“Thanks for being there. For all of it.”
“Anytime.”
I close my eyes and try to fall asleep but my brain keeps circling back to the fact that I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to. My fingers even twitch with the urge to. I curlmy hand into a fist under the covers. Stay on your side, Juliette. This is fake. Even if he defended you perfectly and held your hand through dinner and looked at you like—stop. Sleep. Now.
Eventually, exhaustion wins and I drift off, while still trying to tell myself this is all just pretend.
Even though tonight it felt dangerously real.
Or maybe that’s exactly the way I want it to feel.
12
RODRIGUEZ
I wakeup to the best kind of torture.
Juliette is draped across me, one leg thrown over mine, her face pressed against my chest, her dark hair everywhere, an arm across my ribs and her hand tucked firmly under my back. She’s completely dead to the world, making little sleep noises that aren’t quite snores but that are absolutely destroying me. I’m trying to mentally recite hockey stats to distract myself but all I can focus on is how perfectly she fits against me.
And my left arm is completely numb.
I’ve been awake for almost ten minutes and trying not to move, not to breathe too hard, not to do anything that might wake her up and end this. Because I know the moment she realizes she’s using me as a personal body pillow, she’s going to launch herself to the other side of the bed and act like this never happened.
So I’m suffering through the pins and needles feeling in my arm, the sharp tingling that’s spreading from my shoulder to my fingertips, and the fact that I desperately need to pee. All because Juliette is asleep on me and I’m not about to ruin it.
This is both heaven and hell. Mostly heaven. Definitely worth the dead arm.
I shift slightly, trying to get some blood flow back without disturbing her. She makes a sound that’s half sigh, half complaint, and burrows closer, her nose pressing into my collarbone.
I’m going to die. That’s it. This is how I go. Crushed under the weight of my own stupid feelings for a woman who barely tolerates me.
Then she moves. Just a small shift, her breathing changing from deep sleep to something lighter. I freeze, hoping she’ll settle back down, but instead she goes completely rigid.
She’s awake.
I can tell by the way her body tenses up, the way her breathing stutters and then goes carefully even. She’s realized the position we’re in and she’s about to panic and bolt.
Sure enough, she extracts her leg so smoothly it’s almost criminal, rolls away from me like she was just adjusting in her sleep, settles on her other side facing away from me.
And then she goes perfectly still in that way that means she’s definitely not sleeping anymore.
I have two options here. I can call her out on the terrible fake sleeping, or I can let her save face and pretend I’m still asleep too.
I stretch big and obvious, making sure she can hear me “waking up.” Add a yawn for good measure. “Morning.”
Nothing. She’s committed to the bit.
I get out of bed and head to the bathroom, grinning the whole way. She was cuddled up to me. For most of the night, apparently, based on how numb my arm was. Juliette “Ice Queen” Chastain was using me as a teddy bear and has no idea I know.
I’m keeping that information forever.
In the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face and stare at myself in the mirror. We just survived night one and we’ve got five more nights in this bed, five more mornings where she might wake up wrapped around me likethat.
I pick up the hotel notepad and pen that I grabbed from the desk on my way to the bathroom. She’s still “sleeping” when I start writing.
I fold the note and tuck it into her makeup bag, the sleek black case she organized so carefully, everything in its perfect place. She’ll find it when she gets ready.
I’m still grinning when I head for the shower.
