Page 109 of We All Live Here
When she looks up he is gazing at her. “You thought I had a girlfriend.”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d hang around for long.” She raises a smile. “You’re clearly a catch.”
“A catch.” He raises his eyebrows. There is a sudden hint of a smile, and it’s the loveliest thing she’s seen for weeks, and suddenly she’s talking, the words spilling out of her.
“Jensen, I’m so, so sorry. I just…I fucked everything up. I was still so messed up about Dan and Marja and a million other things and I was panicking about money and I just—I just didn’t think things through properly. I know it was a hideous, hideous thing to even think of doing. I just—I’m not that person. I can see everything that was wrong with itnow—I can see it all so clearly. I just hate that you think I’m this person, and all I can tell you is I’m doing everything possible to show you I’m not. I was for a moment, obviously, but that’s not me. Not the real me. Maybe I don’t even know who the real me is right now. But I’m trying to make sure it’s someone better.”
She stutters to a halt. “Oh, God, did that make any sense?”
“Am I allowed to therapize it?”
“No.”
“Okay. Then it makes perfect sense.”
“Can you forgive me? Even a bit?”
“I can forgive most of it.” He rubs at a mark on the table. “Maybe not the reference to my ‘homely body.’ ”
“You were the one who said you had a dadbod.”
“Yeah, but the dadbod has an intimation of something sexy about it. A homely body is…” He pulls a face. “…sexless.”
“Nope. You’re wrong.”
“I’m wrong.”
“The—uh—evidence of that night would tell you that wasn’t true. And, anyway, I told you I was disguising the truth. If I was going to write about you honestly as yourself, obviously I would have said I’d spent the night with a David Gandy lookalike.”
He tilts his head. “Nice recovery.”
“Anyway. I personally like a dadbod. It’s…far sexier than a six-pack.”
“Okay, now you’ve ruined it.”
“I’m serious. I can’t think of anything worse than some man prancing around displaying his abs. It would make me feel hopelessly inadequate.”
“I don’t know why. You have a fabulous body.”
They both blush.
She gazes at his hands as they sit in silence, trying not to think abouthow those hands had felt on her, the capability of them, their reassuring strength. He looks as if he’s about to speak, then changes his mind. Both of them fall back into silence.
“Well. Thanks for letting me apologize in person,” she says, eventually. She thinks there is no point not being honest. What does she have to lose after all? “I—I just miss you being around. A lot.”
When he doesn’t speak she says, “I’m not trying to pressure you or anything. But I just needed you to know that. In case I never see you again.”
“That’s a bit dramatic.”
“Well, you could be moving to South America for all I know.”
“To get over my heartbreak?”
“Okay. Now you’re being annoying.”
He grins. He gazes into his mug. And then he looks up. “Do you want to go out Friday?”
It takes her a moment to make sure she heard him correctly. “Yes,” she says. And then, with a big smile, “Yes.” And then her smile disappears. “Oh, no. I can’t. That’s Violet’s school play. Can we do Saturday?”
