Page 61 of Lessons in Forgiving
We’d been looking at each other through the dark long enough for my vision to adjust. Making out the different shades in his eyes—dark, with flecks of a brighter color, almost sparkling. I could see well enough to notice the way they flickered over my face restlessly.
Henry’s smile didn’t fall, per se. It kind of felt like the longer we got stuck on each other, the more his features, his body, relaxed. The more comfortable he was getting.
And I only noticed his smile had gone when the corner of his lip twitched up again. Just slightly, in that kind of sad, regretful way.
“Paula,” he said in a low voice, and I wasn’t sure if he meant to. If it kind of just slipped out. In the same way his hand lifted, lingered by my face before he tugged the single curl that had escaped my bun back behind my ear. I don’t think he had any kind of control over the gesture. Like my eyes couldn’t help occasionally flicking to his lips, either.
His fingers brushed my cheek so lightly, I thought I might’ve imagined the touch. But the smooth skin of his hand felt too familiar, the way his breath fanned against the spot felt too… real. I think I was holding my breath right up until he spoke.
“Just—”
Which was when I’d accidentally exhaled so loudly, he cut himself off. With a smile. “Do you still sleep like a star fish? Or have you learned to keep to your side of the bed?”
I barked a laugh I didn’t mean to, then replaced the amused look on my face with a disingenuous scowl. “I wouldn’t need to leave my side of the bed,Henry,” I said matter-of-factly. “If you would just share the blanket better.”
“Share it better?” He sounded offended by the accusation. Would’ve looked the part, too, if he hadn’t been working so damn hard on keeping his smile at bay. “You already have two-thirds of it now! And we haven’t even closed our eyes. I can’t share any more of it without giving it up completely.”
“Excuses,” I sighed airily, shaking my head and feeling the urge to press my face into the pillow, if only to keep the wide grin off my face. I didn’t.
I woke up to Henry’s face. On top of his arm. With an approximate four inches between our noses.
He was looking at me, the alarm that’d ripped me out of my sleep already off. Normally, that would mean I’d turn around and close my eyes again, but his presence so close threw me—my body—off guard.
I was wide awake.
“Oh,” I muffled into his skin, feeling his muscles shift underneath me, his hand somehow in my hair the way it used to be. When he’d been about to give me a head massage that eventually moved lower, to my shoulders—and then lower again. His arm curled around my face with the motion. “Morning.”
I don’t think he was really aware of the fact his fingers danced across my scalp, touch light and unintentional. He was only looking at me, green eyes focused.
Myfocus was scattered.
“I thought this would be harder,” he admitted, and maybe hewasaware of his action, because his head gestured in the direction of his fingers in my hair.
“What would?”
“Waking you up.” He allowed a laugh now. “Only took some head scratches and name whispering. Not much has changed, has it?”
My eyes narrowed in on his, and, although it hurt, I put some distance between us to really look at him. “Ha-ha,” I mocked. His hand dropped out of my hair, and he shifted on the mattress to face me completely. “Like the alarm wasn’t enough to—”
“The alarm rang five minutes ago, Paula.”
Oh.
So instead of shaking me awake, saying my name and hoping I’d be up by the time he got out of the bathroom, he’d done what he used to when I refused to wake up. Instead of just setting another alarm and leaving it right by my ear, he gently woke me with his fingers in my hair, massaging my scalp,whisperingmy name.
I rolled onto my back, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes with a mandatory yawn. “Sorry.”
Henry huffed, sitting up to stretch in all possible directions. He gave me a look across his shoulder, and only when he stood, he said, “I didn’t mind.”
CHAPTER 25
NOW
When I was with Henry, I stopped thinking. I stopped wondering where next and how to get there.Whento get there. I stopped worrying, generally. I’d always been able to rely on him for our plans.
Until now, I’d never seen a downside to it.
But standing back in our shared room after an entire day of lawyers, paperwork and three different offices spread across Jersey and Manhattan, Henry asked what I’d be wearing tonight, and I had no idea what he was referring to.
