Read Online Splinters of Light by Rachael Herron - Free Book Online Page B

from October to March every year. Harrison, for all his admirable qualities (which were many), tended to go for women who were quantifiably less intelligent than he was. They never stuck, and after the first three or four, Nora had given up on trying to be friends with the women who shot daggerlike looks at her when she let herself into Harrison’s kitchen to drop off his favorite oatmeal–peanut butter cookies.
    That night, his third glass of wine in his hand, Harrison had looked up from her pages, his dark eyes taking a moment to refocus on her. “Do you really feel like this?”
    Nora had laughed lightly. “Sometimes. Do you think it’s too much?”
    “No.”
    “Do you think my readers will hate me? They think of me as light and funny. I talk about bathroom tiles and the way light falls on candles from the dollar store. I don’t talk about . . .”
Sex. Longing.
    Harrison twisted sideways on the iron porch chair so he could drop the pages onto the small table that sat between them. Then he faced his own house, his dark hair longer over his ears than he usually kept it. Silver showed at his temples, and Nora was startled by how much she wanted to touch it. The planes of his head and jaw were dear and familiar—she’d known him how many years now? They’d moved into the house when Ellie was one. Fifteen years now.
    “It’s a good piece,” he said. “I can’t
believe
you thought about a Craigslist hookup, though.”
    It felt as if he’d knocked the wind out of her. “And that’s what everyone’s going to say. Damn it. I knew I couldn’t send it in.”
    “No one else will say it,” he said in a low voice.
    “I can write something else, quickly. I can send it in the morning. Benjamin won’t care if it’s a few hours late . . .” She shuffled the pages, squaring the edges.
    Harrison turned suddenly. His fingers laced around her wrist, and instead of light friendliness, the kind that was always between them when they were together, she felt an electric tension. “You placed a casual encounters
ad
.”
    “Well, it’s not like it was a newspaper . . .” Nora wanted to pull her arm back and she wanted him to touch her wrist just like that, forever. She wanted to shut her eyes, but she couldn’t look away from his.
    “When . . .” He trailed off, a muscle jumping in his jaw in what looked like frustration.
    “When what?”
    He jerked his chin at his house. “When I was right
there
.”
    There was a thick silence, one Nora knew she couldn’t fill with a laugh or a joke. She could only stare at him. “You don’t . . .”
    Harrison said, “I do.”
    “You don’t like smart women.”
    He shook his head. “Not true. Sherry was a paleontologist.”
    “That’s right.” She’d forgotten about Sherry with the voice that sounded like a hive of bees, a glum buzz, Sherry who’d understood evolution and dinosaurs but who’d entrusted her every decision to the stars. “She was an astrologist, too, right? Why did you like her?”
    “I liked her—” Harrison’s voice was abrupt and low. “I liked them because you always said you were too busy.”
    For what? For him?
She
had
been too busy to date, mostly. Besides, she’d always had Harrison, a glass of wine, and that incredible, wide grin waiting for her at the end of most of her days. Nora felt heat at the base of her spine. She spoke her next words slowly. “Would it be just this once?”
    He didn’t answer her. “Is that what you want?”
    She didn’t know. Maybe. No. “Yes.”
    “Then, yeah.”
    They were upstairs in her bedroom before she could even take another full breath. Then she was naked and so was he, and he was perfect, in every way, and then he was inside her, and the best part was that he’d stayed the night. No, the worst part was that he’d stayed the night. That he’d slept next to her, his head on the pillow next to the bowl of beach glass she kept on her nightstand, glass she and Ellie had picked up