“No, I’m fine,” she called over her shoulder. “I just had a moment, that’s all.”

“Good.” I swept an arm under her legs and pulled her up into my arms. “Because I’m pretty awake. But I’ve got an idea of how to tire myself out.”

She dropped the clothes she’d picked up to clutch my shoulders, and her pretty little mouth formed a circle. That was all it took. No matter that there were hundreds of ­people downstairs, and we were in my parents’ house. I wanted her as badly as I ever had.

I walked her toward the bed and she said, “Garrick! The ­people downstairs.”

“Won’t hear a thing unless you plan on screaming my name. In which case, it might be worth it.”

She swatted my shoulder, and I deposited her on the bed.

“What if your mother comes upstairs?”

I knelt at the foot of the bed and slipped off her shoes.

“Then we’ll have another awkward occurrence to add to our repertoire.”

“That’s not even remotely funny, Garrick.”

I kissed the inside of her knee and said, “Do you see me laughing?”

She swallowed, and her eyes followed my hands as I reached for her. Her cotton dress was stretchy, and I slipped the straps down over her shoulders easily. It fell around her waist, revealing more skin to me. She wore a lacy blue bra that looked sweet and innocent, and damn if that kind of thing didn’t always do me in.

“Do you have any idea how hot it is to think of having you here in my old room?” She shook her head, but her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and I think she knew exactly what I meant. “It reminds me of last year.” How much it had fucked with my brain to think of her as a student, and how very little it did to deter my feelings for her. If anything, I wanted her more. “Every class I was so tempted to ask you to stay after everyone left. Even though your friends were outside and anyone could have walked in, all I wanted to do was touch you. Taste you.”

Her eyes were large and dark, and her breath hitched. I kissed the side of her knee again and ran my hands up her thighs to the hem of her dress.

She asked, “Why didn’t you?”

“Because that wouldn’t have been fair of me. So I had to settle for my imagination.”

Thank God I didn’t have to do that anymore.

“And what did you imagine?”

I leaned over her and laid her back against the bed. Her arms stretched out across the mattress, and she looked up at me with wide, apprehensive eyes. It reminded me so much of the night we met, and all my blood rushed south so quickly that black spots dotted my vision.

I slipped my hands under her dress and said, “I imagined a lot of things. I thought about having you against the wall back behind the curtains.” She closed her eyes and fisted the blankets in her hands. “I saw you in that skirt you wore the first day of school with your legs around my waist.”

I hooked my fingers around her underwear and slid them down her gorgeous legs. “I wanted you in every seat in the audience.” She made a low noise and tried to sit up, but I braced a hand on her stomach to hold her in place. “I wanted you in every seat so that you wouldn’t be able to sit anywhere in that theatre without thinking about me.”

“That was already true.”

I smiled. “Good to know.”

She laid both of her hands over mine on her stomach, and held my hand tighter against her for a second. She said, her voice small and quiet, “I love you so much.”

I stood and leaned over her so that I could see her face. She blinked a few times, and I couldn’t read her expression. It was sad and happy and confusing, and she had never had this kind of response in bed before.

I didn’t know what was going on, but I could feel the panic rising under my skin, at the back of my throat, in the lining of my lungs.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

She shook her head until her expression cleared, and then smiled. “Yeah . . . just thinking about the future.”

My heart jerked in my chest, and I tried to explain away the sadness and the fear I saw in her eyes. They didn’t have to mean she was having doubts. They could mean a thousand other things. But for the life of me, I couldn’t conjure one more possibility.

I dropped a kiss on her lips and said, “I did promise you forever. That’s a lot of future.”

She nodded, and then after a too long moment she smiled. “I’m sorry. But do you think we can . . . just go to sleep? I’m sorry. I know I said I was fine, but I’m feeling a little off after all.”

I took a deep breath and tried not to read too much into this. She’d been sick. It didn’t have to mean anything else. But damn it, now I couldn’t think about anything else.

As calmly as I could I brushed her hair back and kissed her forehead. “Of course. Can I get you something? Water? Medicine?”

She swallowed and shook her head. “I think . . . I think I just need some sleep.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

I folded down the blankets, and she slid between the sheets, still only half covered by her dress. I took another deep breath that did absolutely nothing to relieve the pressure in my jeans or the pressure in my head.

I kissed her cheek one more time.

“I love you,” I said, slowly, deliberately. I needed her to hear that through whatever noise might be happening in her head. “Get some sleep. I’m just going to go take a quick shower.”

“I’m sorry,” she called again as I walked away.

“No need to be sorry, love.”

Unless she was saying sorry for something else, something she hadn’t said.

“I’ll make it up to you,” she said.

“Also not necessary, though I do like the sound of that.”

She pulled the blankets up to her neck, settling back on the pillow. I switched off the lights and said, “Good night, Bliss.”

Then I ended our roller coaster of a day with an ice-­cold shower and too many worries to count.

“WAIT, WAIT! JUST one more!”

“Bliss, there are children waiting.”

And they probably hated us, but I was just so glad to see her smiling that I didn’t care.

“Yeah, well, they all just jumped on the bandwagon. Most of them weren’t alive when I read Harry Potter for the first time.”

I turned to the Canadian family behind me and said, “I’m so sorry. This is the last one, I promise.” Then I took one more picture of Bliss pretending to push the luggage cart through the wall at the Platform 9¾ monument at King’s Cross Station.

A little boy stuck his tongue out at Bliss as we left. I pulled her away before she could follow suit.

“That kid better watch it. I’m totally a Slytherin.”

I shook my head, smiling.

“Love, I’m going to need you to pull back on the crazy a bit.”

“You’re right. Realistically, I’m a Ravenclaw.”

I laughed. Even when I didn’t quite get her, I loved her. Probably because I didn’t get her. She knew who she was, and she didn’t ever compromise that. Not even for me.

I chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’m just imagining you with kids someday. You’ll probably end up fighting them to play with the toys.”

I didn’t notice that she’d stopped walking until I went to round the corner, and she wasn’t beside me. I turned and she was still standing a few feet back.

“I was joking, love.”

She crossed her arms over her middle and shrugged. “I know that.”

“Then why do you look so freaked out?”

“I just didn’t realize you thought about stuff like that.”

Oh God. The last thing I needed on this already stressful trip was to scare her off with talk of kids, not when she seemed mostly back to normal today. I could be really thick sometimes.

I laid my arm across her shoulders and said, “Whatever thoughts are unspooling in your mind, stop them. I’ve still got a lot to show you, and I was only having a laugh.”

“Right, where to next?”

“Well, we’ve seen the Globe.”

I felt her relax beside me as we walked, and she said, “You mean the replica of the Globe.”

“Close enough. We’ve done Big Ben, the Parliament, the Tower. What about the Eye?” I asked.

“Is that the giant Ferris wheel thing?” I nodded. “Yes, let’s do that!”

Just spending the day with Bliss and introducing her to my old city was enough to erase some of the messiness of last night, to erase some of my worries. She really must have just needed sleep because this morning, she was as perfect as ever.

“Can we stop by a store first?” she asked. “A pharmacy? I just wanted to get something in case I start feeling sick again.”

“Of course,” I kissed her temple, and we headed for the tube that would take us to the other side of the city.

10

Bliss

WE STOPPED AT a small store that was just a little bigger than a convenience store. It had food and toiletries and a random assortment of items, but the pharmacy in back was my concern.

“Would you mind grabbing me a drink?” I asked. “I’m going to run to the bathroom, grab that medicine, and I’ll meet you back up here.”

I didn’t wait for Garrick to agree before I turned to walk away. I headed for the pharmacy at a stroll, glancing behind me to see when he was no longer looking. When he turned, I picked up the pace and began scouring the shelves for pregnancy tests. It took me three tries to find the right aisle, and then all I could do was just stare at the display.

Why did there have to be so many?

There were brand names and off brands, digital and sticks and cups, one lines and two lines and plus signs and the signs of the apocalypse.