Make Room for Love

Chapter 25

25

Isabel’s heart was full to bursting as she closed the bedroom door behind her, with Mira sleeping peacefully inside. The earliest rays of sun filtered through the window as she started the coffee maker.

She couldn’t stop smiling as she drank her coffee. Taking Mira to bed had been beyond her wildest dreams—the way she’d arched and trembled and writhed in Isabel’s hands, the way she’d gasped and cried out like she was astonished by her own pleasure. Her scent, her taste, her softness. Most of all, the way she’d snuggled against Isabel after coming a third time, and cried a little and reassured Isabel that they were happy tears, and asked, “Could I sleep here tonight?”

It was precious to receive Mira’s trust, precious to see her unwound and open, precious to be with her at all. Isabel’s throat was lumpy as she sliced the loaf of challah on the counter. Being with Mira was the best thing that had happened to her in years. She wanted to wake up next to a beautiful, naked, sleeping Mira every morning, her dark curls spilling over Isabel’s pillow, and fall asleep next to her every night.

Isabel absolutely couldn’t fuck this up. After so much loss, it was terrifying to have something she desperately wanted to hold on to again. She had worried so much about hurting Mira that she hadn’t thought about how badly she could be hurt, too.

And she could be hurt very, very badly. Because she didn’t want Mira to leave.

She took a shuddering breath. If she wanted Mira to stay, if she wanted a chance at all, she’d have to be worth staying for. She had to be better than the partner she’d been—silent, walled-off, destroyed by her grief—when Reina had packed up and vanished.

Things were better now. Isabel was stronger, and life was more bearable. She just had to hope she would be good enough.

She cracked a few eggs into a bowl, added milk, sugar, and cinnamon, and distractedly stirred.

Even after months of longing for Mira, she’d been afraid to let Mira really touch her. She had come while fucking Mira with her strap for a second time, which was more than fine. She wasn’t a stone butch, and she didn’t always have to top, but falling apart under Mira’s attentions would have been too much last night. She would have to ease into it and hope that Mira was willing to wait.

She put a generous pat of butter in the cast-iron pan, turned the stove on, and dredged the slices of stale bread in the egg mixture. When they’d gone limp, she put them in the pan and let them sizzle. The sweet fried scent filled the kitchen.

The door to her bedroom opened behind her. Isabel turned around.

Mira stood in the doorway, her hair tousled and wild, wearing one of Isabel’s old T-shirts that hung off her small, perfect breasts like drapery on a statue. It was barely long enough to cover her. Was she wearing anything underneath? Isabel swallowed hard. Those legs had been wrapped around her hips last night, heels digging into her lower back?—

“Good morning,” Mira said, looking at Isabel from under those long eyelashes. There were faint bruises on her neck.

Isabel’s knees went weak. She clutched the counter. “Morning.”

“Sorry I took one of your shirts.” For once, Mira didn’t actually seem sorry. “I was going to my room to get dressed.”

“Don’t,” Isabel blurted out. She flushed.

Mira laughed. “Okay, I won’t. That smells good.” She walked to Isabel, stood on tiptoes, and kissed Isabel on the lips gently. A second kiss followed, not nearly as gentle.

The scent of sizzling French toast became insistent. Isabel pulled away reluctantly. “Sorry. I need to…”

She flipped over the pieces in the pan. Behind her, Mira said, “It’s all right if it gets crispy. I like that.”

“Good to know.” Isabel turned down the heat, pushed Mira against the fridge, and kissed her again. There was nothing like slipping her hand up under her own T-shirt worn by a beautiful girl in her own kitchen. And…no, Mira was not wearing anything underneath, and she was just as sensitive as she’d been last night.

Mine. The thought was loud, clear, and dangerous. Mira belonged to no one but herself. Mine, mine, mine. “I’m still a little sore,” Mira said, panting. “Go easy on me. Not too easy.”

Isabel tried to not get too carried away, but the French toast still ended up with plenty of crispy bits. “You can give them all to me,” Mira said, her face still prettily flushed as Isabel put their food on plates.

At the table, she poured a shocking amount of maple syrup over her stack and took a bite. Her eyes closed. “Oh, it’s so good. Thank you so much. You are so sweet.” She ducked her head and smiled. “I can’t believe how good you are to me.”

Isabel’s chest fluttered with pleasure. She shrugged. “It’s nothing. You know I like cooking for you.”

“Stop saying that. I’ve never woken up to anyone making me breakfast before.”

Isabel wasn’t surprised, exactly, but how someone could live with Mira for two years and not do the simplest things for her was unimaginable. Isabel wasn’t going to dwell on that. It made her angry in that instinctual way when something just wasn’t right. She’d have to channel it into treating Mira how she deserved to be treated.

It still didn’t seem real. She’d resigned herself to never being able to have Mira—and now Mira was happily eating breakfast at their kitchen table after she’d spent hours last night moaning and pleading and coming under Isabel’s hands. Isabel had missed feeling wanted, missed feeling needed .

She wanted to give Mira everything. She couldn’t protect Mira from every bad thing in the world, as much as it hurt to admit it. But she could provide the basics: good food, good sex, a shoulder to cry on, a warm, safe home to come back to every night. More than that, she wanted to be a partner Mira could rely on for the rest of her life.

Isabel’s throat was lumpy again. It was too soon, and she had to take things slow for Mira’s sake, and maybe she wasn’t worthy. But she was in love. She wanted this to be forever.

They could be so good together. As long as Mira didn’t leave.

Halfway through their breakfast, Mira started running her foot up and down Isabel’s calf again. By the time they finished eating, Isabel was fully prepared to leave all the dishes in the sink, something she never did.

“We were doing something before we got interrupted,” she said. There were some things she was good at, even if facing her emotions wasn’t one of them.

“I think you’re right,” Mira said. She stood and took Isabel by the hand, leading her to the bedroom. Then Mira stopped short. “Can we go back to your bed?”

Isabel kissed her on the cheek. “Of course. You don’t need to ask.” She didn’t say what she wanted to say. My bed is yours. I’m yours. Everything I have is yours. And you’re mine.

“Are you still feeling nervous?”

Isabel nodded. Mira knew her well enough now that it was almost impossible to hide her state of mind. It made things easier and harder.

Mira leaned closer so she could be heard over the roar of the subway. “My friends will love you. You don’t need to worry.” She slid her hand into Isabel’s hand.

After a blissful week of sleeping in, cooking together, taking long walks around the park, and making love to Mira in every room and on every surface of the apartment, Isabel felt human again. For now, she could devote herself to making Mira happy. And it made her happy, too, deeply content in a way she hadn’t been in a very long time.

But she needed to win over Mira’s friends, too. She had to make them see that they were good for each other, that Isabel was good for her. She was rusty on the winning-people-over front these days, unused to meeting people other than other electricians on her crew. She just hoped she’d be able to make her case.

And she hated the so-called holiday season. After being subjected to endless holiday cheer after Alexa had died, she never wanted to hear a Christmas pop song again in her life. At least her parents were having Christmas dinner with their church friends, removing that responsibility for her. She wasn’t ready to see them again so soon.

Mira knew all this, and knew that Isabel didn’t want to talk about it. There was nothing to say. Grief was monotonous. She just had to endure these darkest months of the year.

They got off the train in Chinatown and walked to one of the dim sum places. Mira and her Jewish friends gathered there every Christmas—so she’d explained—along with whoever else wanted to come, if they didn’t celebrate Christmas or didn’t want to visit family. The restaurant was well-lit and full of big groups, mostly families, talking and laughing. Isabel tensed up. Mira squeezed her hand and looked at her, asking a silent question.

“I’m okay,” Isabel said. She opened the door for Mira, and they went in.

She spotted Mira’s friends sitting around an enormous round table, waving at them—mostly about her age, and a lot more low-key than her ex’s artist circle had been. Frankie and her girlfriend Vivian were there, and Shreya from Mira’s union, and several other people whose names Isabel tried to remember as they introduced themselves. She was good at that, if nothing else, since she didn’t like to forget apprentices’ names.

They sat down. More people arrived, and they got through the usual gauntlet of ordering several dozen dishes for a dozen people. Isabel let the conversation wash over her. She chatted with Shreya, sitting on Mira’s other side, who was straightforward in a way that put Isabel at ease. If Shreya thought it was strange that Isabel had reappeared as Mira’s girlfriend—if that was the right word—she didn’t say anything.

The food began to arrive. She tore into a fluffy char siu bao and talked to Mira’s friend Noah about their work as a housing lawyer. They both had plenty to say about the new construction around the city. Vivian occasionally interjected. She might have been scrutinizing Isabel. Or maybe Isabel was imagining things.

She was starting to relax. Maybe she could just enjoy the company tonight.

“Mira,” someone said across the table, and she and Mira both looked up. It was her friend Anjali a few seats away. “Seth and I have been meaning to ask you for wedding advice. Did your parents just have separate Jewish and Hindu ceremonies, or did they have a combined one? My parents said they could be fine with either, depending on the details, so it’s kind of up to us.”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Mira said. “My parents got married at City Hall.”

“Wait, seriously?” Anjali said. “And their parents were fine with that?”

Mira laughed. “No, of course not. At least my dad’s parents weren’t. He didn’t even try to win them over about marrying my mom.” There were winces all around the table. Isabel guessed that no one here was a stranger to parental disapproval of some kind. “My mom’s parents were more okay with it. Both the elopement and her choice of spouse. I mean, yeah, he’s not Jewish, but they got over it. Anyway, my dad isn’t religious, and my mom wasn’t as observant back then, and they’re not sentimental people. Also, they were probably broke and couldn’t afford a real wedding.”

Isabel smiled. She’d heard the story from Mira already, in one of their long late-night conversations under the covers, and she’d seen Mira’s photo of a framed photo in her parents’ house: two serious, dorky twenty-somethings in front of Chicago’s City Hall, Mira’s mother in an eighties pantsuit and her father in a lumpy sweater, both with the same curly hair as Mira.

“Oh my god,” Anjali said. “That’s incredible. How did your parents even meet?”

“Well, my dad went to the UK for grad school and got involved in politics, and he was in a student group that would picket with the coal miners during the strike. And my mom was freelancing for some lefty newspaper on her first overseas assignment, and she wanted to know what was going on with the Indian guy out there.” Mira shrugged. “My parents have always been like that.”

“I didn’t realize your parents were so cool,” Noah said. The conversation flowed on. The topic of parental expectations wasn’t exactly Isabel’s favorite, but at least she was among people who understood.

She squeezed Mira’s hand under the table, then passed her the egg tart from her own plate when she noticed Mira eyeing it. Mira smiled. “Thank you.”

“You know, I can see why you turned out the way you did,” Isabel said. She had been taking in every bit of information about Mira, trying to fit it all together. Of course Mira had been raised by radical intellectual types. Very different from Isabel’s own parents.

Mira grimaced. “I don’t know. I think my parents contribute more to society than I do, for one thing. I’m just a grad student. My mom still works as a labor journalist, and my dad quit academia to be a public high school teacher.”

“Do they want you to do something different?”

“Not exactly. They’ve always done their own thing, and I think they expect that of me. Not that my parents don’t have opinions on my life. Recently they’ve been trying to give me advice on union organizing.” Isabel snorted. “And when I came out to them, there was a lot of… Oh, no, not like that. You know we’d still love you if you were gay, right? As though I didn’t think of that myself.” Mira rolled her eyes. “Well, I guess I am. Not in the way they thought.”

Isabel laughed and gave her a sympathetic wince. Mira continued, “It’s fine now. They defended me to their families, which counts for a lot. My dad cut ties with some of his family over it. Although they already weren’t happy with him about a lot of other things.” Mira smiled ruefully. Isabel squeezed her hand. She knew what all this was like, or at least a version of it, and Mira clearly didn’t want to dwell on it. “Not his whole family. I mentioned his sister who gave me that jewelry you like.” Mira was wearing those dangly gold earrings now. “And some things for my wedding, supposedly, although I think those are going to sit in the box for a while.”

Isabel’s heart beat faster. “Too fancy for City Hall? Or you don’t believe in getting married?” Her ex hadn’t, which was fine. Commitment was commitment. But Isabel would be lying if she said she didn’t care about marriage either way.

“It’s not that. I don’t have a problem with it in theory.” Mira paused. “I guess I’ve just never thought of it as a real possibility.”

Isabel wasn’t going to ask what that meant. She didn’t want to give herself away. “Fair enough.”

She relaxed into the atmosphere, talking with Mira’s friends, making sure Mira was well-supplied with sweets, holding her hand under the table. At the end, Mira excused herself and went to the restroom, and they all began to stand up. Vivian walked toward her, followed by Frankie.

“It was nice to meet you today,” Vivian said, smiling thinly. “Mira told us that you’re living together for another year. Is that right?”

“That’s right. Uh, nice to meet you too.” Isabel’s nervousness returned in full force.

“Frankie and I have known Mira for a long time,” Vivian said. “We were worried about her when she was with her ex-boyfriend. I’m sure she told you about him.”

Isabel nodded, fixed to the spot. No surprise that Vivian was a lawyer. Isabel was practically being cross-examined in court.

“She’s had a hard year,” Frankie said. “We’re glad she’s found a good place to land.” Frankie was the friendlier of the two of them, but they were obviously on the same team when it came to grilling Isabel.

“We want her to be happy,” Vivian added. She and Frankie shared a look that was indecipherable to Isabel. But the meaning of their words was loud and clear. They may as well have asked Isabel what her intentions were.

“Understood.” Isabel gripped the chair next to her, trying to keep her composure. “I’m absolutely serious about Mira. And I’m going to work as hard as I can to be good to her.”

The two of them shared another look. Had her answer been good enough? “I’m glad to hear that,” Vivian said.

Frankie nodded. “That’s sweet. She really likes you, too.” That, too, was a warning. Don’t hurt her.

“We’ll look forward to seeing more of you,” Vivian said.

Mira returned. “Some of my favorite people,” she said. Isabel tried to not look as unsettled as she felt. If she ever hurt Mira, she’d never forgive herself.

Mira looked between the three of them. “What were you talking about?”

“Just telling Isabel it was nice to meet her,” Vivian said. “It’s good to see you again. Come over any time, okay? You too, Isabel.”

Isabel did her best to smile. It was good that Mira had friends who were looking out for her. That ought to be reassuring. They said their goodbyes.

“Thank you for coming out with me,” Mira said, on their way back to the subway. “It’s wonderful to get to introduce you to my friends. This means so much to me.”

“Me too.” Isabel gripped Mira’s hand, hoping she’d never have to let go.