"Much," I responded as evenly as possible. I didn't want to make it seem like I felt any differently after that little ordeal, but it was hard to keep my face from giving me away.
"I put your clothes in the washer." he said, picking up the remote to turn on the television.
"Thanks for everything."
He smiled at me and then pointed behind him in the direction of the kitchen. "I have soda, juice, and cookies in the kitchen."
"Okay..." I trailed off, wondering about his random thought.
"That's what they usually give me when I go donate blood," he teased with a snort. "I wouldn't want you to pass out from blood loss."
"Tristan?"
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
Chapter 24
I was slowly aware of three things:
One, I could not feel my hand.
Two, I was unusually warm.
Three, I was not on my bed.
Very slowly, I slipped from dream state into consciousness, but my brain was running, trying to remember the details that led up to my three realizations. I slept in the same position every night; I was one of those heavy sleepers that hardly moved and right then, my body was positioned in a way that normally didn’t sleep in. Also, this unfamiliar clean scent lingered in my nostrils. The last thing I remembered was lying on Tristan's couch with my legs tucked underneath me while watching a movie and laughing my ass off. Tristan had the entire movie memorized, which only added to the fun.
I couldn't remember anything after about halfway through it.
"You chose the last one, so now we get to watch what I want," he exclaimed, already on his feet and heading to the shelves filled with DVDs.
I groaned loudly. "You're going to choose something terrible, aren't you?"
Tristan let out an audible, mock gasp. "You shall never speak those words in my house again," he faked a hiss. "My taste in movies is unparalleled."
So continued our evening and night, watching funny movies with the green-eyed jackass, who recited all of his favorite lines.
My saliva was thick and gross tasting, there was a thin layer of tartar on my teeth from failing to brush them the night before, which was fucking disgusting. Blinking, I had to squint at the amount of light filtering into the room only to face a wall of white. The white was moving closer to me, and then back away with each breath. I became faintly aware of something heavy and warm draped over my hip and back. What the hell was going on? I moved my head slightly up, only to come in contact with something very hard. I could also see a sliver of skin. My face was practically buried against his chest, and I had to assume the hard thing over my head was his chin.
I couldn't move my head down to see what was over me but it had to be his arm. My right hand was wedged under his ribs, and I couldn't feel it at all. To top it off, my feet were burrowed in between thick hair and bones. Maybe his feet? We were pressed together; my chest against his stomach because of his height advantage and it felt nice. It'd been close to a year since the last time I slept with anyone besides Zoey, and this only made me realize how much I enjoyed and missed having someone to snuggle with.
I'd had three boyfriends in my life after high school; the first was a snuggler, the second I unfortunately had no idea, and the third was not. The two I'd gotten well acquainted with complained of my body heat, claiming that I was too warm but really, I got cold easily at night so that never made any sense. Even though they didn't like to spoon or anything, I'd missed the presence and the butt cheeks that would at least keep me company. My dear Zoey was one of those people who moved around a lot all night. Nine times out of ten, I got slapped in the face or kicked in the stomach when we happened to sleep in the same bed together.
"Kat?" Tristan's hoarse voice asked from above my head. His body stirred before arching against me in a stretch.
"Hey," I said, my voice still thick with sleep. "I don't remember falling asleep."
The arm thrown across me was now moving up and down my back, the palm smoothing over the material covering the area from my shoulders to spine. "I remember you started falling asleep. Your head was bobbing back and forth, so I moved to put your head on my shoulder but that's pretty much it. You snored again but it seemed like a dream," he groaned against my hair.
His hand continued sliding up and down my back, detouring to glide upward to touch the crown of my head before smoothing down my hair. I knew I had a ponytail up last night, my hair wasn't down like it should have been which was strange. "Oh," I mumbled, only an inch away from his chest. My hand was still asleep, but I could not have cared any less.
"You're warm," he said in a soft voice. "You're like my own little electric blanket."
I wanted to ask him if he slept on couches with girls regularly, but something told me that I already knew the answer. He mentioned to me last night that I was the third female to ever come over to his house; the first and second being his mom and grandmother. His words from nights before when he assured me that his bed was clean and that he wasn't a whore rang through my brain as a reminder. Maybe I should have been less trusting because he could have been lying, but I highly doubted it. If it really was hard for him to not only have friends but girlfriends too because of the porn, there would be no way he'd invite someone over who only knew him as Robby Lingus.
"What are you thinking?" he asked after my silence.
