Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
“Ah. Well.” He shrugged. “We’ll play it safe until we get tested, again. We’re not the first people to make a mistake.”
I put my arms around him and stood on my tiptoes to kiss him. “That was a fantastic mistake, by the way.”
“It really was. I don’t know why we don’t do that more often,” he said. “No, I do. The small tyrant who mercilessly directs our days and nights rarely allows it.”
“Please tell me it gets better.” I was trying to make a joke, but I sounded desperate and unhinged when I laughed.
He smiled at me. “It does. You’ll find it easier when we’re back in New York.”
It had been easy enough to forget our lives in New York, the ones that had been put on hold since I’d come to Iceland to be with him. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t push him to go home, even if he never wanted to leave. Was going back a real possibility?
“Do you think we will go back to New York?” I opened a drawer to get a knife for my impending toast.
He frowned. “Of course we will.”
“I didn’t know. I was just kind of…rolling with things.” I faced him and tapped my fingers on the countertop. “I was willing to stay here, if you had to.”
He gave me a small, grateful smile. When he spoke, he choked up a little. “I could never ask you to abandon your life, darling.”
“I know. But you didn’t ask.”
He opened his arms, and I stepped into them gladly. And he didn’t feel like a stranger to me, anymore.
* * * *
Despite the mild jet lag and the weird effect of having a sun that never fully set, I managed to get a few hours of sleep. The downside was that, when I woke, I had no idea what time it was, because it was still freaking light out. I slapped the nightstand futilely until my fingers hit my phone. It was four-thirty in the morning, and Neil wasn’t in bed with me.
I tried to not feel immediate dread, or think of all the ways he could have hurt himself. I pulled on the robe that matched my slinky satin nightgown, the blue Carine Gilson he’d given to me in this very room the night he’d proposed. I tied the sash at my waist as I headed down the stairs, to the second floor. I checked in on Olivia, expecting to find Neil with her, but she was still asleep, her soft baby snores releasing with every fall of her chubby tummy.
“I’m in here, Sophie,” I heard from down the hall. I wondered if he’d been listening for me, if he’d known I would come looking. I closed Olivia’s door quietly and padded down to the study. I hadn’t noticed that the light was on. Inside, Neil sat at an iMac, the large screen illuminating the room almost as much as the small desk lamp did.
“Are you working?” I asked, my throat raw, probably from sleeping with my mouth open.
He looked up at me over the tops of the glasses he wore when he didn’t have his contacts in. “Hmm? No. I just couldn’t sleep. Someone was doing an incredible amount of snoring up there.”
“Shut up.” I laughed. I peered over his shoulder. On the screen was a picture of Emma. A younger Emma, with a pink streak in her hair, but unmistakably her.
My expression must have given away the stab of alarm I felt, because he said quietly, “I’m just revisiting some memories. I’m not saying goodbye, or anything of the sort.”
“I didn’t think—” I began, but I didn’t finish. Because I had thought, for a moment, that he was doing that.
“I’ve had a very difficult time even thinking of her lately,” he went on. “Or I was having. We were told in grief counseling that, one day, we would be able to look at pictures of our lost loved ones and remember the good times, rather than the bad.”
“That’s the same thing Rudy told you,” I reminded him. It was a nice sentiment, but just that. It had only been six months since Emma’s death. If Neil believed he was already through his grief, he was fooling himself.
I had to test it. “Is today that day?”
He scrolled to another photo, Emma proudly beaming at the camera while cuddling a bunny. She had on a shirt that read something in Icelandic, but I guessed from the large red no sign over it that it probably had something to do with protesting animal testing. Neil let out a long, weary sigh. “No. It’s not today. I just needed to see her.”
“Do you mind if I stay?” I didn’t know how I would feel if he sent me away. Nervous, for sure, but a time was going to have to come that I could trust him. I could let that be tonight.