She clicked the overhead light off but then tiptoed back inside the room, to the window.
Lamplight glowed from across the way.
His sleep schedule was apparently as messed up as hers.
Missing a beat, her heart responded when the door swung open and he stepped into his room. He must have woken up to get something to eat, or go to the bathroom maybe, but as he entered, she could see his face.
And without warning, his eyes caught hers. Should she run? But no! That would be even worse.
He lifted one hand and waved. Penny froze. What should she do? Holy crap!
Caught in the act.
Even using one hand, he had no difficulty sliding his window open. Was he going to confront her for watching him?
She had to do something. She was a fricking adult, for Pete’s sake.
It was nothing. She was just looking outside, looking at the…moon?
Penny pulled on the blind string and pushed her curtains out of the way. She couldn’t very well ignore him now!
She opened her window, all the while hoping he didn’t intend to call the cops. “Hey,” he said.
He didn’t speak loudly; in fact, his voice was little more than a whisper.
“Hey,” she said back. “Trouble sleeping?
She pulled up a stool so she could peek out without bending over.
He sat down, too. There must be a bench there that she’d not seen. “Sleeping too much in the daytime– Vicodin. What’s your excuse?”
Penny tucked her knees under her chin.
What was her excuse? That she’d stopped living like a normal person? That she’d given up on life when her marriage had fallen apart? “I don’t know.” She’d not meant to sound forlorn. “Just kind of messed up, I guess…”
He rested his arm along the sill. The darkness lent an intimacy she’d not felt with him in the car.
“How come you’re messed up?” His voice rumbled across the darkness. The low-pitched gravelly tones surprisingly soothed her.
With the lamplight behind him, she couldn’t make out his features any longer.
And that had been a loaded question. “I kind of, well, I guess I’ve sort of lost track of… stuff… since my marriage fell apart.” She’d lost her dignity, her pride, her self-worth… Why would she tell him this?
“How come your marriage fell apart?”
This night was beginning to feel surreal. His question didn’t make her squirm. It just felt like she was talking to a sympathetic voice in the darkness, in the night. If felt safe.
“He cheated.” But there was more to it. “We’d drifted apart before that. And I didn’t do anything to try to fix things. I guess I kind of just thought our marriage would fix itself.”
“But it didn’t.”
“No.” She’d not wanted to accept any of the blame though. Kent had been the one to break the vows they’d made to one another. He’d met somebody else, wooed her, and then brought her into Penny’s own bed.
“He slept with her. I caught them. And her butt was on my pillow!”
That really bothered her. Nearly as much as the fact that she’d discovered her husband having sex with another woman in their bed. The fact that he’d not respected Penny enough to keep his mistress’ butt off her pillow!
Chaz wasn’t laughing. Maybe, by some strange freak of nature, he understood why that would hurt.
