“Eleven fifty-eight,” she said, a little indignantly, because she felt she was owed an apology for the way she’d just been woken, and because, looming over her as he was, he could quite clearly see the clock for himself. She glanced toward the nightstand and amended, “Eleven fifty-nine.”
Colton didn’t blink. “On your phone.”
“My phone?”
“Tell me the time on your phone.”
She suppressed the very real and growing urge to throw something at him. But then his hands were fisted at his sides and his ribs were pocked with welts and she could tell that he was afraid.
“Okay,” she said, and ran her hands beneath her pillows. “I’m looking. Don’t have a conniption.”
She found her phone down by her feet, tangled in a mess of blankets. Clicking it on, she was met with a wash of blue light. She squinted down at it, her eyes still struggling to adjust.
“It’s midnight,” she said, just as the clock on the table changed to match. “Happy?”
“Somewhat.” He seemed to have picked up on her derision. Pressing the heel of his hand to an eye, he said, “Thank you, Wednesday.”
She made a sound likehmphand flopped back, yanking the sheets up over her head. The lights were too bright. Her head was ringing, tinnitus pulling between her ears like a bow over string. The oddity of the wake-up call left her hyperaware, her heart beating like a jackhammer. There was no conceivable way she was going to fall back asleep. Not with her head pounding. Not with Nate missing. Not with Colton hovering. Through the paltry thread count she could just make out the dark outline of him loitering at the edge of the bed.
Muffled by blankets, she asked, “Do you want to watch TV?”
There followed an interminable pause. For a moment, Delaney thought perhaps he hadn’t heard her. Or, worse, that he had and was horrified by the suggestion. She was about to repeat herself when she heard him say, “Yeah. Okay.”
She squirmed out from her tangle of sheets, making room for him as he grabbed the remote from the hutch and clicked off the light. There was something supremely ordinary about it—Colton Price in his underwear, Colton Price climbing into her bed, Colton Price clicking on the television.
That peculiar flutter came alive in her stomach, an errant moth beating against the walls of her. The flat-screen hummed to life, the blue light of a stock hotel menu turning the shadows from black to navy. Thinning them back, so they felt just a little less immediate.
The mattress was barely wider than a full, and they were brought close in the dark, elbows knocking together. The planes of his chest lit liquid crystal blue, the defined cordage of his arms limned in silver, then red, then yellow as he surfed through channels.
She occupied herself in fashioning a protective cocoon out of blankets, knees hugged to her chest, sheets double fisted beneath her chin. She tried—without success—not to think of the way he’d leaned into her in the too-blue bathroom, his hand on her throat, his breath at her lips. The way she’d convinced herself he’d been about to kiss her.
The way she’d hoped for it.
“That one,” she said, pointing. “Go back, go back.Go back.”
“Christ.” He fumbled with the buttons. “I’m going.”
“There.” She nudged the remote aside, hand pressed to his wrist. She could feel the hard beat of his pulse beneath his skin. “Stop scrolling, you’re going to go past it again.”
The epileptic flash of channels ceased. A sepia-toned reenactment began playing out across the screen. Colton went gimlet-eyed. “This?This is a true crime documentary.”
“I know.”
“This is what you want?”
“It is.” Delaney settled back into her pillows. “Don’t look at me like that. Just put the captions on.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
They spent the next forty-five minutes in relative silence, engrossed in a series of poorly scripted reenactments. She’d seen this one before, more than once—in the middle of the night, in the pale gray of a dawn, during the long, sleepless nights. She stayed cocooned in her protective nest and tried to give off the outward appearance of someone who was not grossly overthinking every little thing.
Which, of course, she was.
She was thinking about Nate, poured out of his body like water from a cup and then filled with something new. She was thinking about Colton, propped against the headboard, one arm crooked over his abdomen. The light of the television silvered the lines of him, illuminating the white starburst of a scar on the underside of his chin, the neat ink of a tattoo etched along his third rib.
All around the edges of the bed, the long-fingered dark sputtered blue and black and tried, as always, to catch her eye. She felt cold all over, the mothy dregs of her nightmare still churning in her stomach. The curtains were drawn, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Nate was out there. Waiting for her in the dark.
“Can I help you with something?” Colton asked when a commercial came on.
