“Is this okay?” Hallie asked at the same time that Brynn was already scooting backward to make room for her. Once they were settled, with a single blanket draped across both of them—Brynn’s favorite way—Hallie reached up and turned off the light on the end table, bathing the room in darkness.
The inn was relatively quiet, but she could still hear the sounds of the pipes that ran through the old building, of footsteps padding down the hallway. But right now, in this moment in Hallie’s embrace, her bad dream actually felt more like a memory from long ago than anything else. Far less present than when she’d woken up.
“Do you want to talk about it? The offer still stands,” Hallie asked, her voice a soothing timbre that made Brynn want to snuggle in closer.
She resisted the urge.
Brynn bit her lip. Of course she wanted to talk about it with Hallie, even if her tears had stopped and her heart rate had returned to normal. Brynn was finding that she wanted to do anything and everything with her. Only— “I don’t want you to do this because you feel badly for me. Especially since…”
Hallie adjusted her position so their legs intertwined, and she started running her hand soothingly up and down Brynn’s T-shirt-clad arm. “Since what?” she coaxed.
“Things have been weird this week,” Brynn admitted. “And I know that I can be a lot. Especially in close quarters. So I’m sorry if I did anything to make you uncomfortable. If you tell me what it is, I can make sure that I stop doing it. Because I really, really do value your friendship. And I would never want to put you in a difficult position.” There. She’d said the hard thing. The words were out, and, surprisingly, she didn’t want to take them back.
A look that Brynn didn’t quite understand flashed across Hallie’s face before she frowned. There were long, agonizing seconds before Hallie answered. “I should be apologizing to you, Brynn. You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, and I’m sorry if I ever gave you that impression.”
She could hear the genuine sorrow in Hallie’s voice, and it made Brynn’s own heart ache, like she was experiencing Hallie’s sadness, too.
Nothing was making sense right now. Not Hallie’s genuine remorse, when she’d obviously had a good reason for whatever had made her behave this way over the past week.
Or—and Brynn’s more pressing matter, both literally and figuratively—how they’d gone from barely touching for days to having their bodies pressed so closely together that Brynn couldn’t move without them ending up more or less on top of one another.
Trying to make sure that Hallie had enough room, Brynn slung her arm across Hallie’s hip and pulled her in closer. She wondered whether Hallie could feel the way her heart was thrumming unevenly in her chest.
Maybe she could, since Hallie swallowed deeply, her fingers faltering against Brynn’s warmer-by-the-second skin. But shewasn’t taking the blanket off of them, even if she melted into a puddle in the process.
It would be so, so easy to get lost in Hallie’s touch, how it made her forget everything outside of their little cocoon.
But Brynn, being who she was, couldn’t do that.
“Then…” Brynn chewed on her lip, trying to find the right way to explain herself. Because thingshadbeen weird this week. She wasn’t making that up. No one loved a good routine like she did, and theirs had been wholly disrupted since– “Is this about my date with Natalie? That I’m dating women?”
Hallie groaned and shifted her legs, which momentarily distracted Brynn because of how their bodies melted into one another, solidly, from hip to thigh, like they were bracketed together. Brynn let out a quick breath, refusing to lose her momentum even though it felt insanely good. Hallie’s touch always felt good, but this was beyond the usual comfort that being near and connected to Hallie elicited in her. Even if all she wanted to do was focus on that sensation, she couldn’t stand the idea that Hallie may think she was a less-than-upstanding person.
“I promise that I’m not trying to use anyone,” she said. “I really am interested in meeting and dating all types of people, even if I’m not sure exactly what I want.”
Hallie was frozen, their faces so close that, even in the dark, Brynn could tell that she wasn’t blinking. “You should date whoever you want, Brynn. I want you to find happiness. You are such a good person, and you deserve it.”
“Deserving anything implies a ‘just-world theory,’ which has largely proven to be untrue,” Brynn ruminated, breathing softly into the small space between them.
Hallie’s hand stilled against her arm. “Brynn,” she responded, her tone laced with the humored exasperation thathad become ever-present in their friendship. “You know what I mean.”
Their faces were only inches apart, and Brynn could smell the sweetness on Hallie’s breath from whatever drink she’d had on her date.
Quietly, Brynn spoke the words that she rarely, if ever, shared with people. Gregory knew, but she had never told Grant. “If good people got what they deserved, which was full, happy lives, then my sister wouldn’t have died. That’s what I was dreaming about.”
Her parents, for as open and loving and soft as they were, never talked about her sister. She’d realized very early on after the loss that it was simply too painful for them. They’d put their grief in a box, choosing instead to focus all of their energy on Brynn’s life. On her happiness.
Most days, she tried to strike a balance of remembering Bridget while not drowning in the unfairness of a life lost far too soon.
Hallie didn’t respond immediately. Instead, her hand started moving again, tracing an attentive pattern across Brynn’s forearm, the hairs prickling along Hallie’s path. “I didn’t know that you had a sister. Do you want to tell me about her?”
Even if Brynn did, there was still this persistent, intrusive thought in her brain about the distance that had existed between her and Hallie. Even if she wasn’t feeling it right now, she didn’t want to mistake Hallie’s sympathy for connection. Or to think that, tomorrow, things could just go back to being the way they were before. All because Hallie pitied her. She wasn’t sure exactly why, but the idea of that was more painful than a lot of things she’d experienced in her life.
She valued Hallie’s heart and verve and her seemingly never-ending capacity to understand Brynn far too much to let confusion linger between them.
“Will you tell me what’s been going on with you? With us?” Brynn pushed, her fingers finding purchase on Hallie’s hip.
It sounded like a breath got caught in Hallie’s throat, and she coughed quietly, turning her head up toward the ceiling. Once she’d finished, she didn’t turn back toward Brynn. Instead, she stared into the darkness above. “I’ve never known someone quite like you, Brynn, and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t the one being too overbearing. Too much. I didn’t want to makeyouuncomfortable.”
