Ah. Meaning he’s sleeping in the bed where Vin has slept ever since Raff moved out. Meaning Vin doesn’t have a bed to sleep in tonight. Meaning if I want to keep this discord a secret for any longer, then Vin has to sleep in here.
“Okay,” I say, answering the question he didn’t ask out loud and scooching over to the far side of the bed. Which, actually, is Vin’s side of the bed normally, so when he pulls back the covers and slides in on my side, it makes everything even more disorienting.
I realize, at the last second, that since he didn’t get in on his side, the bed didn’t make its signature Vin squeak. I resist the urge to ask for a do-over.
His breaths are long and even but they aren’t his sleep breaths.
“Maybe we should just tell him,” I say.
Vin is quiet for a few breaths. “I don’t like saying it out loud.”
Which plucks a string inside me. I feel it twang down to my fingertips. That isdifferentthan saying he doesn’t want to talk about it.
Not wanting to say it out loud makes it sound like he wishes it weren’t true.
I bury half my face in the pillow and hope he can’t make out my next words. “I haven’t told anyone yet, either.”
He sits up, and so do I, and we’re face-to-face, just two feet between us. I wish the lights were on, so I could see his face. But then I remember that it doesn’t matter anyways because of the beard.
“If you were gonna tell someone…” He clears his throat. “What would you say?”
“Oh. Um…” I consider all the different facets of the truth.Eventually, I go with “That you signed a lease. And you’re moving out.”
“I haven’t, though.”
“Well, yeah. The lease doesn’t start until August fifteenth. I’m not going to make you find a place to crash until then.”
“No. Not that I haven’t moved out. I—I mean that I haven’t—” He cuts off in frustration, his eyes flitting to me and then away. “I can’t have this conversation with you sitting there like that.”
“Like what?” I look down at myself. I’m in a baggy sleep T-shirt that has Christmas trees on it because we’re not Rockefellers and I don’t have enough money or closet space to keep my seasonal pajamas limited to their season.
“Like,come to bed, Vin.”
I’m gobsmacked. “This sayscome to bedto you? What, you have a Mrs. Claus kink?”
“Roz, you look likeyou.Like theyouI’ve been married to and sleeping with for eight years. Yes, this sayscome to bedto me. Because when you’ve got those sleepy eyes and you’re all…in blankets and you’re talking to me in the middle of the night, usually it’s acome to bedsituation and it’s—” He cuts off, searching for the right word.
“Distracting?”
He lets out a gust of air that’s supposed to sound like a laugh. “Sure. Distracting.” He’s frustrated and pushing his tongue into the side of his cheek and glaring at the wall and facing half away from me and I would put a million dollars on red 27 right now that this conversation is completely over.
And then he flushes that bet down the toilet. “Confusing, really.” He clears his throat. “Is what I meant to say. Because right now you look like the Roz I’ve always been allowed to…touch. But…I’m not…allowed anymore. And I know that. But even so, it’s…hard for me.”
I have never ever heard Vin be so articulate about how he’s feeling in a given moment. Ever. And the fact that he’s saying these words at all is almost as impactful as the words themselves.
I say my words the moment I think them. “Are you?…Not allowed?”
Like,Says who?
His eyes are on mine. There’s no green in the dark, only shadows. “I thought…” he says. “I thought you…”
But he can’t come up with any more words. His breaths are fast and spilling out between us. I’m suddenly understanding exactly what he meant by acome to bedmoment. Because having Vin look at me like that, sitting in the dark, while I have no pants on—
He puts one set of knuckles on the bed between us and leans in toward me, balancing his weight. I think he’s going to go in for a kiss but then his free hand comes up and just rests on my cheek. His eyes close for a moment as his thumb waves hello to the soft skin under my eye.
I fist my hands in his T-shirt the way I did on the couch earlier.Yes, you idiot,written in every tremble of my fists. His nose touches mine and he’s tipping me back, my head into the pillow and his body over mine.
Our lungs are racing each other, pressing our chests together. His hand, at the back of my head, tightens in my hair.
