Slowly, Jonah smiled. ‘Me neither, darling.’
His words were warm against my lips as he turned his head towards mine. This time, as his nose brushed mine, I couldn’t suppress the shiver.
Neither of us spoke in the Uber home afterwards. Dinner had been a tense, unpleasant encounter, and we were both silent as we processed it.
Well, Jonah was probably processing. I was… thinking.
Specifically, I couldn’t stop thinking about reaching out and touching his beard. He kept it quite short – not that far removed from stubble, perhaps a three- or four-day shadow – and I’d always thought that it would feel rough, like one of those scratchy doormats.
Against my lips, though, when I’d kissed his cheek, it had been soft. Had that been real, or just adrenaline?
And then there had been that thing he said.You’re getting one of the most brilliant early career researchers in the country as a daughter-in-law.
That couldn’t have been real. That he had some level of respect for my intelligence I could believe – but that? No. Surely not.
He’d said it, though. With his whole chest. To hisdad.
I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, telling myself it was the air-conditioning that had given me goosebumps.
‘Can you handle another Fisher tonight?’ Jonah asked abruptly.
Perhaps it was because I’d been thinking about stroking his beard – or perhaps it was because I’d read far too many romance novels – but my brain heard the words ‘handle’ and ‘Fisher’ and took them to a much more literal place than he’d intended.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, glad the darkness of the car was concealing the inevitable scarlet flush creeping up my collarbone.
‘How would you feel about calling Fiona with me? I should tell her myself. Before my parents do.’
Oh. Okay. That made sense. With the way he’d found out about her husband and the second family debacle and whatnot. Yep.
‘All right,’ I said, trying to repress the part of myself that had illogically decided to feel slightly stung.
When we were home, in his room, we bickered half-heartedly for a few minutes about the best approach to take before we sat down in front of his laptop, his arm around my shoulders. ‘Hi, Fi,’ Jonah said, when she answered the video call. ‘There’s someone I’d like you to meet.’
Fiona didn’t look like I’d imagined her. I’d seen what my father had made of my mother, how worn and beaten down and broken he had left her. I expected to see a woman who had been crushed.
I wasn’t wholly off-base. Even through Zoom, there was no disguising the fatigue writ large across Fiona’s face. But there was light too, bright behind her big brown eyes – so similar to Jonah’s, even with his glasses – a capacity for joy that I had simply never seen in my mother.
Her hands flew to her mouth when Jonah explained everything. ‘You’re joking.’
‘We’re not. We, um…’
He looked at me, that unfamiliar desperation behind his eyes.
‘Fell in love,’ I finished for him.
‘Oh God,’ Fiona said. ‘OhJonah.’
‘It’s fast, I know,’ he said, ‘but once we finally figured it out, the thought of letting this job tear us apart… well, with the partner hire and everything, getting married just made sense.’
‘So you’re moving? Here?’
‘Yes. We’ve got to tie up some loose ends here in Sydney – like actually getting married – but then we’re moving. We’ll be in Hobart in a few weeks.’
Fiona burst into tears.
‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m so sorry – God, Sadie, what must you think of me?’
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Really, it’s fine.’
