Make Room for Love

Chapter 9

9

Isabel woke up, before her alarm, to a strip of light under her bedroom door. Waking up early was normal these days, now that she wasn’t exhausted every night. The light being on in the living room was not.

She got out of bed, stretched, and opened the door. Mira was sitting at the dining table, slightly slumped to the side. Her eyes were closed, long lashes resting on her cheeks, and her chunky glasses sat crooked on her face. Isabel’s concern flared for a moment. But there’d been no need—Mira had dozed off while working.

She looked like a wilted flower. Isabel was struck by a pang of tenderness so intense it hurt. She wanted to carry Mira to that narrow bed of hers and let her sleep.

Mira stirred. She opened her eyes, saw Isabel, and yelped. Isabel winced. She should have just woken up Mira right away.

“Sorry,” Mira said, for some reason. Her voice was blurry from sleep. She took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. “Did I wake you up? What time is it?”

“It’s four,” Isabel said, self-conscious. “I usually get up around now.”

“Huh? Oh, it’s late.”

Isabel nodded, feeling ungainly in her own living room. Early mornings were her time—the city outside was as quiet as it ever was, and she could go about her routine in peace. She was used to Mira’s presence, and used to keeping her emotions on a tight leash. But having to share her sacrosanct morning hours with Mira was throwing her off. That, and the guilt from watching Mira sleep for a second too long.

Mira yawned, stretched her arms, and grimaced. Her movements were stiff, probably from being hunched over for hours. “I remember looking at the clock at three. So it’s only been an hour.”

Isabel walked to the drip coffee maker and got it started. It was something to do other than staring uselessly at the beautiful, rumpled girl in her living room. Her coffee maker had plenty of bells and whistles and had cost a fortune. Isabel had bought it when she turned out as a journeywoman, and she was going to depend on that thing for the rest of her working life. “Did you have to work late or something?” she asked, with her back to Mira.

“Well, I was going to finish these earlier today, but—what did I—oh, yeah. I spent the afternoon in the grad student lounge, talking to people about the union. I got two more people to sign cards.”

“Hey, that’s great.” Isabel had some time before she had to get going, and her coffee wouldn’t be ready for a few minutes. Did Mira want to talk? After their conversation last week, Isabel had no idea where they stood. She wasn’t used to second-guessing herself like this.

She sat down at the table across from Mira before she could talk herself out of it. “How’d it go?”

It had gone well. Not only had Mira persuaded two people to sign cards, but one of them had asked Mira about attending the weekly meetings. She’d met a first-year who was still on the fence, but they’d had a good conversation. Nobody had been rude to her. They were four hundred cards away from their goal. Mira was talkative this early in the morning—or, for her, late at night—and clearly proud of what she’d done.

“Two fewer cards left to go now,” Isabel said.

“I don’t think I could have done it if it weren’t for what you said to me last week.”

Isabel glowed with warmth. She’d managed to be helpful. She shrugged. “You’re the one doing the work.”

“Well, what you said about finding my own way to do things—I think I needed to hear that.” Mira smiled. “Do you mind if I ask you a favor?”

“Any time.”

“Could I have some of the coffee you’re making?”

Isabel couldn’t help smiling back. “Sure. Are you sure you want it?” The fantasy of carrying Mira to bed and tucking her in returned in full force. Mira’s blouse was wrinkled, and it couldn’t have been comfortable to doze off in. She deserved some real rest.

Mira halfheartedly picked up a paper and set it down. “I have five more of these. It’ll take me at least another hour at this rate.”

“Then sleep for a few hours and do it when you wake up.”

“I guess you’re right. It wouldn’t be a fun day if I had to teach without any real sleep.” Mira looked glumly at the papers again. “Sometimes I feel like I’m always either working or avoiding work, and I never get a break. And the more I feel that way, the more burned out I get and the slower I work. It’s setting in much earlier than usual this semester. Probably because my whole life fell apart, and I had to move and start over.” She sighed. “Anyway, I’m sure it’s different for you.”

“Well, I can’t dig trenches and run conduit at home.” But Isabel knew what it was like to overwork herself to the brink of collapse. If her body hadn’t given out, she might still be doing it. And coming home to an empty apartment every night, with no Mira. “I used to work overtime a lot, though. I wrecked my knee doing it.” Maybe it wasn’t the worst thing to talk more about her own life. To be friendly.

Mira frowned. “How is it now? Is it better?”

Maybe it wasn’t the worst thing to have someone concerned for her, either. “More or less. As long as I don’t keep working too much.”

“The apartment stairs don’t bother you?”

“It takes a lot more than that. I’m fine.”

“That’s good. I’m lucky that I don’t have to do anything harder than carry boxes of exams around.” Mira didn’t sound like she felt lucky. She rubbed her face. “I’m so tired.”

“Take a day off next weekend.”

Mira glanced at her pile of papers. “I don’t know if I could make myself do it. I’d feel so guilty about not working.”

Isabel knew that feeling, too. “Tell yourself you’ll get back to it the next day. Your students will live.”

“You’re right. Ugh. My work isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things.”

“Your work is important,” Isabel said with finality. Mira looked startled. “Don’t say that it isn’t. Just take a break.” She had sounded more brusque than she’d meant to. In the silence that followed, she said, “You been to Astoria Park yet? By the river?”

Mira shook her head. “I haven’t had time.”

“You should go out and see it. I’ll show you around if you want.” Isabel’s words caught up to her. Why on earth had she offered that? Maybe just to fill up space in the conversation, which she usually felt no need to do. Maybe because she had nothing else to do when she wasn’t working.

Maybe because she was lonely. But Mira didn’t need Isabel for finding her way around a park.

Mira seemed surprised. “That’s kind of you to offer.”

“You don’t have to go. But it’s nice.” The park was a slice of green space on the East River, too rare around these parts. And Isabel loved the neighborhood. Hopefully she could stay after her lease on this place ended.

“Actually, I’d love to have you show me around, if you’re not busy.”

Isabel wasn’t busy. She had a dead older sister, and a younger sister who hadn’t spoken to her in months, and an ex who had chosen to move across the country rather than live with her miserable wreck of a partner for a second longer, and a sister-in-law who said she was “worried,” and friends she didn’t talk to anymore because they didn’t know what it was like to lose the only person who had ever truly understood you. “Yeah, I’ll be around.”

Mira smiled sweetly. “I’m looking forward to it.”

The coffee maker beeped, shaking Isabel from her thoughts. She’d gotten carried away. In the in-between hours of the morning, anything seemed possible, like Mira trusting her, like the two of them getting close. She needed to get a grip.

She got up and returned with a steaming mug of black coffee. Mira groaned. At that, heat rushed through Isabel’s entire body, followed by a wave of guilt. “It smells so good,” Mira said. “You’re tempting me.”

Isabel took a panicked, hasty sip, scalding the inside of her mouth. The pain made her wince. If that was what she needed to control herself, so be it. “Do you really want it? I can make you some decaf.”

Mira gave her a stern look, her elegant eyebrows arching. “That defeats the purpose.” She looked down at the paper in front of her, unenthusiastic about continuing. Then she stretched, letting out a soft, breathy moan as she winced. Isabel was not going to think about giving her a back rub, easing the knots in her back and making her moan like that again. Mira continued, “I’ll just finish this one and go to sleep.”

“I’ll stop distracting you.” Isabel uncrossed her arms and sat up, but she didn’t stand. She was getting deeper into trouble.

“No, it’s okay.” Mira’s gaze darted down. Isabel was suddenly very aware that she wasn’t wearing a bra under her thin white T-shirt. And Mira was staring at her breasts.

Isabel went hot all over. She was really in trouble. Women had eye-fucked her at bars with more subtlety than this. The difference was that Mira seemed to be doing it unintentionally, her big, dark, curious eyes roaming slowly over Isabel’s body, her soft mouth falling open.

It could mean something or nothing at all. But Isabel had to put a stop to it, or else she’d combust. Her nipples were painfully sensitive against her T-shirt, and her pulse pounded between her legs. It had been so long since her body wanted anything , and this was far too much, far too soon.

She could carry Mira to bed and get in with her. She couldn’t—but her craving was a physical ache, sharp and unbearable. She could free Mira from that constricting blouse. She could strip off her own T-shirt and let Mira do more than just look?—

Her alarm in her bedroom rang, and they both jolted in their chairs, Isabel bumping the table so hard that her coffee sloshed over the rim of her mug. It spilled onto the paper Mira was grading. “Shit,” Isabel said. She scrambled to stand. “Sorry.”

Mira looked at Isabel’s face, then at the paper and the rapidly spreading coffee stain. Like she was only now remembering where she was. “Oh.”

Isabel grabbed the paper towels from the kitchen and started blotting the stain. The alarm was still beeping, and it sounded ten times louder than usual. “Sorry, sorry,” she said, feeling like she was apologizing for more than just spilling her coffee.

“It’s okay.” Mira was still dazed. “It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.”

Isabel cleaned up as much as she could and threw the used paper towels in the trash. She rushed to her bedroom and shut the alarm off, ran a hand through her hair, and took a deep breath. What the hell was happening to her?

Mira could look if she wanted. Straight girls had a right to be curious, or however they felt. Isabel was a big butch lesbian who stuck out like a five-foot-eleven sore thumb wherever she went. Women, including straight ones, had all kinds of reactions to her: disdain, admiration, revulsion, desire. It wasn’t her problem what other people thought of her.

What was her problem was that she was uncontrollably attracted to her roommate, who was straight, and skittish, and sleeping in the room that Isabel’s ex used to paint in. And absolutely, unquestionably off-limits.

Isabel would just have to control herself. She had less than zero patience for any man who felt attracted to a woman and blamed her for it, and she wasn’t a hypocrite. She was an adult with self-control and not a fucking creep.

It was almost November. She could endure living with Mira for two more months. Now that her alarm had gone off, she needed to hurry. She headed out of her room again to brush her teeth.

“I’m done with this one,” Mira said, still sitting at the table. Isabel stopped in her tracks despite herself. Mira set her student’s paper aside, and her gaze roamed downward again.

Right. Isabel was wearing the boxer shorts she slept in. They weren’t revealing enough that she’d thought twice about walking around in them. But they still showed plenty of thigh, and Mira was thoroughly looking her over. It was even clearer that Mira was doing this with no self-awareness. No one in their right mind would try to flirt right now, when they were both frazzled and Isabel was rushing to work.

“You should go to sleep,” Isabel said. She hurried to the bathroom.

When she returned, Mira was thankfully gone. Isabel finished off her mug of coffee in a few gulps, poured the rest of the coffee into her thermos, and got dressed.

She was rushing more than she had to. There was time to grind more coffee and make a new pot for when Mira woke up. She was pressing buttons on the coffee maker when Mira’s door opened.

Mira stood in the doorway in a lacy pink camisole and a tiny pair of matching shorts. The fabric skimmed the soft swells of her breasts and let just a hint of her nipples show through. And those long legs, those lush thighs, all that bare skin… Isabel flushed, her heart pounding, desire piercing her like a red-hot poker.

“Oh!” Mira said. “You’re still here.”

Isabel tried to look nonchalant as she stared at a spot above Mira’s head. She wasn’t going to make Mira uncomfortable in her own home. She wasn’t going to think about how Mira had been sleeping in that frilly pajama set all this time, right on the other side of the wall.

“I’m heading out,” Isabel said, her voice strained. She turned back to the coffee maker and fumbled with the buttons. “I’m just, uh, I’m making coffee for when you wake up.”

“Oh, you’re so sweet,” Mira said. “You didn’t have to. Thank you.”

Isabel shrugged. She didn’t turn around. Mira walked behind her to head to the bathroom. “Have a nice day at work.”

“You too,” Isabel said, a second too late because she’d forgotten how to speak.

She laced up her work boots, grabbed her backpack, and left the apartment. Outside, she inhaled a lungful of cold morning air and exhaled in relief.

She tightened her jaw as she walked to the train, passing the occasional person getting off the late shift or starting the work day like her. She wasn’t going to think about Mira sleeping under the covers in that tiny room, getting some much-needed rest. She wasn’t going to think about crawling into that twin bed next to Mira and holding her close, about kissing her good night, about making breakfast for when she woke up. She wasn’t going to think about slipping the straps of Mira’s camisole off her shoulders, sliding those little shorts down over her hips…

Isabel dug her short nails into her palms. None of that would ever happen.

Two more months.

She was going to ignore the treacherous voice in her head saying that there was more to Mira’s gaze than passing curiosity. That if Mira wanted her and she wanted Mira, then there was a chance. That unlike everything else in her life in the past two years, this would end in something other than her being left desolate and alone.