The Deep End by AM Hartnett

Author:AM Hartnett [A. M. Hartnett]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-05-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

When she awoke again, she was alone in the bed.

She couldn’t bear it for even a minute. She got up and dragged her discarded nightgown over her head, then ventured into the hall. Everything was silent. Had her lover retreated to his sanctuary now that he’d had her?

Her answer came with the glug of the coffee maker. She wasn’t far behind him, and as she pulled two cups from the cupboard she heard the creak of his weight coming down the stairs from his bedroom.

Apparently oblivious to her, he paused at the bottom of the stairs with his index finger pressed across an eyelid. He had put on a T-shirt and plaid pajama pants.

A queer feeling struck her as the thought that he might have been crying passed through her mind like a cold wind, but he lifted his head and squinted. Only one eye was teary and blinking.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked, moving to the refrigerator in search of milk.

He shook his head and shambled forward. ‘Dry.’

‘You sleep with it open.’

He didn’t look at her as he moved into the kitchen with her. She’d embarrassed him, she could see, and though she found it endearing she wished she hadn’t said anything.

‘It’s been like this since the accident,’ he explained after a moment. ‘I have nerve damage. I wear a patch over it at night, but last night … it was low on my priorities.’

‘Accident.’ Is that how he referred to it?

She let it drop, and poured milk into her cup. ‘How do you take your coffee?’

‘Cream and two sugars.’

He climbed onto the stool next to her and folded his hands in front of him. He was quiet while she prepared his coffee, and when she passed him his cup he fidgeted with the handle.

He was nervous.

Grace should have been crippled with anxiety, yet she went through the motions of taking things from the fridge and cupboards and putting them in order on the counter.

She put butter in the pan. ‘Eggs?’

He didn’t answer, and she glanced up to see him looking slightly taken aback by the question. He pulled his cup closer. ‘Two. Fried, yolk broken.’

‘Toast?’

Now he looked truly flustered. The beginnings of a scowl appeared and his cheeks went pink. ‘I don’t usually eat breakfast.’

‘Neither do I, but I also never had a kitchen like this, and I don’t care to eat in front of someone else.’ She broke four eggs onto the pan and stabbed the yolks, then dug into the bread bag. ‘Toast?’

‘Two.’

She pursed her lips but lost the battle to keep from smiling. ‘It’s bothering you now, isn’t it?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Having someone in your space. You look like you think I’m going to shank you any second now.’ His face turned blank, and she laughed it off. ‘You like what I do when I have a partner, but have you never watched me get one? I read people. I can tell with just a look whether a man is for me. I can tell if he wants to pull my hair while he fucks me, or if he’s simply wondering what I taste like.

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