Page 16 of The Wife Upstairs
The way Mrs. McLaren looked at me in the village.
Emily Clark’s hard eyes.
Eddie’s house and the way it felt to slide my hand into his at dinner.
Yes.
9
APRIL
Whirlwind.
It’s hard not to use that word to describe my relationship with Eddie, but every time it comes into my head, I remember Bea, meeting Eddie on vacation.
She called it a whirlwind, too.
But maybe that’s just what being with Eddie is like. Maybe every woman who’s ever come into his life gets swept up in the same way because once he’s decided he wants you, it’s the only way he knows how to behave.
I give Eddie the second chance he wanted, but set it on my terms. No dates in Mountain Brook. Neutral territory. He thinks it’s because I’m worried about the other people in Thornfield Estates finding out. I don’t want them to know about us yet—and I don’t want to risk another fuckup like the thing with Chris—but it’s not because I’m worried about my job. My dog-walking days are ticking down so steadily I can practically hear the click.
No, I don’t want anyone to know yet because I like having this secret. The biggest piece of gossip in the neighborhood, and it’s mine.
They’ll find out eventually, I know, but I’m determined that when they do, I’ll be so deeply entrenched there won’t be shit they can do about it.
So as February slides into March, March into April, we go to fancy restaurants with menus I can barely read. We walk through parks, our shoulders and hips touching. We go to movies, and sit in the back, like teenagers. His hand is always on me, resting against my palm, tracing the line of my collarbone, a warm weight on my lower back so that I can feel his touch even when we’re apart.
That’s the strangest part to me, really. Not the dates, not the idea that someone like Eddie Rochester might want to spend time with me. It’s how much I want him, too.
I’m not used to that.
Wantingthings? Sure. That’s been a constant in my life, my eyes catching the sparkle of something expensive on a wrist, around a neck; pictures of dream houses taped to my bedroom wall instead of whatever prepubescent boy girls my age were supposed to be interested in.
But I’ve been dodging men’s hands since I was twelve, so wishing a man would touch me is a novel experience.
I think I like it.
The first time he kissed me, it was beside his car outside a restaurant. His mouth tasted like the red wine we’d shared, and his hands holding my face hadn’t made me feel trapped, but… safe. And beautiful.
I’d liked the clear disappointment in his eyes when I pulled back. Because, of course, I pulled back. Timing is everything here, and I’m not about to fuck up something this big by being an easy conquest for him.
So, any intimacy is limited to kisses for now and the occasional heated touches, his palms sliding over my upper arms, my thighs, my fingers resting on the hard muscles of his stomach but not going lower.
He hasn’t had to wait for anything in a long time, I think, so he can damn well wait for me.
But it isn’t just the kissing, the desire I feel for him that has my head spinning. It’s how much he notices things. Noticesme.
On our third date—sandwiches at a place in Vestavia—I pick a bottle of cream soda from the cooler, and before I can stop myself,I’m telling him the story of a foster dad I had early on, when I was ten. He was obsessed with cream soda, bought giant cases of it from Costco, but never let me or the other kid in the house at that time, Jason, touch any of it—which, of course, meant that cream soda was all I ever wanted to drink.
It surprised me, how easily the story poured out. It hadn’t been that exact story, of course. I’d left out the foster care part, just saying “my dad,” but it was the most truthful I’d been about my past with anyone in years.
And Eddie hadn’t pried or looked at me with pity. He’d just squeezed my hand, and when I went to his house the next day, the fridge was stocked with the dark glass bottles.
Not the cheap shit Mr. Leonard bought, but the good stuff they only sell in fancy delis and high-end grocery stores.
I’ve gone so long trying not to be seen that there’s something intoxicating about letting him reallyseeme.
John knows something is going on, his beady eyes are even more suspicious than usual as they follow me around the apartment, but even that doesn’t bother me now. I like keeping this secret from him, too, the smug smile I wear, the different hours I’m keeping.
