How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [115]
He woofs and jerks his head, as if to say, Come on. Following him, I wonder traitorously if a cat would ever do this. He leads me into the attic room, where Katie is curled up in a ball under her covers. “Are you all right, Katie?”
“No,” she says. “I have really, really bad cramps and I don’t know what to do.”
I stroke her forehead. “Aw, I’m so sorry. It won’t always be like this, but when it is, what you need is ibuprofen and a good hot bath.”
“Now?”
“Yeah. It’ll help.”
“I’m not going down there. You have a man in your room.”
That throws me, and for a minute I have to think about all the ramifications. “Yes, I do. I’m sorry if that upsets you. I thought you were asleep.”
“I don’t care.”
“It’s only Jonah, and he’s asleep and the door is closed. A bath will make you feel better. I’ll make sure he doesn’t come out.”
“No. It’s embarrassing.”
I wonder if I should kick him out, but that feels wrong, too.
“Well, I can’t force you, though it would really help. Hold on and I’ll get you some Advil.”
Sullenly, she flings back the covers. “I’ll take a bath,” she growls, as if she’s doing me a favor. “I feel gross anyway.”
“Good choice.” I scrub Merlin’s head. He licks my wrist. “Give your dog some extra love. He came to get me.”
When I get back to my room, an exhausted Katie sleeping upstairs, the sun is beginning to come up over the horizon. In my bed, Jonah is asleep, naked, his white shoulders flung out of the sheets, one foot sticking out at the end of the bed. Milo is asleep at the small of Jonah’s back, and when I come into the room, he stretches out one black paw and begins to purr audibly.
At the side of the bed, I pause, looking down at my sleeping lover in the soft gray light. His grizzled jaw, his tousled dark hair, his beautiful mouth. I want to bake bread to commemorate this emotion, create something beautiful just for him. Whispers of what it will be waft over me as I admire him—almonds, perhaps. Walnuts. Honey to make the crust the color of his hair.
My entire being is alive with a thrumming. With sunlight.
I press my fingers to my mouth. I am so in love. And like every woman in love through all of time, I crawl in beside him, quietly, so that I can watch him sleep. I look at his ear and the white skin on his shoulders. He has not even one freckle.
His eye is open, looking at me. At this angle I can see the crow’s feet around his eyes. There is silver in his morning beard. He blinks, closes his eye, and lets go of a breath. Blindly, he reaches for my hand, draws it across the covers to his mouth, and kisses my fingers—one, two, three—then tucks it under his chin as if it is his own hand. We both doze for a while, but it’s no good. I’m awake. I poke him. “I want to go eat breakfast.”
“Do you get up this early every day?”
“Yes! I run a bakery. The bread doesn’t bake itself.”
He sighs. “Okay, I thought you might be my soul mate, but that would mean I could sleep in.”
A zing of disappointment touches me. “Really? How late do you want to sleep?”
“Six?”
“It’s five after six.”
“Ah, good, then.” He moves over, tucks me into his body, and makes love to me one more time.
We shower together afterward, and I realize as I’m soaping his body that I am happy. “This might be one of the better moments of my life thus far.”
“Yeah? Like top five? Top ten?”
I make swirls of soap in his chest hair. “Hmmm. At the least the top twenty.”
He laughs.
I leave a note for Katie on the table, though I doubt very much she’ll be awake before we return. In the cool, bright freshness of seven a.m., we head out for Gertrude’s, an upscale breakfast spot on West Colorado Avenue. I don’t usually go there, but Jonah loves it. We have to wait just inside the door while they make a table ready, and he holds my hand. A spritely little rose he plucked from my garden is sticking out of his shirt pocket, and there is that luminosity of sex all over his skin, shining out of his eyes. I see women eyeing him, and it makes me proud and possessive.
And suddenly I am completely aware of