‘No, it’s not!’
I framed her teary face between my fingers. ‘There’s only one way this goes, Sadie,’ I said, tracing her cheekbones with my thumbs. ‘There’s only one way I’ll let this go.’
‘Jonah, no!’
Her fingers came up to curl around my wrists. ‘I can’t take this away from you,’ she said. ‘Iwon’ttake this away from you.’
‘It was never mine to begin with.’ I kissed the space between her eyebrows, the tip of her nose, her lips. ‘This is your job. This has always been your job. There’s not a chance in hell I’m going to fight you for it.’
‘But you’d win!’ she exclaimed. ‘You know you’d win this time, Jonah!’
I did know that.
‘I already have everything I could ever want,’ I said, leaning my forehead against hers.
‘No!’ she insisted. ‘What… what about that job back at ESU? Applications are still open. You could—’
‘You’re mywife, Sadie. I love you. I’m not going anywhere.’
Despite my best efforts, tears were welling in my eyes too, moisture starting to collect under the lower edges of my glasses. ‘We’ll figure something out,’ I said, trying and failing to stop my voice from cracking. ‘I survived as a casual for years. I can do it again.’
‘They’re firing most of the casuals!’
‘Maybe I could go professional, then, try and get a job in the research office or something,’ I said desperately. ‘Or hey, maybe this is finally my chance to audition forSuperchef. I could see if I could work in the kitchen at Tsundoku in the meantime. Satoshi’s always offering Fi a job.’
‘That’s because he’s in love with her, you idiot,’ Sadie sobbed. Her hands came up to cup my face too. ‘I can’t let you do this,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t drag you down like this. I can’t let you throw your career away.’
‘Darling,’ I said, tasting salt as I kissed her, her tears and my tears mixing together, ‘you can’t make me do anything else.’
For the first time in a long time, neither of us were in the mood for sex. We should have been working, but neither of us were even remotely in the mood for that either.
Instead, we just lay on her bed together, me on my back, Sadie half-draped over me, head tucked under my chin.
‘I hate this so much.’ Her voice was hoarse from crying, her fingers still slightly shaky in mine where our joined hands rested on my chest. ‘I can’t imagine – I don’t even know how to conceptualise – a world where you’re not an academic anymore.’
‘Neither can I.’
It was starting to sink in, the weight of it, what it actually meant.What’s Dad going to say?the part of me that was still a kid, terrified of disappointing him, whispered.
I adjusted my position slightly, tightening my grip on Sadie, burrowing my face into her hair like she was a teddy bear.
‘I don’t know how to be an academic without you,’ she said softly.
‘You won’t be without me.’
I brought her hand to my lips so I could kiss her knuckles. Everything else in the world might change, but that point was not and never would be up for negotiation. I was hers, and I was never going to leave her.
‘I know’ – she kissed mine in return – ‘but it won’t be the same.’
She tilted her head up so she could look at me. ‘Youareuniversity to me, Jonah,’ she said, ‘for better or worse.’
I brushed my nose against hers. She shivered. I let go of her hand for a moment so I could reach for a cardigan of mine hanging on the end of her bedpost, draping it over both of us.
She turned her face into my throat and pressed her lips to my Adam’s apple. ‘I love you so much,’ she whispered. ‘The thought of them taking this away from you – ofmetaking this away from you…’
‘You’re not taking anything away from me. You got this job, not me. And there’s no universe in which I would fight you for it.’ I tucked the cardigan tighter around us both. ‘Besides, even if I wanted to fight you – which, to be clear, I don’t – I wouldn’t. I made a promise to your sister.’
Sadie pulled back and looked at me.
