Page 165 of One Night Only
“I mean it,” I said at the time. “I trust you. You don’t have to drop everything to see me if you’re busy.”
He just shook his head, amused. “Does it ever occur to you that Iwantto see you?” And then he shoved a slice of garlic bread into my mouth before I could answer.
I smile at the memory, gazing up at him. “We’ve moved in together.”
“We have.”
“We should have planned this better. Got some wine.”
“Well,” he says, heading back to the kitchen. “If you put away the shopping like I told you to maybe you would have found…” He opens a cabinet door and retrieves a dark green bottle.
“Champagne?”
“The good stuff. A gift from O’Shea’s.”
“What are you doing?” I ask when he puts it in the fridge. “Open it.”
“I’m chilling it first, Sarah. I’m not a monster.”
I roll my eyes and wander into the bedroom to put the card on the dresser. The room is just as messy as the others, covered in boxes. My boxes. Declan was able to fit everything he owned into two suitcases. Everything except his houseplant which now sits proudly on the windowsill.
“The landlord said he’ll send someone over tomorrow about the sink,” Declan says, following me in.
“I’ll be here.” My new job lets me have flexible work-from-home arrangements. I guess it’s my not-so-new job now. But after working for so many years in one, it’s going to take a while before it stops feeling like it. It was Soraya’s boyfriend who found it for me. David did some marketing at a small, sustainability focused architecture firm in Tribeca where I clicked immediately, and though I still find myself second-guessing my ideas sometimes, I’m getting better at ignoring it.
“Shall we christen this while we wait for the champagne?” Declan asks, dropping onto the mattress.
I crawl to the middle of the bed, collapsing in a heap on top of him. “What’s that? Ten minutes?”
“Please,” he says, sounding wounded. “Twenty.”
But he doesn’t move, probably sensing my tiredness and for the next few minutes we simply lie there, his chest rising and falling gently beneath my cheek. My eyes drift shut and I’m halfway to a well-earned nap when he speaks next.
“Are you still up for dinner tonight or will you not be able to walk from all those stairs?”
“You might have to carry me,” I admit. We’re supposed to meet Mark and Claire at a Thai place nearby. Mark moved back to the New York office in October, much to Claire’s delight. She was suspiciously fine when I told her I was moving out, but I soon saw why when she said she was moving into his place, a gorgeous two-bedroom apartment with a doorman to greet them and actual art on the walls instead of just pictures of it. But you only had to spend five minutes with her to see she cared nothing about any of it. It was Mark she wanted. Mark, she loved. Whether he lived in a penthouse or rented a bunk bed.
It just so happened that he lived in a penthouse.
I burrow deeper against Declan as his fingers trail across my back before gently lifting my left hand from his chest.
My eyes fly open. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?” he asks, innocent.
“You know what.”
I had thought after everything with Fiona he maybe wouldn’t want to get married again. Ever. But instead over the past few months, he’s dropped increasingly less subtle hints that a proposal is on his mind.
“One day we’re going to talk about it,” he says, lowering my hand back to his chest.
I don’t argue. Mostly because I know he’s right. Mostly because I already know what my answer will be. And I think he does too.
“You tired?” he murmurs.
“Yes.”
“How tired?”
