“Lay down. LAY DOWN,” he whisper screams. Templeton’s little rat body presses against my side and I feel him roll onto his back for belly rubs. I pretend to be unaware and deep in a Sleeping Beauty-esque slumber.
I don’t really know how to act. We’re sharing a bed. After he got in the shower, I slipped my sweatpants off so my legs wouldn’t get too hot. I’m lying in his bed in a t-shirt and underwear. I already decided when he was in the shower I’d pretend to be asleep.
He said he wants to get to know me now. That does not mean hewantsme now. It means he needs to know more.
Which means the kiss from the woods was just . . . an isolated event in time?
And now we are platonically sharing a bed because we’re both tired and tomorrow will definitely be a long day. Ugh, and the Fall Fox Fling dance is tomorrow night. I highly doubt I’ll be making it there. And why would I even want to? Just towatch the single women of Foxboro drool over Brodie while they actively hate me? They hated me in high school, so why not now too?
I am hyper aware of every single move Brodie makes. Wiggling his toes. A shallow breath. A quiet cough into his fist. Okay, so he’s fidgety. That’s how he’s always been. A man forever in motion. I take a deep breath and turn onto my side, away from him. The covers tug when he turns in the opposite direction too.
Good. We are good at this. Just two people on the same sleeping surface. I focus on making absolutely zero motions.
For fifteen minutes, I lie here, watching the minutes change on his bedside clock. His breaths even out. He’s getting some sleep. Good. He worked hard. He rescued Granny, then was heckled by her for however much time came after that. That can’t be easy.
Everything isgood. I mean, other than Granny being in the hospital and her house being charred.
Why is my throat so dry? Is it made of sandpaper? Coarse grit sandpaper at that.
Another three minutes pass, and I decide I have to get a drink of water. Quiet as a church mouse, I slip out of bed and pad to the kitchen. I open and close cabinets, trying to make as little noise as possible. The hinge squeaks when I finally happen upon a cupboard of bowls. They’re cup-like. It’ll do.
I run a bowl under the tap and drink deeply.
I hear Brodie’s mattress shift and creak. My whole body tenses as his feet hit the floor. Templeton approaches me and licks my ankle, and the bathroom door shuts. There’s the distinct sound of boy pee, deep and guttural. By the time Brodie’s footsteps reach the kitchen, Templeton has wrapped his front paws around my shin. His little hips start working and yes, the rat dog is humping me. “Shoo!” I hiss, gently trying to kick him off.
“RATTIE,” Brodie booms as he comes into the room. He pries Templeton off my leg and heads for the hallway. “Sorry. He’s . . .” A door shuts, then Brodie walks back into the kitchen. “A horny old man.”
I chuckle. “I gathered that much.”
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“Thirsty,” I say, lifting the bowl.
Brodie squints at my drinking vessel, crosses the hall, grabs something off his dresser, and returns, putting on a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, the ones he wore in the days after his concussion. His lips hook upward on one side, his little smirk that has haunted my dreamiest dreams and worst nightmares for over a decade. “I do have cups, Ari. For drinking.”
He leans over me, and his front presses into my back, which forces me into the counter. And I get the faintest whisper of his . . . goods . . . against my ass.
And being the wound-tight, hornier-than-the-damn-dog woman I am, I moan.
Brodie freezes.
“Sorry,” I breathe.
His laugh sounds like the softest “heh heh.” “All good.”
He fills the glass in his hand with water and extends it my way.
“Thanks,” I squeak.
“You’re welcome.”
Brodie’s still facing me, but leans a hip against the counter. He’s close. Closer than he’s been all day, when I haven’t been touching him, that is—which I guess was more than average. He runs his hands through his hair and looks out into the living room, connected to the kitchen.
“Good water,” I say, and Brodie looks confused.
“What?”
“It’s, ah, good water.”
