Miles
My neck is stiff when I wake, the room dark around me. My pillow is much harder than it usually is, and… that’s because it’s not a pillow at all. It’s a leg. A very firm leg, belonging to a very sexy man that is sleeping on my couch with me. I rub my hand down my face and blindly reach for the Gatorade bottle I left on the table. I still feel like a prune.
“Sorry,” JJ mutters, startling me as he quickly gets to his feet. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“It’s okay,” I say, leaning across the spot he was just in to turn on the lamp.
“Let me clean this up.” He grabs the bowls, napkins, and the empty bottle.
“You don’t have to—”
He ignores me and brings it all to the kitchen. I hear the dishes clanking together, the fridge opening and closing. The sink faucet. The cabinets.
I stay where I am because he seems different now. Panicked, like last time, only slightly different. Like he’s upset that he fell asleep here. I get it if he doesn’t want to stay, that’s fine, obviously. Maybe he’s just a little shaken up because he woke up in a strange place. I was confused when I woke up just now, so I can imagine he’d feel similar.
There’s a tense look on his face, and his shoulders are bunched up when he comes back into the room.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say.
“It was my mess; I cleaned it. I should go.”
“Okay, yeah. Sure. But… you could stay, if you want. It’s okay.”
“It’s late.”
Right…
“Yeah, of course.”
He takes his jacket from the coat rack and puts it on.
“Thank you for tonight, JJ. Seriously. It means a lot.”
“Welcome.”
I get to my feet and quickly go to him before he can leave. I take his arm to stop him.
I wish he’d tell me what’s going on when he gets like this, rather than running away. But maybe he doesn’t know how to talk about it.
“I mean it,” I say, looking into his eyes. I see the panic there now, and I don’t know what’s caused it, but now isn’t the time to ask. I don’t want to keep him here longer when it’s clear he wants to leave; I just wish he would tell me what is going on. “Thank you for taking care of me. You’re a good man.”
His eyes widen slightly. “You don’t know that,” he rasps out.
He leaves, hurrying down the steps quietly. I hear the front door open and close, and I close my door, then go to the window.I watch as he gets into his truck, starts it… and just sits there. For a long time. Too long for him to be waiting for the car to warm or pull up directions.
I don’t know what changed or why falling asleep on my couch freaked him out so much. Maybe he was supposed to be at work? It didn’t feel that way. It felt like he threw a wall up. Obviously, it’s okay if this isn’t something he wants to do, but I’m starting to feel like I’m getting whiplash. The mixed signals are getting more obvious by the day.
He bought groceries, made me dinner, fed me, kissed me, and willingly cuddled with me while watching a movie.
There were no walls then.
But he draws the line at sleeping together? On a couch… accidentally?
It’s clear he has something going on, and maybe it’s the stress of work, or it could be something else. Maybe it’s just who he is because I don’t know him. This man is a stranger to me. Despite wanting to get to know him, I need to remember that I don’t.
He’s hard to read; his moods are all over the place. He’s never been mean to me, but I need to tread lightly because I already find myself thinking about him too much. I can’t get myself mixed up with him if he doesn’t want the same things. He said he needed simple, and I thought it would be a one-night thing, but that’s changed. We’re riding this strange line between friends and more. It can’t be labeled as friends with benefits, because that suggests sexual benefit and I’m not getting that. Today felt like something a good friend would do, or… a boyfriend. I just can’t tell if that’s what he intended or not…
I’m not sure what he put in that Alfredo, but I think it was magic. I feel like a real person today—a real person who needs to set things straight with JJ and figure out what the hell is going on.
