Page 61 of Time for You
“Oh no, did she do a knock-knock joke again?”
“Hey, that was one time,” Daphne said.
“Yeah, one real bad time,” Vibol muttered into his drink.
“We should dance, Henry,” Daphne announced.
“With pleasure, my lady,” he said, and stood up to bow.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Daphne had never been one to laze about in bed in the mornings. That just wasn’t her style, not when there were classes to study for or work to be done. But now, with Henry, she wanted to luxuriate in every second, lounge about with him while she could. Outside the sky was bright blue and the sun threw a warm rectangle onto her bed, where she lay on her stomach, the crossword puzzle book open in front of her. She tapped the pen against her lips, thinking.
“Another word forthwart. Five letters,” she said.
Henry had been resting on his side next to her, trailing his fingertips along her spine, sending pleasant shivers across her skin. He leaned over and moved her hair to the side, placing a tender kiss on the nape of her neck. “Avert?”
Daphne wrote his suggestion down, and whined only a little when he tugged the book out of her hand and placed it on the nightstand. Henry tucked her under his arm, with her head pillowed on his chest. She listened to the cadence of his heart, beating a steady, comforting rhythm. She heard heartbeats all day at work, but it was different through a stethoscope than it was with her ear pressed against his bare skin. “It’s getting warmer out,” Henry observed, looking at the window.
Daphne didn’t want to reply, because she knew what he meant underneath that otherwise bland observation—it was getting warmer because the summer solstice was rapidly bearing down on them.
“What if you stayed?” she asked, the words slipping out without thinking. Henry’s fingers stopped trailing idly across her bare shoulder. “I mean, I know you can’t, but what would it be like, do you think?”
“You’re a dangerous woman, Daphne,” he rumbled.
She smiled against his skin. “Your accent gets thicker in bed.”
“No, it gets thicker when I’m relaxed,” he said, gathering her in his arms and kissing the top of her head. Henry let out a long breath and started speaking. “I think, if I were to stay, I’d like to get a job.”
“I’d hope so. Otherwise you’d just be freeloading off me,” Daphne teased.
He chuckled. “I was thinking about cooking, actually. Perhaps in a restaurant.”
“A chef?”
“Or a chef’s assistant—what’s the word? Sous chef? I don’t think I’m good enough to be the head of a kitchen. Not yet, anyway.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” she pushed.
“I’m not, I’m just acknowledging I have a long way to go,” Henry countered. “And even if I couldn’t find work as a chef, I think I’d like to keep cooking. It’s—don’t laugh, but it’s a way for me to show people I care for them, and I never had that before.”
Daphne propped her chin on his chest, chewing her lower lip. “I’m sure your mother and sisters know you care for them.”
“Aye, but not like this. I provide for them, and I listen to them, but showing it—expressing it, like this—that’s not something I ever considered before.”
“You’re a caretaker. It’s part of you.”
“It is,” he agreed. “And it’s a part of you.”
She hid her face. “Don’t. We’re talking about you.”
“And I want to talk about you.” He curled his finger under her chin and lifted it to meet his gaze. “If I stayed, what would you do differently?”
“I’d leave emergency medicine,” Daphne admitted, and her chest loosened from a tightness she hadn’t even noticed.
“Then you should when I leave,” he said seriously.
“I don’t—I know I should, but knowing that and doing it are two different things, Henry.”
