Swallow Me Whole novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: September
Classes started on a Tuesday, and I came home soaked.
It was the first week of September.
A warm rain was falling straight down on Jenifer Street, the kind that fills the gutters and makes the whole city smell like wet pennies.
I climbed the back steps with my backpack over my head and shoved the door open with my hip.
The kitchen was dim.
A single lamp burned over the stove, and a pot of something simmered, and the radio played an old song very low.
Ashton stood at the counter slicing an onion.
He put the knife down the second he saw me.
"You're wet."
"It's raining."
"You're soaked."
"I noticed."
"Come here."
I set down my bag, and I crossed the kitchen.
He took my face in his big hands and kissed me, long and warm, tasting of onion and coffee.
"How was your first day?"
"I have a professor who wears a bow tie."
"No."
"A real one. He lectured on attachment theory for ninety minutes and never once looked at the clock."
"You loved it."
"I loved it so much."
I did.
I had not known how hungry I was to be nineteen and good at something.
He kept his hands on my cheeks, and his thumbs brushed the rain from my cheekbones.
"Tell me everything," he said.
"Later."
"Later?"
"I want to go to bed."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he turned off the burner under the pot.
He took my hand.
He led me down the short hall to the bedroom, and the oak bed waited there under a lamp with a patchwork quilt.
The rain ran down the window in long silver lines.
He didn't rush.
We stood at the foot of the bed, and he undid the buttons of my wet shirt one at a time.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Swallow Me Whole are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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