“No.Not unless I count you giving me shit for how I sound when I first wake up.”
“That wasn’t shit.I thought it was cute,” I said, then wished I hadn’t.Seeing as I couldn’t take it back, I tossed the covers off me.“I’m hitting the bathroom, while you reset our ridiculous alarm.”
“Not ridiculous, woman,” he muttered.
I wandered into the bathroom shaking my head, but didn’t respond.
When I returned to the bedroom, Ryan rolled out of bed.
“Aren’t there other side-effects associated with a concussion?”I asked just before he hit the doorway to the bathroom.
He paused, but didn’t look at me.“Yeah, but neither one of us had those.Don’t know about you, but I’d rather wake up every so often, than find myself in the hospital because my brain swelled in my sleep.”
Mental note: someone didn’t like having their sleep interrupted.Then again, neither did I.
I rolled to my side, and realized I was facing Ryan’s side of the bed.It wasn’t ideal, but I figured I’d switch when he came back to bed.
The next time I woke up, it wasn’t because of an alarm.It was because I was burning up and a heavy arm rested along my waist.I opened my eyes and in the dim moonlight coming into the room, I saw the outline of Ryan’s white tank top against his skin.
How was I pressed up against him like this?No,whywas I held tight to him like this?
As gentle and slow as I could, I tried to pull free of his hold without waking him.That was no easy task, let me tell you.
I had eased his arm off me, and managed to pull away from him by an inch when his breathing shifted.
“Ivy,” he said, his voice almost questioning.
“Yeah,” I whispered, trying not to wake him up fully.
“What are you doing?”he asked.
“I’m… giving you space.”
“Alarm go off?”he asked in a husky voice.
“No.”
Light from his cell phone filled the room, then I saw him fiddling with the screen for a bit before he put it back on the night stand.
“Everything all right?”I asked.
“Will be once you get back over here.”
I did a long blink, not that he could see it in the darkness.“Pardon me?”
“You were out cold earlier, and the only way for me to get some sheets was to pull you closer to me.I’m not fighting for sheets with you, so get your ass over here and let’s go back to sleep, Ives.”
Nobody called me that.Scratch that, Ed had called me ‘Ives’ when I was little.He was long gone once Mom learned what a jackass he was to me.As much as I wanted to tell Ryan to stop calling me that, there was something downright therapeutic about the way he did it.In fact, I almostlikedit – but my jury was still out.
How weird was that?
I curled up on my side of the bed.“Um, I’ll just be right over here, on my side of the bed.I mean, it’s a queen so everything is nice and cozy.”
Ryan slid his arm under my neck, along my shoulders, and pulled me toward him.“Don’t fuck with me, tonight, woman.We’re both too tired for that.See you in another hour.”
“Thought it was every forty-five minutes?”I asked like an idiot.
He chuckled.“I’ve been stretching it out.My guess is we don’t have real concussions.Those pussies didn’t have what it takes to give either of us concussions.”
