“Liar.”
“Yup. You want me to chip so you can go back to sleep?”
“Chip?”
“Leave you alone.”
“I don’t want to go back to sleep.”
Okay, then. I glance around. Tanner’s bedroom is small, and as sparsely furnished as the rest of the apartment. It has nothing in it except a bed and a closet. It feels oppressive, but as if it’s closing in on him, not me.
I find his hand and squeeze his palm against mine. “Come on. Let’s watch TV.”
He seems dazed as he gets to his feet, but he doesn’t let go of my hand, even once we’re settled on the couch.
I find the remote buried on the coffee table and flick the TV on. NHL highlights fill the screen. “This good?”
He nods and leans back, eyes already half closed again. I watch dudes fire the puck around the ice and try to keep up, all the while absorbing the scorching heat of Tanner’s hand wrapped around mine. It’s not the first time we’ve held hands like lovesick teenagers, but it feels different this time. Tanner’s gripping me as though he’s scared to let go, and I don’t have the first clue why.
And I’m not going to ask him. How many times has he told me he hates it when people get up in his shit?
Too many to count. And I hate it too. So I don’t ask him anything, or even speak, and before long he’s asleep again, head tipped back, the arch of his inked neck exposed.
I want to kiss him there.
Shit.
The thought catches me off guard, but it shouldn’t. Tanner is kind, gentle, and sexy as hell. Tonight, though, he’s also a fucking mess. Thinking about laying my lips on his warm skin should be the last thing on my mind.
I push the thought aside and find the blanket that’s slipped to the floor. I drape it over his long legs and try not to stare at his sculpted chest. And fail, obviously, because I’m only fucking human.
The hockey is still on. I turn it off so we’re cloaked in darkness. Then I worry that it was the darkness that consumed Tanner in the first place and switch the TV back on.
I slide down the couch so I’m close enough that he can lay his head on my shoulder if he needs to. I have grand plans to stay awake and watch over him, but that goes as well as my vow not to ogle him. I have no idea what time it is when he shakes me awake.
“Bed,” he slurs. “Come to bed.”
“Wha—?”
Tanner is already pulling me off the couch. He fumbles his arm around my waist, holding me where my scarred body is weakest, though I don’t need his help, even with my sleep-addled legs. I let him tow me toward his bedroom as I come to properly, then it dawns on me that his eyes are open but there’s no one home.
He’s sleepwalking.
Jesus.I’ve never seen it in real life.
We reach his bed and he pushes me onto it. I raise up on my knees and catch his shoulders. “Tanner, mate. You’re not awake right now. Are you sure you want me in your bed?”
He shakes his head. It’s not coherent enough to be an answer. Then he takes my hands from his shoulders and squeezes them. “I need you next to me. I need to know you’re not dead.”
“Why would you think I was dead?”
“Because you died. Because I went to sleep.”
His gaze is unfocused and fixed on the wall behind me, but there’s no mistaking the distress in his wild eyes. He grips my hands harder. “Don’t die.”
“I won’t, I promise. You want me to stay with you?”
In answer, he pushes me down on the bed, and topples down next to me. He releases my hands and closes one around my wrist, his fingers pressed into my pulse point. Then he falls still. His eyes close, and his breathing evens out, leaving me the rest of the night to wonder what the fuck just happened.
