Intimate Friends by Claire Matthews Read Free Book Online Page A

her ear, as she snuggled her head deep in her pillow. His hand rubbed her hip lightly. "What song is that?' she murmured against his arm.
    "Hmm…dunno…I think it's from a butter commercial."
    She grinned and kissed the inside of his wrist. "Talk to me," she demanded.
    "Okay, but not unless you promise to close your eyes. You need to sleep."
    She nodded wordlessly, and after a long minute, she felt her muscles loosen and grow slack under his palms.
    "Talk," she ordered stubbornly, her voice lower and smoother than before. “Tell me another story about when you were a kid.”
    “Why? I was the most boring kid ever.”
    "I know, that's why your stories help me go to sleep,” she teased.
    “Okay...let's see. When I was little, I was constantly bugging my parents for a baby brother. But it had to be a brother. I don't know what I would have done if they'd brought home a baby girl—probably run screaming, or fit her with lead diapers.”
    “Aww, you would have made a great big brother. I can see it now—you guys would play school, and you'd teach him baby calculus.”
    "I didn't know calculus when I was four.”
    “Baby matrix algebra, then. Toddler differential equations.”
    "Are you through?”
    “I think so. Go on.”
    “So anyway, I was dying for a little brother. I was totally into rockets, NASA, anything to do with space. He would have been my space partner, you see.”
    “Hmmm.”
    “In my mind, a kid brother was basically a short slave. He would follow me around, do my bidding, and tell me how cool I was.”
    “Isn't that what girlfriends are for?”
    “Somehow it never works out that way. May I finish my story?”
    “Sorry. I'm shutting up.”
    “Anyway, I drove my parents crazy with the brother talk, so much that they bought me a puppy for Christmas to shut me up.”
    “Oh, a puppy? What kind?”
    “He was a Golden Retriever—Max. He became a space dog. A commander, I think, although he could never fly. The whole paws instead of hands thing. It was an issue.”
    “I can imagine.”
    “So anyway, we had Max until I was in college. He was the best dog, Emma. He used to wait for me at the window after school, and we'd play football—we must have bought him ten thousand Nerf footballs. Then we'd go inside and watch Speed Racer.”
    “No doggie algorithms?”
    “Max didn't have a mathematical mind. He was more of a doer than a thinker.” They were silent for a moment. Emma felt Noah's hand stoke her side soothingly, from waist to hip. She yawned.
    “Did you ever have another dog?”
    “No. Max died when I was in college, and then I married Jenny, and she was allergic, so...”
    “You should get a dog,” Emma mumbled into her pillow.
    “Why? To keep me company after you leave?” His voice tightened a bit. He cleared his throat.
    “No, I just meant—”
    “It's okay. I know what you meant. I'd love a dog, but I'm at work all day, and my place is too small. Plus, dogs can't make up for people you miss. Even though Max was great, I still always wished for a brother. A new dog wouldn't make me miss you less.”
    They were quiet then, and soon Emma felt Noah's face snuggle into her neck, heard his breathing grow deep and even. But she never did go back to sleep.
     
     

C hapter Nine
     
     
    Noah took the packing tape and closed another box in Emma's office, as she scrubbed the coffee stains off the top of her desk. The packing and cleaning was suffocating him, the ache in his chest growing sharper with each bookshelf he cleared. She'd leave tomorrow. Tomorrow. It hung over both of them like a dark, heavy cloud of sadness.
    “I heard it rains in London all the time,” he murmured, glancing sideways at her.
    “I'll take rain over a-hundred-degrees-in-the-shade any day,” she answered back.
    “There's no barbecue...no good Tex-Mex. You're willing to go two years without Chuy's enchiladas?”
    She shrugged a shoulder nonchalantly. “It'll be tough, but they have great Indian food, and Asian