Page 71 of Dreaming of Dawson

“Yeah. Can’t you?”

“Not really. Even before Stevie and I had to cope in just one room up here, we rented the tiniest apartment in the world while we were at college together. It was all we could afford, and it really was minuscule. I used to have to move her makeup out of the way, just so I could shave.”

“Every day?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you have a beard now?” I ask, reaching up and touching his jaw with the tips of my fingers. He sucks in a sharp breath, although I don’t pull my hand away like I did before.

“No. This is a more recent thing. The point is, I don’t believe that not having enough space is a reason not to spend as much time as possible with the person you claim to love.”

“Neither do I,” I say, letting my hand fall into my lap. “But back then, when we were talking it through, his words made more sense.”

“Okay,” he says, glancing down at my hand, and then twisting in his seat slightly, so his knee touches my leg, before he takes my hand in his, his thumb grazing across my knuckles, and I feel his fingers caress the back of my neck, just a little more firmly. My stomach lurches, and my heart skips a beat, my body warming to this multitude of touches. I should tell him to stop, shouldn’t I? Except I can’t… I don’t want him to. I want him to keep doing this. This and so much more. “Did you find anywhere?” he asks, distracting me.

“Sorry?”

“Did you find anywhere to live?”

“Oh. Yes, we did. It took a couple of months, but we found the most amazing apartment, with two bedrooms and a beautiful open-plan living space.” I glance around. “Actually, it was a little like this, but without the balcony. It was further fromthe office than James’s apartment, but that didn’t matter, and the moment we walked in the door, I fell in love with it.”

“But he hated it?” he says, guessing at the potential pitfalls.

“No. He liked it too. Maybe not as much as I did, but he liked it. The problem was, the guy who owned it didn’t want to rent it out. He wanted to sell it.”

“Didn’t you know that before you went to view the place?”

I shake my head. “The realtor had said the guy would be open to renting, but that turned out not to be true.”

“What did you do?”

“We left again. I was so disappointed, and I think James was a little, too. Later that night, I asked him why we couldn’t buy the place. He sat me down and explained that it was four hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and that as his apartment officially still belonged to his uncle, he couldn’t sell it and hope to use the profit to buy somewhere else. That money was his uncle’s, and he reasoned it was impossible for us to do anything without a down payment. That was why we needed to rent, because we didn’t have any savings… and that’s when I told him we did.”

“You did what?”

“Have savings.”

“You mean, you did?” Dawson says and I nod my head.

“My grandmother had died when I was still at college. She was dad’s mom, and she’d left a property, which was sold, and the proceeds divided four ways. My dad and his brother got thirty percent each, and my cousin and I received the rest, split between us. My share was just shy of eighty thousand dollars.”

“And yet you still worked your way through college?”

“Yes. My parents had used my dad’s share to pay off their mortgage, and they sat me down and explained the importance of not blowing it on anything trivial, but making sure I invested it wisely. I always assumed they had a property in mind, sowhen this apartment came up, and James and I had the chance to buy it, even they agreed it was a good idea to use my savings for the down payment.”

“James didn’t have any money of his own?”

“No. Not without asking his uncle for it, and he didn’t want to do that. Besides, he earned a lot more than I did. We both knew he was the one who’d be contributing the most toward the mortgage and the bills.”

“So, what happened?”

“We looked at the figures, worked it all out, and went back to the realtor with an offer. I was afraid he might say someone else had beaten us to it, but we were in luck. The guy accepted our offer straight away, and to cut a long story short, we bought the place.”

“Were you happy?” he asks.

“We never lived there.”

Dawson frowns. “Why not?”

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