“Don’t want to?—”
“Rose?” I inch out from beneath her and prop myself up on my elbow. I’m careful not to let her fall, laying her cheek on my deserted pillow and tucking her hair back behind her ear. “Hey? You have to wake up.”
She hiccups and whimpers, crying in her sleep the way I’ve heard her do a thousand times already. So I give her arm another shake. “Rose!”
Her eyes snap open, her chest coming to a standstill, not even her pumping heart can change. Then, swallowing, she shifts her gaze and locks onto mine in the low light.
“Ollie?”
“It’s just me.” I drag her blankets up to combat the goosebumps bursting all along her flesh, and though I’d do anything to kiss her awake, to touch and tease and steal one last taste before I’m forced away, I can’t un-hear what she said.Darcy. To think of her dreaming of someone else—missing them—while she lies with me… is enough to make me want to puke. “I have to get up for work, Rose. You can go back to sleep if you want to.”
“Work?” She inches up and stares across the room, squinting to read the time. Then, with a huff of exhaustion, she drops again and grumbles. “Before you get in your feelings about this, you should know I don’t regret you. But Idoregret only getting two hours of sleep.”
My stomach jumps with an odd combination of nerves and delirium. Dread and anxiety. My phone continues to vibrate against the floor, but as she curls into the blankets, hugging them now that I’m no longer her pillow, I battle against the words so horrifyingly close to the tip of my tongue.
Ask her about him? Remind her of what she might’ve lost in that spacebetween asleep and awake? Or let it go and pray he’ll stay gone with her memories?
I already know which is the wrong choice, but knowing doesn’t make it easier to do the right thing. So I roll out of bed instead and leave her to sleep for a little while longer. I walk across her room, naked as the day I was born, and scoop up my clothes, and digging my hand into the pockets of my sweatpants, I silence my stupid phone and turn back to stare down at the woman who has no clue how close she is to unlocking a new memory. How insanely fucking close she may be to shattering my heart.
“I’m going for a shower,” I whisper, swallowing the ball of dread intent on choking me to death. Walking back to the bed and lowering into a crouch, I push loose locks of hair back off her face, uncovering soft cheeks and relaxed eyelids. Bow lips, swollen and tempting. And long, dark lashes lying against the tops of her cheeks. “If you wake up, come out and have breakfast with me, Rosaline. But if you stay asleep, that’s okay, too.”
“Mmm.” She smacks her lips and sighs. “Tired.”
It’s so easy, so fucking simple, to pretend letting her sleep is for her own good, and not because I don’t want to say his name.Darcy.Who the hell is Darcy? And why does he get to have one of classic literature’s most well-known heroes’ names?
She’s not yours, Ollie. She never was. You dumb motherfucker.
Shaking my head, I bundle my clothes in my hands and push up straight, and turning on my heels, I move into the hall and through the bathroom door. I toss my clothes and set my phone on the vanity, pointedly ignoring the dying battery alert obnoxiously flashing on my screen. I have forty-five minutes to shower, dress, make something decent to eat, and get my ass out the door. And for the first time since she came here, I kinda hope Rosedoesn’twake and join me for breakfast.
Because I’m a selfish bastard who jumped headfirst into a situation thatcannotcome with a happy ending.
Not for me, anyway. Not while she has an entire other life somewhere else.
I flip the taps on and wait, cold and naked, for the water to warm, and a full ten minutes after stepping in, I turn the taps off and walk out again. I wrap myself in a fresh towel and go through the motions of swiping the mirror clear and finger-combing my hair. Drying off. Spraying deodorant. And then moving into my room and selecting my clothes for the day.
At five-twenty, I emerge from my room fully dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved button-up shirt. Sneakers. A sweater that goes well with my shirt, since wearing Love & War hoodies to work raises more brows from the nosy patients than I’d rather deal with.
Moving along the hall in silence, I pass Rose’s bedroom door and slow,wishing it wasn’t so dark still. Or that I’d had the forethought to shower without the lights on, all so my eyes could stay accustomed to the shadows.
Instead, I’m forced to keep going, toward the end of the hall and into the living room so I can plug my phone in. And since I’m here, I place fresh kindling and a new log on the fire, the red-hot coals providing enough heat to catch on and start the flames anew.
Because Rose deserves to come out here in an hour or two with her morning coffee and a bowl of something sugary and not at all sustaining, and I’d rather she did it without shivering or having to worry about re-lighting the fire.
I crouch by the hearth for a minute, staring into the bright flames as they crackle and grow larger. But time isn’t my friend this morning, and ruminating on that name—Darcy—is enough to send me mad. So I push up straight and head back to the hall, then left, into the kitchen.
“I’m gonna cook your breakfast today.”
“Argh!” I jump and slap my hand to the switch on the wall, flicking the dozen overhead lights on and drenching the room in bright, glaring light, all to reveal Rose standing on the other side of the counter. My side. She’s soft and sleepy-eyed, messy hair draping over the front of my shirt.
My long sleeves, so long that they hang past her hands. And the length of my shirt falling to cover the upper portion of her thighs.
Fuck. Me.“Rose…”
“Sorry, I scared you.” She turns and flicks the button on the coffee pot, then she starts this way, circling the counter with a sexy, seductive sway of her hips and stepping out to reveal fluffy socks stretching halfway up her calves. Her cheeks burn a rosy red blush, and her eyes look anywhere but at me.
She’s shy.
But fuck, she walks straight through me, draping her arms around my torso and laying her face over my chest. She grunts and groans, squeezing me tight. And when I don’t return her hug, she snarls. “I knew you were going to make this weird.” She squeezes again, crushing my ribs to drive her point home. “You were out of my bed for all of twenty minutes, and you’re already turning this into a whole thing.”
