Read Online Having Faith by Barbara Delinsky - Free Book Online

splitting head in her hands.
    "Oh Lord. I've never, never done anything like this. I'm sorry. Sawyer."
    "It was my fault as much as yours," he snapped.
    She hunched her shoulders.
    "No need to be snippy about it."
    He rubbed a hand over his eyes and was a while in answering.
    "Sorry."
    "Are you always this charming when you wake up?"
    "I'm not feeling great. Everything from my neck up is hurting. Even my tongue doesn't feel right."
    "Maybe it overexerted itself."
    "Look who's being snippy."
    For a minute, she sat in quiet dejection. Then she shook her head--which was a mistake. Everything inside seemed to rattle. After another minute's recovery, she said, "I guess I was trying to be cute, only it didn't work." She closed her eyes and whispered, "I don't believe this." Her voice rose.
    "I don't believe I let all that happen. Let it happen. I did it. I goaded you on.
    I know I did. Why did I do that? "I've never been sexually aggressive in my life!"
    "You'd had too much to drink. We'd both had too much to drink. Neither of us was thinking clearly."
    "But to--make--love." She tripped over the words, as though the sound of them hitting the air made the fact of what they'd done so much more real.
    "Making love is the most intimate thing two people can do. But we're not lovers, you and me," she cried.
    "We're friends!"
    Sawyer winced.
    "You don't have to yell."
    "We're friends," she repeated, but more softly.
    "Some say that friends make the best lovers."
    "Or that the best of friendships are ruined when friends become lovers. I don't want that to happen, Sawyer." She swore softly.
    "I
    don't believe this. "
    "We were tipsy." "We were awful. Some of the things we said. What we did to Jack and Joanna. That was the lowest. Who are we to go on and on about them that way? To talk about the way they made love?" She buried her face in her hands and moaned.
    "I am so embarrassed."
    "We were tipsy."
    "They didn't deserve that. Do you think they're off with new lovers, talking about what we did in bed? I'd die if I knew Jack was doing that. Some things are sacred." She made a snorting sound.
    "Boy, we blew sacred, didn't we?"
    "The problem is that I know Jack and you know
    Joanna. We used to go places, the four of us. It's almost natural that we make comparisons. "
    "It's terrible! How can you condone what we did?"
    "I'm not condoning it. But we were tipsy."
    "I know we were tipsy, still what we did was awful!"
    "I know." He held his head.
    "I take that back. I don't know. Things are coming back to me, and some of them are pretty nice."
    Faith whirled on him, but the sudden movement wrenched everything inside her. For a split second she feared she was going to be sick.
    Mercifully the feeling passed.
    "I think," she said with her eyes lowered, "that I'd like something for this headache and then a cup or two of very strong coffee."
    Both ideas sounded good to Sawyer. He didn't move, though. He didn't want to do anything to anger Faith. She wasn't in the best of moods and neither was he. So he watched her walk from the bedroom with surprising grace, given that she was swathed in a bedsheet. He saw her go into the bathroom and shut the door. It seemed forever that she was in there. He began to wonder whether she was all right, but he didn't move. He simply stood by the side of the bed, holding the flowered quilt wrapped around his lower half.
    Finally the door opened and she came out. He guessed she'd thrown water on her face and brushed her hair, because she looked a little more awake. She was also wearing a robe.
    "Here," she said quietly. Keeping her eyes low-in deference to her headache rather than deference to him, he was sure--she dropped several tablets into his hand. Then she turned and, walking gingerly, headed for the kitchen.
    As soon as she'd disappeared, he took his painstaking turn in the bathroom. When he joined her in the kitchen a short time later, he was wearing the sweatshirt and jeans he'd recovered, with more than a little