Just to check.
That he is there. That he is awake. That he is not put off by having her in his bed.
He laces his fingers through hers, rubs circles at the base of her thumb.
‘You’re awake, then,’ she whispers.
‘Very much so.’
‘Am I taking up too much space?’
‘Jess, you can take as much space in my bed as you’d like to.’
His voice vibrates through the mattress and through her skin. Maybe that’s where the tingly feeling is coming from.
‘Glad to hear it,’ she says.
Her hand is on fire. She wants that fire all over her, to have him touch every inch of her body.
‘Are we going to be able to sleep?’ she asks him.
‘I doubt it,’ he says.
‘We probably need to sleep,’ she says. ‘To be at our creative best tomorrow.’
‘For the sake of the book.’
‘Exactly.’ Theories about ice dancers and letting the tension build are all very well, but no good work can happen without sleep.
‘The thing is …’ Alex says. ‘It’s quite hard to sleep when I’m wondering what it would be like to—’
‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘It is hard.’
‘Sounds like there’s only one possible solution.’ He squeezes her hand. ‘If you’re up for it?’
Jess would like to be self-controlled enough to think about it for a moment. To leave a dramatic pause, letting Alex’s anticipation build alongside her own. But waiting suddenly feels like the most impossible thing in the world. She turns her body towards him, looks him full in the face.This is the moment, she thinks.The moment when everything changes. Not that she is prone to dramatics in any way.
She kisses him, long and hard. ‘It’s really the only solution,’ she says, pausing to breathe, her hands in his hair. ‘I don’t see any other way out.’
‘If you’re sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ she says. She’ll regret it tomorrow, probably. But right now, it feels like if they don’t dothis, she’ll be eaten alive by desire. Like she’ll be dead by morning. And better to be regretful than dead, surely.
Afterwards, Jess listens to her own breath slowing, in time with Alex’s. She fights the urge to rest her head on his chest, to thread his fingers through hers. ‘That’s that done, then,’ she says instead, wanting to lighten the mood after what feels like a heavy, portentous moment, but also to give herself a pep talk. To speak out loud that they have allowed themselves their one slip-up, and now that their curiosity has been assuaged, they need to get back to their plan, to their previous agreement.
‘Now we can move on with our lives and our creativity and our book.’
‘Yes,’ he says, nodding earnestly. ‘We don’t need to wonder anymore what it would be like.’
‘Whether there would be chemistry. Or electricity. Or whatever.’
‘No. I mean, it’s good to know for sure.’
‘For science.’
‘Exactly.’
And they can’t unknow it now. Jess can’t unknow the tender way Alex traced the freckles on her shoulder or the way he touched her, unsure at first, wanting to be certain that she liked what he was doing, that she wanted him to keep going. Or maybe like he was touching a precious object, running his finger over a vase to feel an ancient embossed pattern. Reading herlike Braille, the lightest of touches teasing her until her breath quickened, shallower and shallower. She can’t unknow how he repeated her name, as if in awe and disbelief at the privilege of being with her, or how he held her against his chest afterwards, until she fell into something like sleep.
