She smiled up at me. “You’re recycling lines now.”
“Good material holds.”
We went inside through the back, quiet enough not to invite company, though I still felt eyes somewhere behind us.
My room was warm after the water.
Too warm.
Or maybe that was her, standing there in a towel, wet hair down her back, looking around my old bedroom like she could see all the versions of me that had hated sleeping here.
I gave her the shower first.
She came out twenty minutes later in one of my shirts and a pair of my boxers rolled at the waist. Her hair was damp. Her face clean. She looked exhausted and soft and so far past beautiful I didn’t have a word for it.
I showered fast because my self-control was apparently being held together with prayer and football tape.
When I came back, she was already under the covers, the TV on low, some holiday movie playing where a woman in a red coat was learning the true meaning of Christmas from a man who owned a tree farm.
“This movie looks terrible,” I said.
“It is.”
“You watching it anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone is emotionally sincere and no one is talking about hedge funds.”
I got into bed beside her.
Carefully.
Like that would help.
She shifted into me almost immediately, head finding my chest, one leg sliding between mine, her hand resting over my stomach like it had always known where to go.
I froze.
Then slowly, carefully, I wrapped my arm around her.
She sighed.
One small sound.
Content.
Sleepy.
Real.
I looked down at the top of her head.
Her hair smelled like my shampoo.
My shirt swallowed her body.
