“’Kay,” he called out just as loudly, doing whatever it was he was doing in the kitchen. Eating?
I stopped where I was. “Want some company while you eat?” I yelled.
“I’m good,” he replied.
Okay.
I headed into my bedroom, grabbing the clothes I had organized while I waited for my dinner, and pulled out a navy short and tank top pajama set with pink hearts that Lily had bought me.
It didn’t take me long to shower and get dressed as I did my best to ignore how tired I was. I’d gone on maybe five hours of sleep over the last three days, and I was feeling it. Honestly, all I wanted to do was fall face-first onto my bed. I was too sleepy to even care about the tiny possibility someone might decide to come back.
And… Rip was here.
I even brushed my teeth then moisturized my face, giving the circles under my eyes a sigh. I really needed to get some sleep. And using one of those gel eye masks wouldn’t hurt either. At least the stress hadn’t made me start breaking out.
Sighing again, I opened the bathroom door and stopped.
I stopped right there in place and took in the man sitting on the edge of my bed.
The man sitting on my bed, pulling off his socks, giving me a nice view of pink soles.
The man who looked up the second I opened the door and flashed me a smile that was almost as tired as mine was.
“If you get hungry in the middle of the night, I left food in your fridge,” he told me quietly, folding his socks and dropping them on top of his work boots. “You need to hit the store though. There’s nothing in there.”
“I know, but thank you,” I told him, standing there. “I’ll make time to go this weekend.” I paused. “Did you cook everything yourself?”
His eyes never left mine as he answered, “Yeah.”
I wondered if his mom had taught him how or if he’d had to learn after she was gone.
“Did you want to shower?” I asked, choosing that to focus on.
He shook his head. “I did before I came over.”
Well.
“I can’t make it through another night on your couch again,” he let me know, still speaking in that calm, quiet voice that I didn’t know what to do with.
Oh.
I thought about that. “Lily’s bed is too small, it’s just a daybed, and my other sisters took theirs.”
Oh.
Oh.
I didn’t need to look at my bed to know that while it wasn’t a king-sized mattress, it was a queen. And the biggest in the house.
“You can sleep on my bed. There are some tears in the mattress, but I covered them with the sheets. It’ll still be better than last night,” I offered, giving him a smile. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
…by myself.
Closer to the front and back doors.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“Or in Lily’s room,” I threw out.
