, huh? So much for the golden hour.”
He laughed softly, reaching out to tug her close. “Tired, that’s all,” he lied. “You go first.”
When he’d first moved in to the building, they’d done this from across the way—Will over on what used to be Jonah’s balcony, in the apartment he’d moved into only a few months after Jonah’s accident. He’d eaten shit on his lease, lost his security deposit, but as it’d turned out, the money he’d earned off his first couple of tenants had covered those costs, and even if they hadn’t, it would’ve been worth it. Jonah’s old place worked just fine for him—close to Nora, close to everyone—and Donny’s old place worked perfect for Jonah, a few easy upgrades to make it accessible as he got stronger and stronger. The bonus was winning a bet: one hundred dollars from Donny’s smiling, good-sport attorney, when he’d officially signed over the apartment to Jonah on the very day the will’s yearlong condition had run out.
Nora had fought him and Jonah on it at first, clasped-hands anxiety over whether Will felt like hehadto do this, for her, promises that she’d be okay, if Jonah had wanted or needed to go somewhere else. And Will, too, had been anxious—would she think it was too rash, him living so close, so soon? Would it seem too reckless, too selfish? But they’d worked it out, reassurances going both ways, a slow start that they’d worked out across their balconies, golden hours of getting to know each other in ways they hadn’t allowed for before. Even on the nights—the many nights—when they’d slept together, they’d still done it, retreating to their respective spaces, making sure they made things solid both for themselves and for each other before they’d done more.
Ten months ago, on the same night Nora had landed her most lucrative design contract yet, she’d made a gigantic pot of sauce and surprised Will by serving a meal out on the balcony, a new table and two chairs waiting. “Twochairs, Will,” she’d said, sweeping her hand across the set. “If you’d want to join me for good, from now on.”
He’d moved in—officially—a month later.
He shifted behind her, gently caging her between the balcony railing and his body in a way he knew she liked, and listened to her talk about the day ahead, her frustration about the fridge-sharing situation at her coworking space, her lunch date with a couple of the friends she’d made there, a meeting she had with a prospective client. He was glad to have had the memory about the time she’d asked him to move in; it was a good reminder for tonight. Bringing him into her space, into the apartment she’d spent months working so hard on, almost all on her own—that was always going to have been her call, and he was always going to wait to do what he was about to do until after she’d asked.
He’d waited for the right time, and he knew it was now.
“Will,” she laughed. “I asked you a question.”
He dropped his head to her shoulder, sighing out an apology and fogging up his glasses in the process.
“You scrambled my brain in there,” he said, which was absolutely not a lie, even if it wasn’t the whole truth. She laughed again and subtly pushed herself back into him, a taunt he deserved and enjoyed and definitely responded to.
“Let’s go back in,” he said against her neck.
“It’s pretty late,” she said, but he could feel the skin under his mouth pebbling. He let his thumb tease beneath the hem of her camisole.
“Still early,” he said quietly.
“Mmm.”
“Oh, I see,” he echoed, tickling her side, and she turned to face him, pressing her mouth to his, and he settled again, kissing her deeply.Better this morning, he thought,to avoid conversation.
When she whispered against his mouth that it was, in fact, still early, he wrapped an arm around her waist and carried her inside, giving himself another break from counting the hours until tonight.
“Goodness, this has turned out to be a real disaster.”
Will rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, nodding solemnly at the same sparsely attended party setup that Nora was looking at in near horror. Lanterns hung from the fence, a string of fairy lights on the still-growing tree they’d planted together, chairs lined up in rows, a table in the back laden with unused flower crowns and unclaimed scrolls of poetry.
“It’s a shame,” he said.
