“I was going to make garlic bread to dip in the soup, but I wasn’t sure whether you were a cheesy garlic bread person or plain,” she says when she sees me, nothing on her face to indicate anything happened, with a wall between us.
“I can make it. You look cozy.” She is, for all intents and purposes, lying beneath a puddle of dogs. “Cheesy?”
A smile lights her whole face. “Always.”
There’s zero awkwardness while we eat, watching a video about some travel photographer Este likes. If we weren’t stuck up here, I’d introduce her to Noelle’s sister, Rora, who was a travel photographer for years before she had her daughter.
There’s a lot I’d like to do if we weren’t stuck up here. Usually, I’m content to stay tucked away, but there are some beautiful places around here, and I know Este would love them. Not to mention all of the little stores and cafés she’d like in Jackson.
Of course, if we weren’t stuck up here, her dads would be here, and we wouldn’t be doing anything just the two of us at all.
Hours pass, and Este doesn’t bring it up. She doesn’t let her fingers linger on mine when she passes me the remote, she doesn’t extend her leg dangerously close to me as she snuggles deeper into the couch, and she doesn’t cast me furtive glances from over her Kindle as she’s reading, even though we both know exactly what kind of thing she’s reading.
Despite this twisted little back and forth we have going on, she looks peaceful. She fits in here so well.
She also looks sleepy, rubbing her eyes and fighting a yawn every few minutes.
I close my iPad and nudge her with my foot. “You look tired. Maybe we should try to sleep.”
“Intentionally?”
It’s a reasonable question, considering we usually just let ourselves drift off when we can’t keep our eyes open anymore. But thinking about how much I’m going to miss having her here makes me think about how, soon, she won’t have my presence to help her fall asleep. If I can help her get used to sleeping better, I’m going to. And selfishly, I want to be closer to her.
“Yeah. And while we’re trying things, maybe sleeping in a bed? A radical idea, I know.”
I expect her to smile or roll her eyes, even laugh. But hurt flashes on Este’s face, and I feel it in my chest.
“Oh. Yeah, no, that’s fine. I can go to bed.” She starts to get up, but I reach for her, closing my fingers around her wrist.
“No, angel. I mean we should both go to bed. My bed. Together.”
Her eyebrows lift, her lips forming a surprised “oh.”
“To sleep,” I tack on.
Nowshe rolls her eyes.
“You know you won’t be able to keep six feet between us at all times if we’re in bed together, right?”
“I know.” Six feet is the last thing I want between us. I want to hold her. I want to stop depriving myself. Somehow, Este must see how badly I need this in my face, because her expression softens and she nods.
“Come on.”
The boys look confused when we pass Este’s room and continue on to mine. They like to sleep where I sleep, and that’s rarely upstairs. But they leap onto the bed and curl up while Este gets ready in the bathroom, and I spray mypillows with the essential oil spray Shay brought me once to help me sleep. It never worked for me, but Este seemed to like the lavender bubble bath, so maybe it’ll help her.
She’s not wearing pants when she comes back in, and she raises a brow like she’s daring me to comment. I don’t, but I do let my gaze linger on her bare legs as she kneels on the bed and kisses the boys goodnight. She has a scar on her ankle that I’ve never noticed.
“How did you get that?” I ask, gesturing to the long-faded scar before I can stop myself.
She glances down at her leg. “Fell off my scooter when I was eleven. And by that, I mean, Sloane jumped out of a bush to scare me, and I went flying. She got a scar tattooed in the same spot a couple of years ago, so we match.”
She climbs under the covers, and I slide in beside her. As if by some unspoken agreement, we both turn until we’re facing each other.
“You ever think about getting a tattoo?” I ask, and she wrinkles her nose.
“I’ve thought about it, but I hate needles. I’d like to get one for Sloane, though. She has a couple for me—the scar, and a few stars.”
“Why stars?”
