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“On the village green? When I thought your mother was a fraud?”
“You were so sure of yourself.” He runs his hands down to my waist and pulls me closer. “I couldn’t believe I was attracted to such a brash American.”
“That’s the best kind.” I press my forehead to his, my lips nearly touching his. “Our cockiness gives you stuffy Brits permission to let loose and do wild things like say what you mean.”
“Stop talking,” he whispers.
“See, you’re learning already.”
And now we’re kissing in earnest, like there’s no time or need for banter. I slip my hands under his T-shirt. His back is strong and warm, I want to touch every part of it. We move toward his bed, still kissing. We kick off our shoes. We both have trouble with our jeans. Laughing, I finally manage to fling mine off my shins. Dev attempts the same but loses his balance and falls onto the bed. I push him gently back and climb on top of him. There’s enough moonlight coming in the window for me to see him smile like he can’t believe his good fortune. It’s what I’m feeling too. Usually when I’m with someone new, I’m the first to close my eyes, the last to open them. But I want to see Dev. I want to see him looking at me.
I bend down and kiss him, my hair falling like curtains around our faces.
“We don’t have to rush,” I say, and realize that I’m talking to myself. There is no end goal here, no getting off and moving on, there is only this, and I want it to last forever. We kiss until we’re breathless. I roll over and pull him onto me, reveling in the weight of him. And then I push and flip him over again, so I can look downon him, but I’m not aware of where we are and his head thumps, hard, against the headboard.
“Ow!”
“Oh my god, are you okay? I’m so sorry.” I turn on the light.
He touches the top of his head and winces.
“Is there a bump?”
“No.”
“Please don’t just say that. Do you need some ice?” I can’t believe I’ve hurt him.
“No, I’m okay. I mean, I will be in a minute.”
I flop down on my back beside him.
“I feel like such an idiot,” I say.
“You are the opposite of an idiot.”
I take a deep breath, wait for my heartbeat to settle. I can sense that Dev is looking up at the ceiling as I am. And then, like a whisper, his fingers brush mine.
“I really fancy you, Cath.”
“I really like you too.”
Our fingers intertwine. We stay like that for a few minutes until Dev turns onto his side, toward me, and I do the same. We kiss lightly now, tentatively, like we’re beginning again, not trying to hide our unease. I take off my shirt and bra. We explore each other, fingers trembling, until they are not. We let them roam up our bodies, and down. Dev’s touch is a revelation, here and here, and oh yes, there, and let me show you precisely where, like this, and now I don’t want to slow down, and I tell him not to stop. And I love how he watches me. And I keep my eyes open so I can map his pleasure on his face, his beautiful, kind face, and when he says Cath and even calls me Cathy, I don’t mind at all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
WEDNESDAY
I’m awakened by the scents of cinnamon and coffee. I stretch under the comforter, bare legs on cool sheets, and can sense without looking that I’m alone in the bed. When I open my eyes, a white curtain is floating above me, the breeze pushing it up and up, until it sighs down. There’s a pastry on a napkin atop the stack of books on Dev’s night table. And a note: “Yesterday’s cinnamon roll, but still good. There’s a clean towel on the chair, hot water if your shower’s quick. Coffee on the stove. I’m in the garden.”
I grab my shirt off the floor, put it on, and tiptoe over to the front window. Dev is at the other side of the garden, by his mother’s house, pushing a shovel into the ground with his foot. I wonder how long he’s been out there. After a typical hookup, I’m out of bed first, making coffee, ready to start the day, on my own. I tap on the window, and Dev looks my way, a hand over his brow. He smiles and spears his shovel into the ground. He spreads out his arms as if to present his garden on this sunny day. I splay my palms against the window—ten minutes.
Hair twisted up in a knot, I take a quick shower. Despite the lackof sleep last night, I’m already, or still, buzzing. I get dressed, down some coffee, have a few bites of the cinnamon roll. It’s surprisingly bright outside, the warmest day we’ve had yet. The plants are still damp with dew, and some flowers already open to the sun. I know only a few of them—iris, peonies, some tulips on their last days.
I ask Dev for a tour of the garden, and he takes my hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He’s cultivated every patch of land. There are rows of seedlings just starting to come up and dirt beds with no signs of growth, their names written on plastic tags in Dev’s neat, slanted handwriting. There will be tomatoes, garlic, carrots, peas, and rocket, which I think is arugula. Sorrel, rhubarb, and fennel, and a whole section of herbs—rosemary, coriander, dill, and oregano. Climbing up a trellis behind the herb garden is another plant I recognize, hollyhock, though it hasn’t flowered yet.
“That was my mother’s favorite,” I say. “She told me once she almost named me Holly, but my father, who was Jewish, thought it sounded too Christmassy. So she turned toWuthering Heightsinstead.”
“You’re named for Catherine Earnshaw?”