Page 57 of Love In Translation

Ed closed his eyes, then he straightened, and Rheo caught the sheen of tears in his eyes. Knowing he needed a minute—her tough father didn’t cry—she looked at her mom.

Gail cleared her throat. “Don’t tie yourself in knots about telling Paddy, Rheo. Your actions have no impact on her life,” Gail said, sounding crisp.

“What do you mean?” Rheo asked, hearing Fletch opening the kitchen door. She smiled at him before turning her attention back to her mom. Whenever he walked into the room, his steady presence calmed her, it was as if her body knew that when he was around, all was well.

“You don’t rely on her to pay your rent or your expenses, so she can’t comment. It’s your life, Rheo, not hers. Well, she shouldn’t comment, but you know she will.”

Rheo nodded. “I do.”

Gail was right: it was her career, her life, and while she wasn’t proud of letting everything fall apart, Paddy’s life wasn’t impacted by her failures.

Fletch held up a beer bottle for her, silently asking whether she wanted one. God,yes, this conversation required alcohol. She loved his thoughtfulness, and when this conversation was done, she’d step into his arms, lay her cheek on his chest and breathe in his scent. He was her emotional sanctuary and she ignored how the thought scared the shit out of her. She took the bottle, sipped, and lifted it in a silent toast to her parents.

“Now, as for you staying in Paddy’s house without her permission,” Gail told her, wincing, “I’m afraid you don’t have a leg to stand on there. She’s got a right to be annoyed about that.”

The phone jiggled as Gail panned across the inside of the van, stopping on an ugly, dark brown pottery vase sitting on a high shelf, held in place with a bungee cord. “When she kills you, we’ll put your ashes in a pretty vase and stash you next to Grandma Jean.”

In a jar, on the road, with her parents. For eternity.Awesome.

The next day, Fletch was halfway out the door for a run when he heard the study door open. Pausing the fitness app on his phone, he stepped back into the hallway as Rheo walked out of the study.

Her face dropped as she took in his running gear. “Oh, you’re going for a run,” she said, sounding disappointed.

He waggled his eyebrows. “Make me a better offer and I’ll gladly change my plans.”

If she led him up to her bedroom—the room she’d allocated him to use the first day they met was now just a storage place for his stuff—it wouldn’t be the first afternoon they’d spent in bed.

And every night, when she slid into bed beside him, warm, rosy, and lily-scented from her shower, he wanted her again. He couldn’t imaginenotwanting her.

A slightly terrifying thought for a Tuesday afternoon.

She wrinkled her nose in a way he found adorable. He also enjoyed her cloudy-with-sleep-eyes, her hum when she took her first sip of coffee in the morning, the way she always knew how far to take a conversation before it became too personal or awkward. The way she responded to him, with eagerness and trust...

She picked up her bare right foot and rubbed it behind her calf. “As much fun as that would be, do you think we could go for a walk? I need some fresh air.”

They’d been walking regularly since he first dragged her out on the trail, but it pleased him that it was Rheo who made the suggestion. Seeing that she looked tired, and her frown suggested a headache, he resisted the urge to tease her, to check her forehead to see if she had a temperature because voluntarily asking to go for a walk wasn’t something Rheo usually did.

“Sure, I’ll walk with you.”

It would mean giving up his run, but he was good with that. He could do some sit-ups and pull-ups later or do a quick HIIT workout. Being outside with her, ambling along at her slow-ass pace, was quickly becoming his second favorite Rheo-based activity.

Rheo flashed him one of those smiles that knocked the wind out of his sails. “Oh, and I just received a message from Carrie, saying she should be here next week sometime.”

“I got the same message. I offered to collect her from the airport, but she said she already had a lift to Gilmartin.”

“I hope she arrives before I leave. I haven’t seen her for ages, and it would be good to catch up.”

He was glad she and her cousin were talking again. He was not happy with the idea of her leaving. Rheo gestured to the stairs. “I’m just going to run up to change into my sneakers.”

He sat on the bottom stair and exited his exercise app. Looking around the hall, he smiled at Paddy’s photo. “I think I might be in trouble, Paddy.”

He really liked Rheo. As inlikeliked. And God, didn’t he sound like a teenager? Sure, these past few weeks spent with Rheo hadn’t been adrenaline-fueled, but they’d still been exciting, in a low-key but equally thrilling way.

His body might’ve been resting, but his heart felt like it was consistently throwing itself off a cliff. The sex they shared was intense, their conversations intellectually challenging, their silences easy.

He’d always been wary of emotional closeness, but sharing space with her seemed as natural as breathing. He could no longer avoid the obvious...he was wading through the shallow waters of a fling into the deep waters of a relationship.

And that was unacceptable, impossible. Being in a relationship could hinder his freedom to explore the world. And let’s not forget that if he didn’t stay on the shore, in the inch-deep water, he’d experience the hurt and disappointment of losing someone he’d come to enjoy and rely on. And that would be seriously shitty.

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