Something cracked open in my chest. Because she’d thoughtshe’dbe the problem. That her reaching out would beinconvenient. And here I was, sitting in her hotel room like a fucking wreck, because she hadn’t.
“I was waiting,” I slid my thumb gently across the inside of her wrist. “Every day.”
She looked up slowly, like she didn’t trust what she’d heard.
“I kept thinking maybe you’d message, or call. I didn’t know the heels hadn’t been delivered. The boutique thought I was picking them up. They’d been sitting there for a month.”
Her brow furrowed. “You didn’t know?”
I shook my head. “Not until I found out by accident. And by then… it was too late, wasn’t it?”
“I thought maybe I read it wrong.”
“You didn’t.”
If only she knew, she sparked my interest the moment she clung to me for safety. Silence followed and I didn’t move. Because I wasn’t going to push her.
“Do you want to watch something?”
I turned toward her. “What, like a show?”
She gave the barest nod. “Yeah. Just… something easy. It’s how I fall asleep.”
“I don’t really do television.”
She shrugged. “That’s fine. You can go.”
The words landed like a polite dismissal. But I didn’t want to leave.
“I’ll stay,” At this point, it concerned me what I wouldn’t agree to just to stay with her. “If I fall asleep, don’t hold it against me.”
She looked up, surprised. Then she shifted the trays off the bed. I helped stacking the dishes. It was mechanical, something to do with my hands while my head caught up to what I was doing.
Once everything was cleared, I paused near the edge of the bed, unsure where to sit. This was so fucking pathetic. If mybrothers could see me right now I would never live it down. Thirty one years old and over thinking where to sit on a bed.
She noticed. “You look like you’ve never watched TV before.”
“I don’t normally do this,”
“Break into women’s hotel rooms?”
I gave her a dry look.
“Well, it’s not complicated. Sit in the middle. I’ll take the side.”
This woman was causing me to lose common sense.
I sat where she said, awkward, stiff, and kept my arms crossed tight over my chest. Because I didn’t trust myself not to reach for her.
The show started. I couldn’t remember the title even five minutes in. I was too aware of her beside me. The sound of her breathing. The occasional shift of her leg brushing the mattress. She didn’t say much, just leaned back against the pillows with a kind of exhaustion that felt too old for her age.
I stayed still.
She drifted off before the second episode started.
I looked over at her. Watched her for a long moment. Then I reached for the edge of the blanket folded at the foot of the bed and pulled it up gently over her, careful not to wake her. I smoothed it down once. Then I left. Hoping that this time I’d given her enough of a reason to call me.
6
