‘No, it’s a massive bed. I’m so tired I’ll not notice you’re there. I mean, you have got pyjamas, haven’t you?’ I peeked at him, smiling to show I was retaining a sense of humour about the whole thing.
‘I have indeed. Well, a pair of jogging bottoms and a T-shirt.’
‘Great.’
We sat in companionable silence for a while, sipping our drinks.
‘What the hell is that bathroom door, though?’ Cooper said, grimacing. ‘Maybe we could drape a sheet over it or something?’
Phew.
I really did think this might turn out okay.
* * *
Cooper
Cooper lay in bed counting the number of times he’d shared a bed with a woman for the whole night. It didn’t take long. He might be twenty-nine, but his longest relationship had been weeks, and one-night stands had never appealed. Never mind the awkwardness of exposing himself like that to a stranger, coupled with the fact that he was far too busy putting distance between him and his past to think about luxuries like love and dating.
He checked the time. Two minutes later than last time he checked. Was five fifty-eight too early to get up and have a shower?
Glancing over at Emma, he felt another wave of mild panic that she was there, churned with relief that she was comfortable enough to sleep. Unless she was pretending. Feigning sleep to avoid more awkward small talk before breakfast. Cooper leant a little closer to her half of the giant bed to check, but then she let out a tiny snore-snort and rolled over, so he carefully edged away again, smiling.
Emma awake had struggled to relax. She’d tried to be friendly but there was a wall of awkwardness that verged on stiff at times. He wondered if she was shy. He hoped she wasn’t regretting her marriage before they’d even set off on honeymoon.
Emma asleep was… well… adorable.
Other men might feel relieved that their blind-date wife turned out to be gorgeous, even with tangled hair splayed across her face and yesterday’s make-up smudged around her eyes.
Cooper felt totally out of his league.
No change there, then.
* * *
Emma
I woke up at six-thirty on the dot, as always. Cooper pretended to have scarcely woken up himself, but no one wakes up with eyes that clear.
Ugh – had he been watching me sleep? Been awake all night, wondering how it was possible to plunge into oblivion five seconds after hitting the pillow, with a stranger less than three feet away?
I wiped my face, in case there was any trace of drool. It seemed okay, but when I scurried into the bathroom, the mirror revealed that drool was the least of my worries.
Ouch.
I looked like a poster girl for the morning after the night before.
Oh, well. If Cooper had been horrified, he’d hidden it well. And if this marriage was going to work, he’d have to get used to the real, make-up-streaked, gravity-defying-haired, bloodshot-eyed, slightly stale-smelling me.
I wanted the sort of husband who loved me at my worst. Or at the very least wasn’t repulsed. Although, in an ideal marriage, I would have gradually eased him into my worst over time.
Half an hour later, I emerged from the bathroom, dignity reapplied and heart rate under control. I’d even compiled a list of questions to ask over breakfast, so that we could move past the stilted getting-to-know-you talk into couple mode as soon as possible.
Cooper smiled at me in the exact same way he’d done when I first woke up.
I liked that.
So far, I liked Cooper.
