The One Read Free

She handed Tom his wine, skimming his fingers as she did, and sat down at the table. He stood in the doorway, filling it with his frame.
    Paton took a sip of her wine.
    ‘Come,’ she said. ‘Sit down with me.’
    He didn’t move from the doorway, hand swirling the wine in his glass, but he didn’t bring it to his lips. He swirled the wine for a few minutes before he spoke.
    ‘We’re just friends, Paton. You know that. Nothing more.’
    She put her glass gently down on the table, and smiled up at him. ‘Tom, I don’t buy that for a minute.’
    He shifted his weight, then walked over to the sink and placed the glass on the stainless steel, the meeting of the crystal and metal making a ringing, clinking sound.
    Moving back to the relative safety of the door frame, he said ‘I don’t want anything else.’
    Paton laughed quietly, stood then moved toward Tom until she faced him. She stared up at him and caught him in her gaze like a trapped animal, the steel of the situation closing in around him.
    ‘Sure you do,’ she said, ‘Or you wouldn’t be here. It’s that simple. You felt it the minute you started working here. I did too. Why do you think I kept finding things for you to do? I just wanted to see you. To have the certainty that I would keep on seeing you. At least for a time. At least until…’
    He held her gaze: defiant, scared, trapped. ‘It’s not what I want,’ he said. ‘Paton, you are not what I want.’
    She wanted him to understand that what she felt was bigger than him, so she reached for him. Placing her hands on Tom’s face alongside his mouth, tracing the line of his lips with her ring fingers, she asked: ‘But how do you know that if you aren’t even prepared to try?’
    She raised herself up on her toes and kissed him gently on his lips.
    He didn’t resist.
     

- 9 -
    Morning came with a ferocious freshness, light cutting its way through bamboo blind, ambushing the sleepers into a dozy wakefulness. Clothes were strewn around the room in little mounds of disarray. In bed, Tom and Paton were naked, the pale sheets crumpled around their bodies, legs intertwined, arms slung casually over each other’s waists.
    Paton turned and moved toward Tom and cuddled into him from behind, kissing his shoulder, her arm wrapped tight around his chest.
    ‘Hi,’ she murmured.
    ‘Hi.’
    ‘How are you feeling?’
    ‘I’m ok.’
    She moved closer to him and breathed in the light musky scent of his skin.
    ‘It was good, wasn’t it? We were good.’ She kissed his shoulder again.
    ‘Yeah. Yeah it was.’
    He gently extricated himself from her arms and sat, slouched, on the edge of his side of the bed. Paton noticed that he wasn’t looking at her, or making any move to reach for her or touch her. Her stomach churned, and she felt ill.
    ‘I’ve got to go to work, Paton.’
    ‘But I’ll see you later?’
    ‘Maybe tomorrow. I’m not sure. I think I’m pretty busy for the next couple of days.’
    Paton’s disappointment was obvious. ‘Oh.’ Her stomach flip-flopped.
    Tom collected his clothes from the floor and dressed, knowing that Paton was watching him. Fully clothed, he leaned over and kissed her quickly on the cheek, then stepped away from the bed, inching his way towards the door. Paton turned away from him, wrapped her arms around her body, shielding herself from the words she knew would come, words that would wound her heart as if fired from a cross-bow. They didn’t come.
    Tom stood in the doorway and said, ‘Maybe in a few days, ok?’
    Paton, through the soft armour of her pillow replied softly, ‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’
    ‘It’s the best I can do.’
    ‘Then…ok. See you in a few days.’
    And Tom turned and left the room, closing the bedroom door after him.
     

- 10 -
    Paton always welcomed the first days of autumn. It was a time of recovery from the harsh, dry heat of summer. She could feel the gentle change of the seasons, air cool and moist, the sun more