Her hand stilled in his hair, and then she took a step back. Damn, he thought, his stomach sinking.

But when he looked up at her, he was grateful she’d brought his glasses, grateful he could see the fullness of her expression: her hands on her hips, a look on her face that was deliberately, comically determined.

“As a matter of fact,” she said, giving him that big, break-of-day smile. “I did.”

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

“So what you’re saying is,” Deepa said, her chin resting in one hand, a lipstick-printed glass of wine held loosely in the other, “you’re trading your sexual favors for bathroom fixtures.”

Nora laughed and blushed, taking a sip from her own glass and blinking away from the screen of her laptop, which she’d set up on a stack of cookbooks on her kitchen counter. It was the first time in almost two weeks she and Dee had been able to talk outside of work, and while Nora hadn’t necessarily planned to get into what had been going on with Will these last couple weeks, she also knew that Dee could read her so well, even through a computer screen. This conversation had been a long time coming, and before Nora had even finished her practiced, prudent explanation of her arrangement with Will, Dee had shouted, “I knew it!” in laughing victory.

“You’re making it sound awful,” Nora finally said, setting down her wine and moving toward the stove, stirring gently at the sauce she had heating.

And it is the opposite of awful, she silently added, staring down at the pot and blinking away images that rose up before her with the steam: Will above and beneath her in her bed; Will on his knees in her shower; Will—her cheeks flamed at the thought of this one—behind her while her hands clutched at the counter of the bathroom sink. Everything so brand-new.

Four times, he’d come over: always late at night, always leaving before dawn, never once since that first time getting so close to breaking the boundary she was still keeping for this. So far, in addition to the towel and shower curtain rods, they’d put in new faucets for her sink and tub, and replaced the old, speckled-at-the-edges mirror that Nora was pretty sure was original to this place. Look how clearly you can see yourself in this new one, Will had said that night from behind her, moving her hair to the side. Look, he’d repeated, again and again, as he’d touched her.

Stubborn image, that one.

“I think tonight we’re putting in a new light,” she said, all anticipation. By now she was used to being up late like this, waiting for him. She stirred once more, composing herself before turning back to the screen.

“Your face looks like a tomato,” Dee said.

“I’m cooking.”

Dee narrowed her eyes but relented. “We’ll come back to this.”