One Night Only by Catherine Walsh

14

I shiver as a hand slides up my thigh, pausing briefly to squeeze my hip before continuing its journey along my arm, gentle and teasing. Infuriating. I squirm beneath him, trying to increase the pressure, to show him what I want, but he just laughs, a low, knowing chuckle that only intensifies the ache inside as he holds himself above me, just out of reach.

“Sarah.”

I want to touch him. But I can’t. My hands are heavy, weighted to the mattress like the rest of me. I know if I could just turn my head, I could kiss him, I could tell him to cut the crap before I lose it completely.

I try to speak, try to make a sound, but it’s like I’m underwater. And when I open my mouth only a soft, pining noise comes from me, almost a mewl as I—

“Sarah.”

I wake with a gasp as my alarm trills. The soothing sound of chirping birds turns not so soothing as they get louder and louder in my ear, threatening to screech unless I turn them off. But I don’t move. I can’t move. I can’t yet separate my dream world from reality, can’t fully grasp that the sheets beside me are cool and empty and not warm and full of a hard body that…

Oh my God.

I reach blindly for my phone, shutting off the damn birds, and scramble into a sitting position. My sheets are kicked to the bottom of the bed, tangled around my feet and there’s a small patch of drool on my pillow. I stare at it in distaste. I’m not usually a drooler. Then again, I’m not usually a dreamer either.

So what the hell was that?

“This is me making sure you’re up,” Claire calls, knocking on my door. “You up?” She sticks her head inside when I don’t answer and frowns at the sight of me still in bed. “We’re going for a run.”

“Just give me a minute.” I clear my throat as my voice comes out in a rasp.

Her eyes narrow. “Are you ill?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

“You look like you woke up in someone else’s body.”

Or with someone else’s body.

“Huh?”

I refocus on her, too confused to be embarrassed. “Did I say that out loud?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

I’ve been asking myself that for weeks. “I think I just had a sex dream.”

Her mouth drops open as she steps inside, our gym plan instantly forgotten. “Shut up. I never have dirty dreams. Was it about the guy downstairs? The one with the dog?”

“I don’t even know who that is.”

“I had a dream about Mark once, but it was just him telling me what a good job I was doing and then he bought me a goldfish. Who was yours?”

“No one,” I lie, rubbing the sleep from my eye. “Just a guy.”

“Did you…” Claire trails off, her voice dropping even though it’s just the two of us. “You know.”

“No,” I say firmly.

“You look a little flustered is all.”

I clap my hands to my cheeks, feeling the tell-tale flush as I glare at her, but Claire doesn’t seem to notice.

“I’m so jealous.”

I slide self-consciously back down the bed. “We’re finished talking now.”

“And this is the perfect time for a run.”

“Leave please.”

“You can blow off all that steam.”

My pillow hits the door as she skips out of the room.

A sex dream.

I mean it’s not like I’ve never had one, but it’s been a while and they’ve never been so vivid before. So… lifelike.

He’d been wearing his tuxedo. Do I have a tuxedo thing now?

I close my eyes and throw out my hand, hitting the mattress in what is an extremely disorientating experience.

Disorientating because I can still feel Declan beside me.

Can still feel him in other places too.

Not that that’s not easy to explain. I have needs after all. I’m young and alive and he’s…

Flashes of the dream overlap with memories of our last night together until I can’t separate one from the other.

It was better in the dream. He didn’t talk so much there. Didn’t make me want to kick him in the shins like I usually feel like doing when I’m around him. And when he did talk it was in my ear and on my skin, a muffled rasp that I…

I suck in a breath, stretching my fingers as though reaching for him.

“Get up!” Claire yells and I sit up so fast the room spins.

* * *

Later that day, I stand in line at the deli waiting impatiently for the man in front of me to make up his mind about his damn sandwich order.

“It was amazing, Sarah,” Annie says in my ear. “I felt like I could have stayed there forever. I almost…” She trails off with a yawn. Her third in the last minute.

“Do you want to hang up?”

“No,” she says. “Just allow me some long pauses and muddled words.”

“So you’re still glad you married him?” I ask as the man deliberates over pastrami. “Sounds like you haven’t killed each other yet.”

“It’s so stupid,” she says quietly. “I know it’s just a contract. But the staff at the hotel kept calling me Mrs. Murphy and I would catch myself looking at him and all I could keep thinking was that’s my husband, that’s my husband.”

“There’s a reason they call it the honeymoon period.”

“I know it won’t last. I don’t want it to. It would be exhausting. But it’s nice. Even with the humidity and the bugs and the food poisoning. It’s perfect.”

“That’s good,” I murmur as the guy finally settles on tuna on rye. It takes a second for Annie’s words to register. “Wait. What food poisoning?”

I order a bagel with cream cheese as Annie starts to tell me about some dubious-looking prawns Paul ate the first night and I’m caught between pity and laughing when my phone buzzes with a second call.

“Hold on,” I say, digging it out from my pocket. “Someone’s on the other line.” I check the caller ID and stop in surprise. “It’s my dad,” I say, immediately worried. The last time he called it was because my grandma was in the hospital. “I should take it.”

“Of course. I’ll let you know my flight details. Say hi to your dad for me.”

“I will. Say hi to Paul. And tell him he’s an idiot.”

We hang up and I switch the call over. It buffers for a few seconds as the video loads and then my dad’s face fills the screen. Or half of it anyway.

“Sarah?” His voice booms down the other end of the line. “Are you there? Hello?”

“I’m here. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He sounds surprised I asked. “I got a new phone. I wanted to show you.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “I can only see your forehead. Tilt your… there… perfect.”

“Are you outside?” I can see his face now, more lined than I remember as he frowns at me. “Can everyone hear me?”

I point to my earphones as I shoulder open the door to the deli, stepping back into the sunshine. “Just me. It’s like magic, right?”

“Very funny.”

I lean against the wall as he moves into the kitchen. “Is that a new table too?” I ask, taking a bite of my food.

“No. Maybe a new tablecloth.”

“It’s nice.”

Conversations with my dad are always like this. At least when we’re camping, we can pretend we’re being silent for the sake of nature. Neither of us knows how to talk to the other and we usually have to go through several minutes of stilted chitchat before we either hang up or get to the real reason the other is calling. Last time he spent ten minutes describing his new power washer before he told me about Grandma.

“Where’d you get the phone?” I ask.

“From the team. An early retirement gift.”

“They must really like you.”

“Or happy to see me go,” he grumbles and I laugh even as I feel a tinge of worry. Dad’s retiring in a few months. He decided it on a whim last year, saying he’d have more time to himself. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t think he needed any more time to himself. He isn’t a man with hobbies. At least none that he’s told me about, and besides a few close family and friends, he’s more or less kept to himself since Mom left.

“I was just talking to Annie,” I say, trying to distract myself. “She says hi.”

“Back from her honeymoon?”

“Thailand. They’re coming over for a few weeks for Paul’s work.”

“And then to Ireland?”

I nod, forcing a smile and he sighs.

“I’m sorry, honey,” he says. “I know you’ll miss her.”

“It’s cool,” I say lightly. “I have more than one friend. I’m actually on my way to meet Soraya now. You met her the last time you visited, remember? She said she liked your beard and you had to leave the room because you couldn’t stop blushing?”

“I remember,” he mutters. “And besides your friends? Are you seeing anyone?”

I try not to sigh.

It’s a question he’s asked me numerous times over the years, sometimes hopeful, sometimes resigned, but always asked. Because while Dad has never trusted anyone enough to start dating again, he doesn’t want the same life for me.

“I don’t want you to be alone because you’re scared,” he’d said to me once when he was feeling particularly dramatic. “If that’s your choice and you’re happy then that’s fine. But just because things ended badly between your mom and me, doesn’t mean it’s going to end the same way for you. Relationships are important.”

I had to stop myself from pointing out that it was precisely why his relationship with mom was so important that the betrayal of it ruined his life.

And it did ruin his life. It tore up his family, his savings, his confidence. He couldn’t hide his devastation from me in those first few years. He closed off, withdrawing into himself and when he finally emerged, he was different, quiet and sad. I barely remember how he used to be when we were all together, making Mom laugh over the dinner table, bouncing around me on the trampoline so I’d shoot into the air with a squeal.

It took months before he was even able to smile again. And a part of me knows that he still feels like it was his fault. That he wasn’t enough for Mom, wasn’t enough for either of us. He’s felt responsible for me ever since.

“I got hitched in Ireland,” I say lightly. “Didn’t you get my email?”

“Sarah—”

“I’m fine, Dad. I’d tell you if I wasn’t.”

We both know that’s a lie but thankfully, he doesn’t push it and I swiftly change the conversation, making him go into the bathroom to show me the phone in the mirror. But I’m only half listening as I take mental notes of any changes around the house, looking for signs of wear and tear.

I should go and visit him more.

You have to smile at the irony. Both of us worried about the other being alone while insisting it’s the right choice for ourselves. Maybe we’re too alike. Too stubborn for our own good.

Maybe we’re both still a little heartbroken.

I tear off another bite of my bagel as a door closes on his end. Dad’s eyes flicker to something off screen and a second later I hear a voice.

“Are you on a call?” It’s female.

I frown. “Who’s that?”

“Nobody,” Dad says, flashing a quick smile at the definitely somebody as he moves to another room. “Just Clem.”

Clem? Clementine?

“Our neighbor?” I ask, relaxing a little. She goes around a lot these days, making sure he’s okay.

“She’s brought over her air fryer,” Dad says, back to grumbling. “She insists it’s healthier.”

I nod as he starts taking about all the vegetables he’s now forced to eat and try not to think about how much slower he is on his feet. It’s good that Clem’s there.

Even if he is alone, at least he’s not lonely.

As long as I can say the same for me, I don’t think I’ll do too badly.