Us for Life - Feltson

Chapter 3

The entire house smelled like hot grease -- smoky bacon grease. 

Tom sat up in bed, fingering his bottom lip like a just-kissed teenager in a badly directed stage play. There was someone downstairs, someone with the code to the door -- his friend who must have come back for a report on what Emma had come here for yesterday night. He'd come to try to coax the details out of Tom by bribing him with a hot breakfast. 

At least, he might have come for that. Last night, with Emma, downstairs with her arms and her mouth and her -- her plans for a baby -- it had really happened, hadn't it? Had she really been here? All the way from the UK?  Talking about -- that? It wasn't impossible that he'd dreamt the whole thing up. Was there such thing as a mid-life psychotic break? Hallucinations? Delusions?

Tom shook his head and reached for a T-shirt, something pink.

He was still washing his face, wiping the sleep from his eyes with a warm, damp washcloth as he came to the top of the stairs. "Dude?" he called down to the kitchen.

"Oh, you're up," his friend called back. "Good. I was starting to worry."

"Well, thanks, actually. I'm a bit worried myself. Last night, I think I had the craziest dream." He was in the kitchen now, still wiping his face. 

"Let me guess," his friend said. "Emma Watson was in your dream."

"Yeah, but that's hardly strange. The weird part was she said she was here to -- " Tom froze, speechless now, his hands unable to keep folding the washcloth.

There she was, wearing an apron with the image of a giant lobster on it, something his brother had sent him as a joke to remind him to stop getting so sunburnt. She was cooking a fry-up at his stove. "Good morning," she sang. "I hope you don't mind us barging in like this. He said you let him come and go as he pleases."

Tom glared at his friend who returned an amused fake frown and a shrug.

"We're just about ready to eat," she went on. "It's hard for me to tell when turkey bacon is cooked. Do you have a meat thermometre?"

Still speechless, Tom blinked hard. 

"No, sadly," his friend said.

"Glasses," Tom managed to say.

His friend unfolded a pair and set them on Tom's nose. "I'll get you some coffee, Dude," he said. "And then I've got to go."

"Go?" Tom stammered.

He dropped a hand on Tom's shoulder. "Yes, I just came to check on you. And you seem -- well, not fine at all but -- anyway, I'm not staying. Give my plate to the dog, Emma. That'll be sure to win her over."

"Oh," she said, wiping her hands on the apron and stepping forward with a formal politeness completely inappropriate for Tom's kitchen. "Well, thank you for your company this morning. I'm sorry you can't stay."

She was piling eggs and bacon onto plates as the front door closed, leaving them alone. "Sit," she said, grinding pepper over everything.

Helpless, he obeyed, shifting onto a stool at the counter. "Thanks," he said.

She set his plate in front of him, and waited long enough to tilt her head, sigh, and lift his fork. "Do you need me to feed you, Tom? Are you not alright?"

"No, actually," he said. "You're doing my head in, Watson. As it was, I couldn't sleep until the sun started to come up. And now you're back and you're..." He couldn't finish. He didn't have to.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Honestly, I didn't mean to say anything about this -- this plan of mine to you. I just wanted to spend some time quietly observing you, us. You know -- trying it on without telling you what I was thinking until I was sure. But then, on the beach -- you just seemed to know what I meant without me saying a word."

"Trying it on," he repeated. "And that's what you're doing in my kitchen this morning? That's the meaning of this?" He snatched her by the string of the apron and pulled her between his knees, close enough to untie the knot, lifting the apron off her neck and tossing it onto the counter behind her. "That's why you're cooking for us, wearing this ridiculous thing? Trying it on?"

Her face flushed red. "If you want to send me away, just -- "

"I don't want to send you away," he said. "I never want to send you away. I'm not a fifteen-year-old who doesn't appreciate how special you are anymore. That much should be obvious. Right?" Her eyes were turned down, looking at her feet tucked beneath his stool. He ducked his head to bring his face into her field of vision. "Right?"

She let out a noisy breath, nodding as he took her hand. 

"The thing is, Em, I'm still not sure exactly what you're asking. You're not here acting like someone in search of a sperm donor with an eye colour you find pretty. You're here this morning acting like -- like an old-fashioned wife. And we haven't talked about anything like that. So tell me. What are you asking of me?"

She shook her hair out of her face and closed her fist around his hand. "I'm not sure, Tom. If it's too much, I'm sorry. Before I ask you for anything, can I just have a little more of your time? A day -- today? This is the most important decision I've ever considered and I need to be careful. I need to be deliberate, and sure."

He cleared his throat and tugged his hand out of hers. "I did nothing but think all night. And in that time, I came to be sure of a few things."

"What? Like keeping our money separate?"

He cringed. "Well -- well, yes but that's the least of it. The first and the most important issue is, if I -- make any contributions to a baby, let's say, I'm going to be a father to that child. I'm not sure what that could mean, but I won't just disappear as soon as you fall pregnant. I can't do that. If you don't want me in your life forever, then don't ask me to do this."

Emma raised her hands, holding his face between them. "You are in my life forever. I know it won't be the same between us if there's a child, but this is WHY I thought of you, Tom. You have always been with me, and I believe you always will be."

He turned his head, bringing his face out from between her hands. He plucked his glasses off his face and rubbed his eyes. "That's the other thing I'm sure of, last of all. I hate it, but I'm sure of it."

She took a half-step back. "What?"

He pulled her back, his arms around her waist, his forehead bowed into her shoulder. Her arms encircled him in return, her hands pressed flat against his back. Holding her like this was still unreal even as he felt her warmth and softness between his arms. He raised his head from her shoulder and brushed a kiss along her jaw. She shivered beneath his breath and turned her head to kiss his mouth, gently and sweetly.

When he pulled away, he could hardly speak, but he had to. "We can't come back from this, Emma," he said. "After last night and especially now, if we spend today going over all of this and you decide you don't really want me, we can't just go back to being friends, or even to being a tabloid headline. I won't be able to be near you anymore. It'd ruin me. You'll have to go find your baby's father in someone else, and me -- I'll just go."

She closed her arms around his neck, pulling his face into her shoulder again. "It's too late to go back, is it?" she said. "Then I suppose we've nothing to lose in going forward, in trying it on for the rest of the day. Can I have that, Tom? Can I have your day?"

He sighed, inhaling the smell of her. It was so real, but still...

"I would be honoured to give you my day," he said.

She seemed to snap to attention. "Good!" she chirped. "Then let's get it started by eating this ghastly breakfast before it congeals."