Page 87 of Weekends with You

We lay there together, limbs entangled, fingers still laced in each other’s hair, skin against skin, as we steadied our breathing and readjusted to the darkness with open eyes.

“Would you say this qualifies as ‘making the most of it’?” I whispered.

“That doesn’t even begin to cover it,” he whispered back, the deep notes of his voice rumbling through my body.

I nestled my face into his shoulder to stop myself from speaking and ruining the moment. Maybe it was true, after all,that we wouldn’t always be battling distance. That we could actually call the same place home.

We never returned to our heap of clothes on the floor, spending the rest of the night intertwined under the tartan sheets, watching the night crawl toward the morning. He told me stories about his family, I compared his eyes to every green flower I could think of, he took photos of my mahogany hair spread over the pillowcase in the dark. We laughed at embarrassing memories, traced each other’s spines with our fingertips, whispered secrets to be carried away with the moonlight.

For once, I wasn’t concerned with the future. All that seemed to matter was the gentle rise and fall of Henry’s chest under my head and the way the first streaks of sunlight carried in all the promise of new beginnings.

Sleep never seemed to find me, but I wasn’t bothered. I was content listening to the rest of our roommates getting ready and padding downstairs for breakfast to the tune of Henry’s deep breathing and a few timid birds outside the window. I didn’t quite care if I ever moved again, to be honest.

Cork had a stillness about it that let you come into the day on your own time. In London, the city set the pace. It woke up every morning and swallowed you whole. Cork was the opposite. It stretched out green fingers in every direction, inviting you to lose yourself in it. Or maybe find yourself in it. Either way, the choice didn’t belong to Ireland.

When Henry finally stirred awake, I watched a lazy smile spread across his face, the dimple deepening in his right cheek.

“I could get used to this,” he said, smoothing my hair back from my face.

“Me too.”

“Do I smell bacon?” He sat up, leaning back on his elbows. Iadmired his shirtless chest, the valley of his sternum, the way his pecs turned into his shoulders.

I picked up my phone to check the time and saw I had a text from Raja. I’d almost totally forgotten I was supposed to be sharing a room with her and Liv, and that of course she would’ve noticed I never returned to it, so I opened the text to make sure she hadn’t exposed us to the whole lot just yet.

You don’t waste any time, do you?she’d written, complete with a winking emoji.

I groaned and flopped onto my back beside Hen.

“What’s wrong?”

“Raja is already winding me up about not coming back to the room last night,” I said, half laughing, half mortified. “You don’t think they heard us, do you?” I was suddenly concerned, given that we could hear Jan’s snoring all night and the sink running every time Liv got up to use the toilet.

“I doubt they heard me,” he said, rolling over and throwing an arm around my waist. “But you, on the other hand...”

“Henry!” I buried my head in my hands, stifling my laughter. He stood up from the bed, tossing me my sweats from last night and a flannel of his.

“Well, we’re going to have to face them eventually, and I’m starving, so. No time like the present.” He flashed me a cheeky grin and pulled a white T-shirt over his head, then stepped into a pair of sweatpants and ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll meet you downstairs, yeah?” he asked, and I nodded.

He closed the door behind him, and I finally emerged from the sheets to get dressed. I slipped his flannel on, just to see what it would feel like to be in his clothes, then immediately shrugged it off and left it on the bed. If we were going to play it off like we hadn’t christened the B and B last night,showing up to breakfast in his clothes was not the way to go about it.

When I got downstairs, everyone was already crowding around the breakfast table, chatting over plates piled high with all the makings of a proper full Irish: bubble and squeak, black pudding, toasted Irish soda bread, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, heaps of fatty bacon. The smells were intoxicating, and I wasn’t surprised to find myself ravenously hungry.

“Did ya sleep well, dear?” Aoife asked, pouring me a mug of tea the size of my head.

“Did ya sleep at all?” Raja asked before I had a chance to respond, shooting me a knowing look.

“Just fine, thanks,” I said to Aoife, then glared at Raja. “And thanks for breakfast. This looks incredible.”

“Worked up an appetite, did you?” Finn asked just as I took a sip, and a mouthful of tea nearly shot from my nose. When we made eye contact, he stuck his tongue out of his open mouth and raised his barely there eyebrows.

“Right, then,” Henry interrupted, holding in what I thought was a laugh. “What’s the plan for today?”

Part of me wanted to crawl under the table and die of embarrassment, and the other part of me wanted to climb into his lap at this breakfast table without a care in the world. It was complicated, and I needed caffeine to process. I wasn’t usually the type to kiss and tell, so I had no idea what to do with these newfound urges.

“Eager to just move right on, are we?” Jan joined the teasing, a piece of bacon between his teeth like a cigarette.

“I’ve not a clue what you’re on about,” Henry said, sipping his tea. “Just looking forward to spending the day in Cork, that’s all.”

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