Ten Years of Public Breakups, Then He Ran After My Bus novel · Chapter 23 of 40
Chapter 23: The Woodstove
Someone had laid a fire in the woodstove, and left a box of kitchen matches on the lid.
Eben struck one.
The kindling caught, and the little room began to glow.
I stood in the front hall with snow melting in my hair and watched him crouch at the stove and feed it split birch, one piece at a time.
The tree burned white in the bay window.
The new pine seat stood under it, pale in the light.
Someone had spread a quilt on the floor in front of the stove, an old patchwork one, red and cream, soft with washing.
I knew whose quilt it was.
"My mother's," I said.
"Looks like it."
"She's been in this house," I said.
"Looks like everybody has."
He shut the stove door and stayed on his heels with his back to me.
I took off my coat.
I took off my boots, and my scarf, and my sweater, and laid them over the arm of a chair.
He stood and turned.
He looked at me in my undershirt and jeans and bare feet, in the firelight and the glow of the tree, and he did not move.
"Come here," I said.
"Cyr."
"Come here, Eben."
He crossed the room.
I put my hands on his chest and felt it going under my palms, hard and quick.
"I'm going to undress you," I said. "And you're going to let me."
"All right."
"Slowly," I said.
"All right."
I unbuttoned his collar first.
I took the jacket off his shoulders and laid it on the chair with mine.
I took the shirt off next, button by button, down the broad warm length of him, until I could slide it back and kiss the center of his chest.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–20 of Ten Years of Public Breakups, Then He Ran After My Bus are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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