Always Loved You by Goode Ella

Author:Goode, Ella
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-04-03T16:00:00+00:00

13

Heath

She’s always saying that she’s too heavy and needs to eat less but as I carry her into her bedroom, I don’t feel it. If anything, she could use a few more pounds. Her cheeks aren’t looking as round as they ordinarily do. I wonder if she’s stressed out about the grocery store. Maybe the feasibility study will ease her mind. She’s tired. I do know that. We weren’t more than ten minutes into the cooking show on television and she closed her eyes to “rest for a sec.” The next thing I knew, she had fallen asleep. I may have nudged her to rest her head on my lap—for her own comfort.

I cycled through three shows, which is what I think they call binge watching, learned how to cut herbs (rolling them up, who knew?), and that bread is difficult. I’ll stick to buying it from the professionals.

I would’ve stayed there all night but I figured she would rather sleep in her own room. This wasn’t an excuse to get into her bedroom. Not precisely. Okay, maybe it was. I hadn’t been in here in forever. It was her own space and I tried hard to observe that. Our townhouse is one of the traditional walk-ups I bought for around twenty million a week after I laid eyes on Orchard. It’s a long, thin home where every floor serves a different purpose. The master is on the top floor whereas Orchard’s room is a floor beneath mine. The bedroom is in the back overlooking the garden and her reading room is in the front facing the street.

Sometimes when I’m climbing the stairs, I’ll catch a glimpse of her sitting in front of the fireplace in the reading room, her feet up on a fuzzy cushion, sipping on a cup of coffee with the book lying unread in her lap as she stares out the window. Maybe she dreams of an escape while I’m imagining kissing my way down her neck, stripping her out of her clothes and taking her so many times that she can’t go into that room with the memory of us tangled together.

Her bedroom offers no views from the stairs. It’s just a long corridor ending with a white painted door that’s almost always closed. I nudge it open with my foot and proceed to the bed with its lemon yellow duvet cover. Gently, I lay her down and cover her up with the throw at the end of the bed. She murmurs something soft and sweet that I don’t catch and curls up on her side, tucking her hands beneath her cheek. My protective instincts rise up and lodge in my throat like a rock. I need her to be happy. I wonder if she knows how important it is to me that she is happy.

I step back, away from temptation, to let her sleep. The back of the house, guarded by a row of tall townhomes, is dark but I draw the shades closed anyway, leaving the only light emanating from her ensuite bathroom.

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