Don's Regret Came Too Late novel · Chapter 18 of 32
Chapter 18: Above the Pharmacy
I took hold of the front of his coat with both hands.
I pulled him in off the step, and he came, and the side door swung shut behind him.
The stairwell was dark. It still smelled like Sunday's garlic.
"Say it again," I said.
"You're not married anymore."
"Again."
He put his hands on either side of my face, very carefully, his thumbs along my cheekbones.
"Noemi Pellegrino," he said. "You're not married anymore."
Nobody had called me that in five years.
I kissed him.
It wasn't like the car. In the car there had been a gearshift and a ring I was still wearing in my head.
There was nothing now.
He made the same low sound in his chest, and walked me backward until my shoulders met the wall.
Up against this wall. Slowly. He'd promised.
He kept his promise.
He kissed me slowly.
His hand slid down my side to my hip and stayed there, heavy and warm.
I pulled at his coat until it hit the stairs.
His sweater was soft and he was hot under it.
I pushed my hands up under the wool, over his stomach, his ribs, the hard slope of his chest.
His breath caught against my mouth.
"Your hands are cold," he said.
"Complain about it."
He laughed, and then he stopped laughing, because I'd found the place under his ribs that made him shiver.
He bent and kissed my throat, under my ear, the place from the car. My knees went.
He caught me with one arm around my back.
Then his other hand found my stomach under my sweater.
He stopped.
His palm lay flat over the small, round curve of it. Twenty weeks. I'd stopped being able to hide it from anybody but strangers.
He didn't move his hand. He just held it there, in the dark, breathing hard.
"Is this all right?" he said. "All of it. The baby. Me."
"Leandro."
"I need you to say it. I'm not going to be one more thing that happened to you."
I put my hand over his on my stomach.
"Yes," I said. "To you. Tonight. Upstairs. I'm not married, and I'm not confused, and I've been thinking about this wall for nine days."
He looked down at me, his gaze fierce.
"Upstairs," he said.
"Upstairs."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of Don's Regret Came Too Late are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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