We made it to the bed.
She lay down, and I followed. She put her hand on the side of my face. She kept her eyes open, and I kept mine locked into hers. Her hand moved to my face.
We took our time.
Afterwards, she lay on my chest.
Her hair was loose on my shoulder. Her hand was flat over my sternum. Her breath was slow against my collarbone. Pickles had, at some point in the night that I hadn't noticed, jumped onto the bed and curled up by my ankle, which was, I would learn later, an honor I hadn't yet earned and was on probation for.
"Beau," she murmured.
"Mmm…"
"I don't want you to leave tonight."
I'd been waiting to be asked. I'd been telling myself, since the night in the alley when she had saidno strings attached, that I wasn't going to ask to stay. I had told myself I was going to be a man who left when he was supposed to leave and didn't test the deal. I had told myself this every time, left every time, and now she was asking.
I put my hand on the back of her head. "Okay."
"Bonnie wakes up early."
"I'll be gone."
"Beau."
"I'll be gone, Sabrina. I promise."
She didn't push.
She kissed the place over my sternum and fell asleep on my chest.
I didn't sleep for a long time.
I was thinking. I'd been telling myself I needed one more day, and I was getting the day.
The day wasn't going to change anything.
I knew, at some point in the dark, with Bonnie sleeping in the next room and Sabrina asleep on my chest, that I needed to decide. I'd decided sometime between the corridor outside Bonnie's hospital room when Sabrina had pulled me aside and the kitchen counter when Sabrina had been watching me glue Titan back to Saturn.
I had decided.
I was going to call Aldridge.
17.Sabrina
Pickles had stopped hissing at him.
It had been a week since Pickles last hissed at Beau, a small truce that felt surprising and fragile.
Beau was in Bonnie's room.
He was tucking her in, as he had on two previous nights that week. The first had been at Bonnie's plea, born of fatigue and my inability to refuse. The second came after I quietly allowed it. The third required no permission: She moved toward her room at the usual hour, he rose and accompanied her, and the pattern held before we ever named it.
I didn't know how to feel about it.
He came out of her room.
He pulled the door behind him to the half-closed position Bonnie liked. A moment later, he came down the hall and into the kitchen. His arms settled around my waist, and his lips brushed the spot beneath my ear.
