The Last Days of Summer

The day of my father’s funeral was the day I began writing my first book – a new story for a changed world.

From the notebooks of Nathaniel Drury

This time, when I arrived at the station, Edward was waiting for me, despite the ungodly hour, his arms folded tight across his chest as he leaned against the window of WHSmith. The Caledonian Sleeper had whisked me back from Scotland without me ever reaching Perth, and deposited me back in Chester before seven a.m. But I couldn’t shake the thought that, for all I’d rushed straight back, shivering the whole way on the sleeper train, it was still the next day. Nathaniel had been dead since yesterday, and I was only just getting there.

Nathaniel had been dead. Was dead. Wouldn’t ever be alive again. How could that be a truth? How could I have not been there for his last moments?

And I’d spent my last minutes with him hiding in the shadows, watching him argue with Isabelle, because I’d been too ashamed of what I’d been doing in the attic with Edward. I’d missed my chance to have one last talk, one last hug, one last second with him.

Nothing about this day was right, least of all the empty feeling inside me that threatened to consume every part of me.

I lugged my case down the last few stairs before Edward spotted me and lurched forward to assist, in that way of his. Too long being Nathaniel’s assistant, I supposed. Even if that was never all he was. Even if he’d never be that again.

It was crazy to think that less than a week ago he was taking this same suitcase up the stairs to the Yellow Room. That so much could change in so little time.

“Hi.” He took the handle from me and set the suitcase straight on the concourse. He lifted one hand, as if he were about to touch me, brush my hair out of my eyes, something. Anything. I held my breath, but he stopped, busying himself with figuring out the pull-along handle on the case instead. “Was the journey okay?”

“Fine,” I lied. Four hours up to Glasgow, two hours stuck in the station waiting for the train back home after his call, then eight hideous hours back again on the misleadingly named Caledonian Sleeper. “Thanks for coming to get me.” My voice was dry and cracked after the long train ride, after crying all night, after not sleeping and not speaking to anyone. Edward didn’t comment on it, although he must have noticed. Edward, I’d decided after reading his notes, noticed everything. Especially the things we wished he wouldn’t.

Just ten hours since he called me. Less than a day since my grandfather died. Less than an hour before I had to face my entire family, again.

And only two days since I almost slept with the guy wheeling my suitcase out of the station. But if he wasn’t going to mention it, neither was I.

Edward loaded my suitcase into the boot and held the passenger door open for me, when I just stood staring at it. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

I nodded, finding it easier to lie without words. Of course I wasn’t okay. Nathaniel was gone, and no amount of storytelling or rewriting or even wishing in a fairy ring could change that.

He shut the door behind me once I was seated, then moved around to his own side. As his door shut, the car seemed to close in on me, a metal box with no escape, and I opened the window for some much needed air.

“What…what happened, exactly?” I asked, and Edward’s hand fell away from the ignition without starting the engine. “I couldn’t… The phone line wasn’t very clear.”

“I know,” he said. “And I didn’t want to tell you everything over the phone. It can wait, you know, until we get back to the house. You don’t need to rush this.”

“Nathaniel’s not going anywhere.” The joke came out cracked, just like my voice, and I choked back a sob.

“It was a heart attack,” he said, quietly. “Quick and sudden. Nothing anybody could have done.”

Even if I’d been there. Which I wasn’t. Because I’d run away again, even after Nathaniel told me that Rosewood was home. How could I have left? How could I have not been there when it happened?

“Let’s get you home,” he said, and turned the key. “I have to warn you, though… It’s all…a bit tense back at the house.”

“I assume it would be.” I stared out at the familiar sights of Chester running past the windows. It seemed like months I’d been away, not less than a day.

“Yes, of course.” Edward ran a hand over his thigh before changing gear, and I wondered what had him so nervous – my arrival, my family, or his continued employment.

“It’s just,” he went on, as we pulled out onto the roundabout. “It’s not necessarily the usual kind of tense. People have been reacting…oddly.”

I’d been awake for what was almost days, at this point. I was grieving. I was worried about my family. It wasn’t inexcusable for me to lose my temper, just a little. “A person’s response to grief is an individual thing,” I said. “I don’t really think it’s appropriate for you to be…”

Edward shook his head. “No. No. That’s not… Look. Never mind. You’ll see what I mean when we get there.”

That sounded ominous. I bit my lip and tried not to imagine how much worse going home to Rosewood would be this time.

The first thing I saw, as Edward pulled up outside Rosewood, was the looming shape of the marquee tents from the Golden Wedding, still occupying the south lawn. Flower displays still bloomed outside them, waiting for a celebration. There was probably still leftover food, maybe even champagne.

It felt like Rosewood didn’t know that the celebrations, the parties, were all over, now. Like the house itself was waiting for Nathaniel to appear from his study, still in his white tie and tails, pipe in mouth, demanding more brandy. As if any moment someone would announce that it was all just a joke, a publicity stunt, a hoax, a story.

Except Nathaniel never did publicity stunts, and his stories always had more truth in them than lies.

The front door to the house opened, and my Dad emerged, an apron wrapped around his waist even at seven-thirty in the morning. Comfort cooking, I knew. Whenever he didn’t know what to do, or say, Dad cooked. We ate extremely well during times of stress and turmoil, and everyone knew that a favourite dish was really Dad saying: ‘I’m here, I love you, it’ll be okay.’

With a deep breath, I pulled the handle of the car door and stepped out. As I moved towards the house, I could hear Edward opening the boot, presumably retrieving my suitcase.

“Didn’t expect to see you back so soon,” Dad said, wrapping his arms around me. “I’m so sorry, Saskia.”

I sniffed against his shoulder; he smelled like bacon. “How’s everyone else?”

Edward, passing us with my suitcase in tow, gave me a small, sad smile. “Told you so,” he said.

Once Edward had disappeared into the house, I pulled away from Dad and looked him in the eye. Time to find out what was really going on. “Crazy, how?”

As it happened, I needn’t have bothered. Dad was reluctant to go into detail and, in fact, the craziness was blatantly obvious from the moment I entered the house. I began to feel mildly guilty for yelling at Edward.

“Kia, thank God you’re here,” Isabelle said, as soon as I made it through the front door. For a brief moment, my heart filled with something other than grief, just to be wanted. To be welcomed home again. Then Isabelle went on, “You can help me,” and the feeling dissipated.

“Help with what?” I shrugged off my light jacket and Dad took it from me, escaping back to the kitchen to hang it up by the back door and, coincidentally, avoid whatever it was Isabelle wanted.

“Your grandfather’s study!” Isabelle grabbed a hold of my arm and began dragging me towards the staircase. She was, I noticed as I lurched across the hallway, not looking her usual immaculate self, which I suppose was understandable, given the circumstances. Still, it was strange, seeing my perfectly groomed grandmother with unstyled hair scraped back from her face, and a blouse that didn’t quite match her shoes.

Grief takes us all in different ways, I reminded myself, and prepared to be calm and comforting in the face of craziness.

Luckily, Edward was waiting for us halfway up the stairs, and able to spare me from a morning of doing that. “Isabelle, you know you can’t go in there,” he said, and my grandmother gave out an actual, honest to God wail. The sound caught in my chest, proof positive that nothing was the same. Nathaniel wasn’t about to appear from his study, demanding to know what the commotion was about. If the inhuman noise that came from Isabelle hadn’t called him back, nothing could.

“It’s my house!” she yelled. “Who are you to tell me where I can and cannot go? What are you still doing here, anyway? In case you hadn’t noticed, your employment has been terminated. So why don’t you just get out of my house!” The last part of this was screamed at the top of her voice, and accompanied by the throwing of the papers in her hand against the wall.

Edward stood silently still on his stair, and looked at me. Time to do something, apparently.

“Okay, then, I think we could all do with some coffee.” Possibly an Irish one, if I thought it would settle her nerves, even if it was not quite eight a.m. With one arm around her shoulder, I managed to steer Isabelle back down the few stairs we’d climbed and towards the drawing room. It was only then that I discovered we’d drawn a crowd; Greg and Ellie were standing behind us, and Dad was back in the kitchen doorway, spatula in hand. Ellie was pale, but Greg’s arms were around her waist, holding her close. I looked away. Ellie deserved that comfort, that love, and I was glad she had it. Glad, too, that Greg had found that absolution, and his place here.

As I turned, Ellie stepped forward, away from Greg and towards me. Her hand came up, as if to reach for me, and for that brief second my heart stopped. Was this it? Was this the moment she let me back into her life? I started to move towards her – until her hand dropped and she shifted back into Greg’s arms again.

I looked away. Apparently even our grief wasn’t enough to bring us back together. Ellie must be every bit as heartbroken as I was – but she had Greg to help her through it. She didn’t need me.

It took a little time to get Isabelle settled in the drawing room, but things moved quicker once Ellie and Greg came to help. Eventually, I was able to slip out without being noticed, two coffees in my hand, letting the door click shut behind me.

Edward was sitting on the stairs where we’d left him, hands clasped across his knees, staring at the closed front door. He didn’t even look up until I waved the coffee under his nose.

I settled myself onto a step a few below him and blew across the surface of my coffee to cool it. “For now. You really meant it when you said things were crazy, didn’t you.”

“I did.” He sighed, his head hanging low and his shoulders hunched. “You see what I mean, now.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.” I loved my family dearly, but they weren’t always the easiest people to live with.

It wasn’t, though. Whatever the terms of his employment, I was pretty sure Edward could walk out whenever he wanted. He’d chosen to stay, to help my family when they needed him. Even if Isabelle didn’t appreciate that, I did.

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked, looking to distract him from Isabelle’s awfulness. How Edward would know, having only just arrived back with me, I’d no idea. But he did.

“I think your mum is down at the cottage with Therese. She stayed there last night. Therese was…hysterical.”

I tried to picture it, but couldn’t. Therese was poised, funny, had a great line in biting commentary, tea and biscuits and perfect clothing. But in the twenty-six years I’d known her, I’d never seen her hysterical. But then, I’d never seen my grandmother in a mismatched outfit before, either. “Worse than Isabelle?”

“Different. More distraught than angry.” I could understand that; her brother had just died, after all. Except, surely Isabelle should be the same. Her husband was dead. And, if I was right, her last moments with him were spent in anger. Her last words were that she hated him.

Maybe that was why she was losing it, why she was focusing on getting into the study. Denial. Or delusion; a desperate wish to rewrite the ending, before it was too late.

Edward was still talking, and I made an effort to tune back in. “And Caro’s probably hiding out in the attic; she says it’s quieter up there.”

The mention of the attic should have been awkward. On any other day I’d have been thrown back into memories of our evening together, of his hands on my skin, of kissing him. But there were bigger things to think about today.

“How are Mum and Caro taking it?” It seemed absurd that it was only a day since Nathaniel died, that people were still only just reacting, that no one had thought anything through yet. Perhaps it was the distance I’d travelled that made it seem like so much longer.

“Badly,” Edward said. “Just like everyone else. Your mum… I think she’d love to just fall apart, but with everyone else acting so crazy, she’s having to hold things together. Her and Ellie, who looks absolutely drained.”

Poor Mum. Normally she got to be the flighty, dramatic, emotional one. But not today. And Ellie…she’d looked so pale, so exhausted. Like she always did after a long journey, as a child, when she suffered from travel sickness. All she probably wanted to do was lie down in a dark room and wait for everything to pass. But that wasn’t an option for either of us. Not when everything at Rosewood felt so wrong.

We sat in silence for a while, sipping our coffee, and instinctively, I rested my head against his knee. After a few moments he reached up a hand to stroke my hair.

Something inside me that had been curled tight since he called finally started to relax, just a touch. I wanted to stay there in the quiet with Edward for the rest of the day. Maybe longer. As long as it took to stop feeling so broken without Nathaniel there to mend me.

But eventually, I needed to start figuring things out. “Why is she so furious with you? Isabelle, I mean. Is it the memoirs?”

I could almost feel him sigh behind me, as if all the air had been flung out of his body. “Amongst other things. But yes, mostly that.”

“What happened?” Edward pulled his hand away from my head and, twisting on my step, I watched him put his elbows on the step behind him and lean back. His empty coffee cup was safely stored two steps further up.

“It only started this morning,” he said, staring straight ahead again. “Yesterday… When I…” He stopped, and took a breath. “I was the one who found him, you see, in his study. Which was… Well, I wouldn’t have wanted any of your family to have to do that, so I suppose it was for the best. Somehow.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, reaching up to touch his knee. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask how Edward was in all this. After all, he’d probably spent more time with Nathaniel than the rest of us combined over the last year.

“He hadn’t come down, you see. To say goodbye to you, I mean. I checked his room and he wasn’t there, so I figured he was working. I left him to it until dinner time, but when I let myself in…”

“He hadn’t been down at all?” Edward shook his head, and my head buzzed with the confirmation of what I’d already suspected. I’d been the last person to see him, even if he hadn’t seen me. And I was probably the only person who knew about the row between him and Isabelle, that last night.

God, if I felt this dreadful from having hidden from him, wasted my last chance to spend time with him, how bad must Isabelle feel? No wonder she was losing it.

“He was lying there, collapsed over his desk. He still…he was still wearing his white jacket from the party.” Edward swallowed so hard I could see his Adam’s apple bob. “Anyway, what with the doctor coming and having to tell everybody… Isabelle was just very quiet, even when they took him…when they took the body away. We fed her some brandy and put her to bed, then I called you…”

“Why did you call?” I asked, thinking aloud. “I mean, why not my parents, or something?”

“Therese asked me to,” Edward said with a shrug. “Before she suddenly lost it and insisted on leaving Rosewood. Your mum went to look after her.”

“And everyone else had somebody else to look after too,” I finished. Of course they did. Greg would have been taking care of Ellie, just the way he was supposed to. Mum and Dad had each other, and Caro. Even Isabelle had Therese…except, Therese hadn’t been here, had she? She’d gone back to the cottage, taking Mum with her, leaving Ellie and Greg to deal with Isabelle and Dad to look after Caro. Why would Therese insist on leaving when things were so crazy? Surely she’d want to be with the family?

I’d only been back at Rosewood an hour, and already everything felt wrong. And it wasn’t just the lack of Nathaniel’s booming voice in the hallways.

“Anyway, so I called you, and then we all sat up drinking whisky until far too late, and I slept very badly and when I woke up this morning and it still didn’t seem real, Isabelle was clawing at the locked study door and demanding I give her the key.”

“Which you didn’t,” I guessed, and Edward nodded. “Why not?” Surely it wasn’t too much for her to ask – to see where her husband had spent his last moments. The room where he spent most of his time, in fact. The study, more than anywhere else at Rosewood, simply was Nathaniel. Of course Isabelle would want to go there.

Edward sighed heavily, something I suspected might become a bit of a theme. “Because he made me promise I wouldn’t.”

Under the circumstances, ‘he’ could only mean Nathaniel. And unless Nathaniel was issuing orders from beyond the grave… “He knew he was going to die?” My voice came out shaky and small, and Edward reached out again to touch my hair.

“He suspected, I think. It wasn’t…there wasn’t any diagnosis, no warnings from doctors, as far as I’m aware. I think he just knew he might not make it to the end of this project. So, one night, a few months before the Golden Wedding, he got me buzzed on his best scotch and made me promise that, if he died before the memoirs were published, I’d lock his study door and keep it that way until his lawyer told us to open it.” He pulled a face. “His lawyer, apparently, has more specific instructions and, more importantly, doesn’t have to deal with your grandmother right now.”

“What did he think she was going to do? And why?” Because, while Isabelle wasn’t always the sanest of people, I hadn’t really pegged her as the ‘burn down my dead husband’s office’ type or anything. But then I remembered her screaming at him in the hallway the night he died, howling about him telling secrets he’d promised to keep… Maybe she would. Maybe she’d destroy everything to stop the memoirs being published. Nathaniel obviously thought it was a possibility.

“Who knows? Nathaniel certainly wouldn’t say.” Edward looked down at the rapidly cooling coffee in my cup. “Are you going to drink that?” I handed it up to him and he swallowed it down, before putting my cup to join his on the higher step. “I imagine that there’s something in there – no idea what, mind – that Isabelle wouldn’t want included in the memoirs, and he didn’t want her finding and destroying it.” I didn’t have to imagine. I knew it, deep in my bones. Somewhere in Nathaniel’s study was a secret that Isabelle didn’t want getting out.

“But what does it matter now? He’s dead, after all.” I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. I hadn’t said it out loud before, I realised. “There won’t be any memoirs.”

With a sudden movement, he was on his feet, empty coffee cups in hand. “Come on,” he said, pulling me up. “It must be nearly time for breakfast. Let’s go find your mum and Therese.”

The path down to Therese’s cottage was littered with reminders of the party that had just been. While the obvious detritus – bottles, plates and so on – had been cleared away by the team Isabelle hired, there were still plenty of things that the family obviously hadn’t got around to before…just, before. Looking at the flowers, tables, and chairs, it felt like time had stopped. That the timeless bubble of Rosewood had frozen, even in the early morning sun, pausing everything around us while we caught up with the idea that Nathaniel was gone. That the heart of the house had stopped beating.

We crossed from the main path to the gravel entrance to Therese’s front garden, roses around the cottage door blooming pink and warm and welcoming.

“She’ll be glad to see you,” Edward murmured as I knocked on the wooden front door, and I assumed he meant Therese. Until my mother answered the door.

“Oh, thank God you’re here,” she said, ushering us both into the cottage. Another welcome home I’d missed the first time, but I knew better this time. Mum, like everyone else, wanted me here to do a job. A job I wasn’t sure I’d ever signed up for. “I’ll leave you to it, and go make sure everything’s ready for breakfast.”

“I definitely smelled bacon,” Edward said helpfully. “Which I took as a good sign.”

“Great.” Mum yanked her cardigan from the rack and shoved her arms into it. “You can come and help me set the table.”

“Ignore my mother,” Mum said, waving a hand. “The rest of us do. Come on.” She looked over at me. “Kia, Therese is in the sitting room. Do try and get her to come up for breakfast, won’t you?” She paused and then, unexpectedly, she folded me into her arms. “Oh, Kia. He loved you so much, you know.” She sniffed, and I realised my cheek was damp with her tears.

She pulled back, and wiped her eyes. Then, with a kiss on the cheek for me, she dragged Edward back into the cold morning air and left me alone with my great-aunt.

“Therese?” I let myself into the sitting room, and found her sitting in a hard-backed armchair beside the window, looking out at the flowers. Even though it was August she was wrapped up in a thick, woolly cardigan and had her slippers on. For the first time ever that I’d seen, she had no make-up on, and her clothes looked shapeless and thoughtless under her cardigan – no sign of her usual nipped-in waist and fifties’ style.

She looked old, I realised. Or at least, older than she had when I’d left, the previous day.

Therese looked up as I came in, and gave me a watery smile. “Kia, darling. So lovely to see you again, even under such tragic circumstances.”

She didn’t seem hysterical, or losing it like Isabelle had. Therese just seemed incredibly sad. Like all the life and spirit had flown out of her with her brother’s death.

I slid into the chair opposite her, displacing a number of tiny throw cushions. “Mum wanted me to bring you up to the house for breakfast.” Like you do every time Dad’s making a fry-up, I thought but didn’t add. Clearly there was something going on here, too – and I wasn’t sure it was just grief. Not after everything I’d seen up at the house.

Therese shook her head slowly from side to side. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, dear,” she said, her voice wobbling. “After all…better to wait until my position here is clear, I think.”

“Your position?” I asked, because I’d had a very long couple of days and really didn’t have the energy to try and riddle it out for myself.

“Of course.” Therese turned her attention to the landscape outside the window again. “I came here as my brother’s guest, after all. And with Nathaniel gone…”

Which was all a little too much destitute Victorian widow for me. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Isabelle’s not going to throw you out! You’re part of the family.”

“Your family, certainly.” Therese sighed again. “But Isabelle never really wanted me here, you know.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” I said, despite having a suspicion it probably was. Still, Isabelle might roll her eyes when Nathaniel and Therese were sharing some sort of secret joke or memory, and the two women did have a tendency to snipe at each other, or make comments behind the other’s backs. But that wasn’t the same as throwing someone out of their home. “Has she said something? Did something happen?”

“Not yet. But she will,” Therese said, ominously. “I’ve known her for more than fifty years, remember. I know that woman. I know what she’ll do.”

How had Rosewood changed so dramatically in just a day? Nathaniel had been gone for twenty-four hours, and already we were falling apart. And somehow, it seemed to be my job to pull us back together again.

“Well, she hasn’t done any of it yet,” I said, leaning over to help her up from her chair. “And besides, she’s far more likely to toss Edward out on his ear than you, particularly today.”

Time to push my advantage. “Dad’s making full English for everyone. There’s probably black pudding.”

Breakfast was a stilted affair, during which we all took the time to savour the sausages, rather than actually talking about anything. It wasn’t until we were clearing up that Mum leant over to me and said, “Pat’s coming this afternoon, to read the will. Wants to get things sorted as soon as possible, he said.” I wondered if Edward had helped speed things along with a begging phone call, or if Nathaniel had primed his lawyer to get in as soon as possible to try and forestall a nervous breakdown by Isabelle. He seemed to have predicted the chaos that had descended after his death better than anyone else.

No one lingered over coffee after breakfast. Instead, with a mug in hand, I made my way up the stairs and along to the Yellow Room, to unpack the clothes I’d so recently put back in my case.

It wasn’t much of a surprise to find Edward loitering on the landing. “Did you hear?” I asked, as I drew close. “Pat Norris will be here later today.”

Edward nodded. “One good thing, at least; that part will be over soon.” He leant against the railing that surrounded the stairs, and I rested myself against my bedroom door. Somehow it was safer talking to Edward in the communal spaces, rather than in private, I realised. “Then, if your grandmother still wants me to leave, I can do so with a clear conscience.” I frowned at the idea. Rosewood was coming apart at the seams. I couldn’t help but feel that the moment the first person left, it would start an exodus. Mum and Dad would go home to Manchester – they’d only come to stay for a couple of weeks to help with the Golden Wedding, after all. They’d take Caro with them. And Therese…would Isabelle really kick her out? Could she, even? Maybe we’d find out in the will. Ellie and Greg…they lived here now, but would they always? Surely they’d want their own place eventually. And I had to go back to Perth, to my job, my real life, sooner or later.

What if Isabelle was left alone here, rattling around an empty house, looking for echoes of her dead husband? I shuddered, just thinking about it.

And it all started with Edward leaving. Suddenly, it seemed vitally important to keep everyone there, at Rosewood, until things were mended.

Maybe it would be best for Isabelle to simply sell the house and never look back.

“I suppose there’s not much reason for you to stay,” I said, thinking about all the real-world things like friends and work and family that he must have put on hold in order to set up camp at Rosewood for eighteen months. He’d told me he’d run out on everything. Maybe he was thinking it was time for him to be going back. And who could blame him?

But Edward gave me a strange, assessing look in return and said, “Well, maybe there might be some.”

I wanted to say something, make some reference to how we’d left things between us. We’d said goodbye – quite firmly and finally. I’d hardly expected to see him again ever – let alone the next day. And yet, here we were, the awkwardness of our abortive night in the attic lying between us, and the only thing holding us together the death of my favourite person in the world.

I should say something, I knew. But instead, when I opened my mouth, I just yawned.

Edward gave me a small, half smile as I covered my mouth. “The sleeper train wasn’t so good for sleeping, then?”

I shook my head. “It was freezing. And uncomfortable. Besides…I don’t think I could have slept, wherever I was.” I’d been lucky; my seats had been at least a little way apart from the other, sleeping passengers. I hoped that no one had been kept awake by my sobbing, at least. I wrapped my arms around my middle. “I still can’t get warm.”

“You’re exhausted,” Edward said, as I yawned again. “And reality is setting in now you’re here. You need to rest.”

“I can’t. I just need another cup of coffee, and to unpack, and I’ll get back down there and deal with Isabelle, and everything.”

But Edward was already steering me through the doorway of the Yellow Room, his hand warm on my elbow. “You need to sleep. Don’t worry about the rest of them. I’ll deal with them.”

You shouldn’t have to, I wanted to say, they’re my family. But all that came out was another yawn. With gentle fingers, Edward stripped my cardigan from my shoulders, and slipped my feet from my shoes. Then he pulled back the bedcovers.

“I’ll wake you up when the lawyer arrives,” he promised, pushing down on my shoulders until I sat on the bed, and tucking my feet up under me. It was easier to go with him than to fight him, and before I could even object, I was curled up in bed with Edward tucking me in.

Not exactly how I’d imagined any potential next meeting between us where there was a bed involved.

Bending down, he kissed my forehead, staying there just a moment too long. Long enough for me to breathe in the scent of him, soak in the warmth of his lips.

“I’ll be back before lunch,” he said, and my eyes flickered open long enough to see his long, lean form moving away from the bed, towards the door.