Page 75 of Infamous

Chapter Twenty-five

‘Are you asleep?’

‘No.’

‘Are you cold?’

‘Yes. Ugh, your foot is freezing, Ed.Howis it so cold?’

‘My foot is all the way over here. That must be the ghost, touching you. Little ghost toes.’

‘It is not a ghost, and they are not little. You have feet the size of rowing boats. Besides .?.?. a ghost would stop fooling about and get on with the business of haunting me.’

Eddie tried to find Rose in the mess of blankets. It was difficult; there were so many, and she was thoroughly entangled in them. In the end she discovered and gained entrance to Rose’s little pocket of warmth, and laughed quietly when skin met skin and Rose hissed between her teeth. It was certainly not the first time they had huddled together like this, but itwasthe first time they had actually acknowledged that it was happening, and it felt very strange to Eddie after so long pretending she simply hadn’t noticed.

‘Haunt initiated.’

‘Cold. Cold, cold, cold.’

‘God, you are so warm.’

‘Yes, I know. I have cultivated this warmth. I have been growing it carefully like crops, and now you have come in to harvest it all for yourself.’

‘You ought to share.’

Rose turned over, and when she next spoke her mouth was very close to Eddie’s ear.

‘You are a blight.’

The room felt cosy suddenly, despite the fact that there was an actual breeze ruffling the curtains and lifting the pages of Eddie’s manuscript where it sat on the dresser. The fire was crackling merrily, and she imagined she could now feel the warmth of it where before it had eluded her. She thought of the room empty of Rose’s things; of the bed cold and too big without her. Of losing these chances to touch her so casually, with the convenient excuse that the house was failing in its primary duty to provide shelter.

‘Please stay.’

Rose sighed. ‘Come with me.’

‘I can’t.’

Another heavy exhalation. Her breath ghosted across Eddie’s neck, and she savoured the feeling of it, feeling a little freakish for doing so.

‘Come here, then, you insufferable ghoul. I suppose you might as well be warm for one last night before you succumb to pneumonia and expire.’

‘Much obliged,’ Eddie said, but her voice was odd and strangled; Rose had reached out and pulled her close, much closer than they had been consciously since the night they had kissed in Valentine’s bedroom. She tucked her face into the curve of Rose’s neck. It smelled so comfortingly ofRosethat she sighed, and as she did she felt Rose’s body answer her. Their chests were flush together, one of Rose’s hands holding her gently by the shoulder; it tentatively began to trace the line of Eddie’s shoulder blade, and she closed her eyes, breathing into it, feeling as if they were no longer in their freezing bed at all but somewhere far more agreeable. She gave over to the feeling and found herself speaking, mumbling directly into the skin of Rose’s throat.

‘How do you know if you .?.?. like girls?’

Rose went absolutely still.

‘What do you mean?’ she whispered. ‘You just like them. They don’t make you take an examination or get a licence or anything to make it official.’

Eddie opened her eyes and found herself looking at the delicate shell of Rose’s ear.

‘Right. Of course. I mean .?.?. I had never really thought about it before. And I suppose Ihavetraditionally liked boys, if I have liked anyone at all.’

‘You liked that long-haired boy at the assembly rooms two years ago, who asked you what was in the punch,’ Rose said, with a keenness of memory that left Eddie stunned. ‘You took a liking to that colleague of my father’s, Mr Chen, when we were eleven. You kept following him from room to room like a puppy.’

‘Yes. I know. So perhaps I’m wrong. But .?.?. when you told me how you felt, it made perfect sense.Toomuch sense. I suppose it’s not the same as it is with you – you have known for a while, and I have been perfectly oblivious. They won’t be giving me my licence any time soon.’

‘You can set up shop without one,’ Rose said into her hair. ‘I certainly won’t inform the board.’