Page 21 of Before You Say Goodbye

His face fell.

“For us to end this now.”

She swallowed hard and nodded, wiping her tears and moving away from him. She felt a sudden need to protect herself. Bowie winced at the space she’d put between them.

“It’s not what I want, Autumn. I—”

“It’s because of what Bluebell said, isn’t it? About the way I am with men.”

Autumn let herself jump to the vilest conclusion: that he had found his excuse to cut her off.

Bowie stared at her and then laughed. She was taken aback. She tried to look away, but he put his finger beneath her chin, gently tilted her face to look at him, and fixed his eyes on hers, a disbelieving smile on his face. His gaze bewitched her.

“I don’t care if you’ve slept with half of New York City. Your worth is not determined by how many men you’ve slept with. Not by me. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“I only care that you’re happy and about the way you treat me. OK?”

She nodded again, swallowing the lump in her throat.

“Do you want to do this?” he asked her.

She didn’t need to ask him what he meant by ‘this’. He was about to ask her if she wanted to be with him. Autumn felt shock and a curious urge to blurt yes all at once. She tried to give herself a silent talking to. She needed to think properly about this. This was a big responsibility. Starting a relationship would be complicated if Bowie being Bluebell’s brother was the only tricky part of this, but they wouldn’t only have to navigate Bluebell’s feelings, they were dealing with a serious disease and all its symptoms. She knew nothing about lymphoma except what he’d told her very briefly, but it sounded terrible. Autumn had never been in a relationship before. Could she, a woman so inexperienced when it came to taking care of anyone except herself, really be the type of woman a man as lovely as Bowie needed right now? What if she wasn’t up to it? She might hurt him. Perhaps she would disappoint Bluebell and lose her, too. And she barely knew Bowie. It didn’t feel like it, but they’d met for the first time just a few days ago. That felt crazy to acknowledge, but it was true. A week ago, she’d have warned any woman who was thinking of getting involved in a situationlike this to think very carefully about it, yet here she was, ready to say yes without giving it much thought at all. There was so much at stake here. His question shouldn’t feel straightforward to answer, but it did. Autumn couldn’t explain it. She couldn’t imagine saying anything except yes. Still, she listened to Bowie elaborate. She knew he felt like he needed to do it and was grateful he wanted to make sure she knew what she was signing up for.

“You and me? Properly, I mean? I don’t have time for games. If you are interested in me, we have to do this now. My whole family is fighting over the time I have left. We can’t date or mess around. If you want me, we do this, but you’ll have to be sure. It’ll be fucking hard. I’ll get sick. You’ll see me cry. I’ll be in pain. I’ll throw up and moan and whinge. I’ll get snappy. Some days I won’t be able to do anything at all. There’ll be times I won’t even know what day it is because all I’ll do is sleep. I’ll let you down. I’ll do and say things that make you disappointed in me. Cancer is like that. It makes you crazy. I’ll lose my sex drive. I’ll lose my energy. I’ll lose my will to live. And then, some day, somehow, six months or so from now . . . Iamgoing to die.”

* * *

They had sex once that evening, right there on the sofa. She told him she wanted to be with him and he asked again if she was sure. She assured him she was and he kissed her. The moment his lips touched hers, Autumn knew her decision had been the right one.

“Are you well enough for this?” she asked him.

“Yes.” He pushed her back onto the sofa, pulling her legs around his waist.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said.

“You’re reallynothurting me,” he whispered into her neck, grinding his erection provocatively against her.

“Will you tell me if I do?”

He pulled away to scold her.

“Autumn, stop it.”

From then on, she did. Their lovemaking had elements of their previous sleepy encounter and all of the urgency of their first time. They were lost in each other. Bowie’s body told Autumn a tale of relief and hope and coming home, and she let go in a way she never had before, forgetting about the way she looked, and if her appreciative moans were attractive and delicate enough, and pulling him greedily into her whenever he left her body, without any second thought or sense of shame.

He came so violently and collapsed so hard against her she worried for a second their sex had killed him.

“Bowie?” she whispered.

“That was amazing,” he said.

Afterwards, they lay wrapped in one another on the sofa. He tickled the skin of her arm with his fingers and played with the hair at the nape of her neck.

“Come and meet my family tomorrow?” he asked her sleepily.

“Tomorrow?”

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