Page 148 of Oleander

I blinked at her, dumbfounded. “Seriously? You must be off your bloody head if you think that’s ever going to happen.” I turned back to making my tea. She was quiet while I did it. While I poured myself some cereal, while I dragged out the kitchen chair and threw myself down into it. I ate a few angry spoonfuls while she finished slicing fruit behind me. To my surprise, she pulled out a chair and sat across from me. I wanted to get up and leave the room, but I was as stubborn as she was. I didn’t look at her.

It didn’t matter that Luke didn’t want me to hate her on his behalf because I hated her on my own. The gap that had closed a little after she lost the baby rumbled open again. I was glad she was moving off the island. Glad I wouldn’t have to see her make a new life with a man who wasn’t Luke. Luke, who was as close to perfect as a man could be. Luke, who was too good for my sister.

Luke was the one who’d been there for me and now I’d be there for him. Beth would be like every other family member I never saw. I could see her pleading eyes skirt to mine every now and again, but I ignored them.

I finished my cereal without uttering a single word to her, lifted my bowl, put it in the dishwasher, and walked out of the kitchen.

Fifteen

"I’m sorry, baby,”Nathan said, when I told him about Luke and Beth’s divorce.

He didn’t think it odd that my loyalties were with Luke and not my sister. He said he’d feel exactly the same if he were in my shoes. He knew how close Luke and I were, and he thought the notion that blood was thicker than water was nonsense.

His parents had divorced when he was twelve, and he maintained it had fucked him up in a very specific kind of way, a way that had made him a tiresome over-achiever. (“You’re all grown up though, so you’re gonna be fine.”)

Nathan had rented a tranquil, white-stoned cottage with a herb garden about a twenty-five minute drive from Deveraux. At the bottom of the garden was a wooden gate, beyond which meandered one of the five scenic cliff walks on the ‘What to do in Jersey’ page of the official tourist website.

The house was in a nice spot, perfect for writing a screenplay.

I picked him up from the airport on Monday and drove him to the Airbnb. I’d driven past the cottage on my driving lessons and recognised it immediately as the place after the blind turn.

He’d decided not to hire a car. I’d told him most places on the island were within cycling distance and offered to drive him anywhere he needed to go.

He’d arrived at the arrivals gate with two large suitcases: every item of clothing packed for his return to New York in three weeks’ time. After retrieving the key from the lockbox and lugging them out of the car, we’d dumped them inside the hallway and explored the cottage.

It was smaller than ours at Deveraux; one bedroom with a small study area at the top of the stairs with a view out over the cliff walk. A well-equipped kitchen, a full-size bathroom, and cosy bedroom with a king-size bed which Nathan had promptly pushed me down onto and kissed me senseless.

“Fuck, I missed you,” he said against my lips.

I kissed him back hungrily. “I missed you too,” I said.

After dinner we took the bottle of wine out to the garden where we sat at the small bistro-style table and listened to the waves crash against the cliffs below. After I’d told him about Luke and Beth, he’d told me about the faculty dinner. One of the history professors had gotten drunk and come onto him, though no matter how much I begged, he wouldn’t tell me who. Something about his integrity hanging on by a thread.

When the bottle was long finished and we were both tangled up together on the sofa exchanging soft kisses, he lifted his head and looked down at me. There was some kind of an implicit understanding between us that tonight it would happen. I’d packed a small overnight bag and brought it with me when I picked him up from the airport.

“Have you decided?” he asked softly. His fingers traced the side of my mouth and down to my jaw. I was very hard. We both were.

I swallowed, cleared my throat, and said as bravely as I could, “Yeah, I think I want you to fuck me.”

His eyebrows only went up a little. “Youthink?”

“No, I mean, I know.” I looked straight into his eyes when I said this. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and I need to know if it’s for me. I’ve been dancing around it for a while now. And I want to try it with you. I mean, obviously you’ll do it properly, not like some knobhead rower from Corpus who likes Tarantino.”

“Obviously.” There was a playful lilt to his mouth.

“So…will you?” I asked him.

“I don’t think there’s anything else I want more, Jude,” Nathan said and pressed a kiss to my lips.

“Not even another Oscar?” I grinned.

He thought about it. “I honestly think two is too many.”

I laughed.

Nathan did know how to do things properly; I’d been right about that. He’d taken me into the shower, both of us standing in the rolltop bath as we crowded under the overhead spray. After washing himself quickly, he told me where to clean and how – thoroughly and carefully seemed to be the main thing – and left me alone to do it. I was to come back into bed when I was ready.

He opened me slowly and carefully with his fingers first, saying things like ‘good boy’and ‘you’re perfect’ and ‘so beautiful, baby’as he did. He’d suggested I ride him so I could control the penetration myself, but the idea of it felt too...exposing, too performative, so I lay on my back, pulled my legs up and wide, and thought of England.