by Noelle Adams
“Don’t be snotty about him. He’s a good guy.”
“I’m sure he is. Let’s just hope he’s not a brooding fourteen-year-old boy.”
I burst into laughter, and I don’t really know why, since I should be annoyed by the comment. “Oh, he’s very mature. I can tell.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t be that way. You should join the site too and find yourself a nice, pretty girl who likes golf.”
“I don’t want a nice, pretty girl who likes golf.”
He’s staring idly at the fire, and I give him a quick glance, wondering for the millionth time what he does want in a girl. It won’t do me any good to ask about it, though. He’ll never share it with me.
He tells me about his dates sometimes, but he never talks seriously about his dreams for a romantic partner. We have some sort of unspoken understanding that the topic is off-limits, so I never push him on it.
Everyone needs a few private spaces in their lives. If that’s his, then I can completely understand it.
The truth is, I don’t know if I really want him to have a serious girlfriend. As selfish as it sounds, I’d be afraid she’d take parts of him away from me.
Nate wouldn’t be mine anymore.
I don’t like that thought. And I don’t like the self-centered parts of myself that it comes from. I sigh and feel kind of glum as I finish my block of chocolate.
“Are you sleepy?” Nate asks.
“A little. I’m not sure I can actually sleep yet, though.” I remember that I’m supposed to stay hydrated so I take four big gulps from my water bottle.
“I can read with you, if you want,” he suggests. “If you want to get one of your Jane books, I mean. I’d read with you.”
I suck in a short gasp. “You would? You don’t like those books.”
“I know.” He gives me a lopsided grin. “But I’ve sat through endless movies with you, so I guess I can handle the books too. We don’t have to, but I thought maybe you’d like it, since you and your mom always did that.”
“I would,” I say, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. “That’s so nice of you. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Just run grab a book before I change my mind.”
I jump up and run into my bedroom to snatch a paperback copy of Persuasion from my bag. I brought three Austen books to reread on the trip. I would have brought them all, but I ran out of room in my bags.
Nate is waiting for me when I return, and I sit down closer to him on the sofa, so he can see the pages too as we read.
I start reading out loud, taking the first few pages. Then I pass it on to Nate, and he reads in his pleasant, intelligent voice.
I’m having a really good time, thinking about the story, thinking about my mom, thinking about how glad I am to be here with Nate right now, when he reaches the end of the first chapter.
It’s not a particularly moving or emotional part. In fact, it’s the line about Sir Walter condescending to mortgage the estate but never sell. It’s just that I remember my mother reading that exact line a few years ago, making her voice all snotty to match Sir Walter’s attitude.
And I miss her so much I can’t bear it, I can’t stand it. It hurts like a bleeding wound that she’s not here, that she’ll never get to go to England with me now.
My whole body shakes desperately as I fight to repress the sobs that rip up through my throat. I turn my face away from Nate, since I don’t want him to see.
He held me as I cried night after night last year, as my mother slowly slipped out of my grasp. I know it must have been hard for him, since he’s not an emotional person and he’s never been comfortable with intense feelings like that. But he was always there when I needed him—he’s never not been there for me. And I don’t want to ruin his trip by being an emotional basket-case.
“Oh, shit,” he mutters, lowering the book. I’ve obviously not hidden my tears from him.
“I’m fine,” I lie. “I’m not crying.”
“Sure, you’re not.” He reaches over to pull me into a hug.
So there’s no help for me after that. I sob helplessly against his shirt for a minute.
The storm passes as quickly as it came, and I feel a lot better after a minute. I still miss my mom. I know I always will. But it’s not threatening to tear me apart the way it used to.
“Sorry,” I say, pulling away from him and feeling strangely embarrassed. “I don’t know what happened.”
“I know it’s hard,” he says quietly, reaching up to very gently swipe a tear off my cheek with his thumb. “I know it’s going to be hard. You were supposed to do this trip with her.”
“Yeah.” I sniff and clear my throat and straighten my shoulders. “But I promise I’m not going to cry all the time.”
“You can cry as much as you want.”
“That’s not fair to you, though.”
“This trip isn’t about me.”
“Well, I want you to have a good time too.” I suddenly feel a stab of worry, that he’s just tolerating the trip for my sake instead of really enjoying it.
He must see what I’m thinking because he immediately reassures me. “I am having a good time.” He gives me a smile and raised eyebrows. “I get to feel all strong and manly when you cry on my shoulder.”
I laugh. He can always make me laugh. “You are strong and manly,” I murmur, leaning over to kiss him on the jaw. “And very sweet.”
“That doesn’t sound very manly.”
“Well, I think it’s very manly.” I take the book out of his hand, and I wrap his arm around me, curling up at his side. “If a man doesn’t have a little sweetness in him, then I don’t want anything to do with him.”
He chuckles, adjusting so he’s slouching a little on the couch, getting more comfortable. “All right then. Strong and manly and sweet it is.”
I’m smiling now, and I keep smiling as I relax against him, warm and safe and comforted, in the heat of the fireplace, surrounded by his arm.
I guess I’m probably still smiling as I fall asleep, but that’s not something I know for sure.
***
I have no idea what time it is when I wake up, but I slowly realize I’m sleeping all over Nate.
Like all over him.
My head is in his lap, and I’m kind of clutching at his side. After a minute, I discover he’s trying to get me off him.
“Sorry,” I mumble, trying to wake up. “Did I fall sleep?”
Nate doesn’t give this ridiculous question the response it deserves. Instead, he says, “Sorry to wake you. I need to get up.”
“Okay.” I’m trying to help get myself off him, but I’m not awake enough to have much coordination. As I’m trying to sit up and he’s trying to stand up, I end up elbowing him.
I’m not actually sure where I hit him, since we’re both moving at the same time, but he releases a muffled grunt—the kind he makes when something really hurts.
“Sorry.” I cringe as I finally get myself up. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he mutters, sounding strangely breathless. He doesn’t look back at me. Just walks a little stiffly across the room and to the hall that leads to his bedroom.
I sit for a minute, trying to orient myself. Then I check the time to see that it’s almost one in the morning. I must have been sleeping on him for a couple of hours. No wonder he needed to get up. He should have woken me a long time ago.
Maybe he fell asleep too. I sure hope so. I hate the idea of him sitting there trapped while I’m sleeping all over him.
Then I start to worry about how he acted just now. It’s not like him at all to leave so abruptly. Concerned, I get up and walk to his bedroom door. It’s shut, and for some reason the closed door looks forbidding, as if I’m not welcome.
But I tap on the door anyway.
“What?” His voice sounds muffled, faintly impatient.
“Are you okay?” I call through the door.
“Of course, I’m okay.”<
br />
“You don’t sound okay.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He doesn’t sound at all like his normal self.
“Are you mad at me?”
“No, I’m not mad at you.”
“Then can I come in?”
“No!”
I pause, startled by the curtness of the response. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” His voice is softer now, slightly rough. “Sorry if I was rude.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I had a leg cramp and needed to move. Now I’m just tired and want to go to bed. You should go to bed too.”
“Okay.”
I don’t leave immediately, though. I stand at the door and think through what just happened, making sure I hadn’t unintentionally offended him or hurt him. He sounded more normal just now, but before he sounded very…strange.
I can’t think of anything I might have done.
I’m tempted to give him an equally curt response, which is what I’d normally do. But I want this trip to be perfect. I don’t want to get into an argument. Plus, I’m really worried about him. Something is wrong.
“Are you still standing at the door?” he asks from inside the room.
“No,” I lie.
“Go to bed, Jane. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Okay.”
I do go to bed, since I’m exhausted and kind of fuzzy, but I’m still thinking about Nate as I finally go to sleep.
Three
I intend to get up early the next day so I can take an early morning walk, but I don’t wake up until almost nine.
I lie in bed for a few minutes, stretching under the covers and enjoying the comfort of the bed and the excitement of actually being here in England.
Then I start wondering about Nate. He’s probably awake by now. Hopefully, whatever was bothering him last night has passed.
I finally remember Rochester. I didn’t check my messages before bed, and I even forgot to reply to the brief one he sent me. Maybe he’s had time to write another note by now.
I reach onto the nightstand for my phone and pull up my email. I wait for what seems like forever for the new emails to load. The reception out here is kind of spotty.
Finally, however, I see that I’ve gotten a new message from Rochester, so I pull it up, wondering why I’m not feeling quite as excited as I normally do.
He’s sent me a very nice note—a really long, rich, thoughtful one. He says he’s barely had time to sit down for the last twenty-four hours, but he’s been thinking about me the whole time. He says he hopes I’m having a great time on my trip, although he knows it might be emotional for me because of my memories of my mother. He says I have a habit of being too hard on myself, expecting too much out of myself, and he hopes that I’ll let myself be sad if I feel like it—that it won’t necessarily ruin my time here. He says being happy all the time isn’t necessarily the way to have the best trip.
He’s so right. I have no idea how he knows me so well, but he does. I think about his note for a long time before I send the reply.
I tell him about the cottage and about our trip here yesterday. I tell him he’s exactly right about how I’m feeling. I read my message over quickly after I write it and wonder for a minute if there’s too much about Nate in it. Then I decide it doesn’t matter.
If I’m going to be in a relationship with Rochester, he’s going to have to accept that Nate will always be part of my life.
I send the message on, pleased when I check the timestamp on his note and see that he just sent it an hour ago. I haven’t made him wait too long. He won’t think I’m ignoring him, even though I forgot to reply to his first message last night.
I’m feeling relaxed and pleased with the world in general as I leave my room in search of coffee.
As I expect, Nate is already up. He’s wearing jeans and a retro Batman T-shirt, and he’s sitting in a lounge chair in the garden with a cup of coffee and his tablet.
I pour myself a cup from the pot he’s brewed, and I go out to join him.
The clouds from yesterday have cleared, and it’s a cool and sunny morning. I’m charmed by the sight of the early flowers blooming in the garden and all the green that surrounds us, so I’m smiling as I sit in the chair next to him.
“It’s beautiful out here,” I say.
“It’s not bad.” High praise, from Nate.
“This coffee is really strong,” I add, after I take a sip.
He always makes coffee too strong, and I always comment on it. It’s one of our things.
He takes another swallow and frowns. “Tastes about right to me.”
“It would.”
“How did you sleep?”
I glance over and see that he’s peering at me closely, and I wonder if he thinks I stayed up all night crying or something. “Good,” I tell him, speaking only the truth. “I feel great this morning.”
“Good.”
We sit in companionable silence for a few minutes. He checks something on his tablet, and he must have an interesting email, since he’s absorbed in reading it for a minute. But then he relaxes and puts the tablet down on the little table between the chairs.
I’m glad. I’d hate for him to be distracted by work on our vacation.
When I look over, he smiles at me. “What do you want to do today?”
“I don’t know. What did you have planned?”
“I don’t have anything planned until we take the train up north. I looked into all the Jane Austen sites in the area, so I know where they are. We can do them whenever you want to. And one day we’ll have to go to Bath, but that will be a long day, so we could wait a day or two before we do that, so we’re rested up.”
“Yeah. That sounds great. Let’s do Bath the day after tomorrow.”
“We have plenty of time to do everything, so we can take it easy today if you want. We can go out and see one site this afternoon and then have dinner, unless you want to do more.”
“No, that sounds perfect. Maybe we can do a walk this morning. Apparently, there are several good ones in the area.”
“Yeah.” He puts down his coffee cup as he stands up. “I picked up a brochure about that. Hold on.”
Sure enough, he returns with a three-fold brochure about the Hampshire walks. There’s even a map on the back with them traced out. I scoot my chair over so we can study it together, and we find one that looks good—not too strenuous—that starts on the other side of the village.
When this is decided, I pick up our coffee cups and go into the kitchen to refill them. When I return, Nate is still studying the map. His familiar face is focused and intent, like he’s trying to memorize the route.
As I sit down, I’m overwhelmed with a wave of fondness for him. He put a lot of work into planning this trip. It isn’t just the money he spent. Even now, he’s working hard to make sure everything goes smoothly. And he’s doing it all for me.
I don’t know anyone in the world who has a better friend than I have.
He glances up, and then looks again, evidently noticing something in my expression. “What?” he demands.
“What, what?” I try to look innocent but don’t do a very good job.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to pat my head or something.”
I giggle. “I don’t want to pat your head.”
“Good. Because I’m not going to let you.”
“I bet you would.”
“Would what?”
“Let me pat your head. If I ask nicely, I bet you’d let me.”
His gives me a look of exaggerated malevolence. “I definitely would not.”
“Now I kind of want to do it.”
“Well, you’re shit out of luck.”
I’m trying to suppress my giggles as I reach over toward his head. “Please? I really want to do it now.”
“Don’t even think about it.” H
e ducks away from my hand and puts down his coffee cup.
I put mine down too, since I’m close to spilling it. I reach over toward him again, and this time I almost reach his head, but he jumps to his feet before I can make it.
Still laughing, I get up and come after him. I corner him against the cottage wall, and we have a silly, playful tussle as I fight to reach his head in order to pat it. He grabs hold of both of my wrists to keep my hands from reaching their target, and both of us are laughing as I finally give up.
“You’re no fun,” I say breathlessly, making a face at him.
“Sometimes you have to learn to live with disappointment.” Despite his words, his blue eyes are soft and warm and laughing as they rest on my face.
I love the way he’s looking at me now. No one else looks at me that way, and I don’t really want Nate to look at anyone else with that particular expression. It feels like it’s mine.
To hide my random thoughts, I stick out my tongue at him.
He chuckles again and pulls me into a soft hug.
I hug him back. I love to hug him. I always have. And it feels a little different this morning, like he’s holding me more possessively, like it means even more.
I’m almost dizzy with how deeply I’m feeling toward him, how much I want him to hold me like this, how much I want him to touch me.
I hope it’s not inappropriate. Maybe it’s just normal, natural, given how needy I’ve been since my mother died and how incredibly sweet Nate has been.
I don’t want to start feeling things that are inappropriate and somehow mess things up between us. We’ve been together for twenty years now. If something came between us, it would break me.
It would break me.
The thought upsets me so much that I pull away, keeping my eyes down so he doesn’t see anything unusual in my expression.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his laughter fading immediately.
“Nothing.” I have to make sure he doesn’t see what I’ve been thinking. He’s so observant that it’s hard to hide anything from him. Then I get a brainstorm.
While he’s distracted, I reach up and give him a firm pat on the head. “There,” I say. “That’s what I wanted to do.”
He lets out a roar and comes after me, thinking I tricked him on purpose. I flee into the house and get to my room just in time to shut the door on him. I laughingly tell him that I’ve won and that now I need to take a shower.
