Page 69 of I’m Dreaming of a New York Christmas

‘Fuuuuuck!’

Ethan’s yelp woke me up instantly.

‘Are you okay?’ I mumbled, rubbing my eyes and sitting up, noting that Ethan had placed the throw from his bed over me while I’d been snoozing.

‘Yeah, sorry for waking you. I tripped over this freaking beanbag and whacked my shin against the coffee table.’

‘Ouch. You should get rid of that thing; it’s not fit for purpose.’

He threw the beanbag towards the pedal bin in the kitchen area. ‘Done.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, just a bit of a shock.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Three fifteen. I’ve just finished up for the night.’

‘You’ve been working all this time?’

‘Yeah, not unusual for me; I’m a bit of a night owl when it comes to drawing. Anyway, now you’re awake, you might as well switch over to the bed.’

‘Nah, I’m quite happy here. It’s so comfy.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yep. Just gonna use the bathroom.’

I slipped my glasses on and locked the bathroom door behind me. I switched on the small shaving lamp above the mirror and examined my reflection. The final remnants of Mum’s cheap mascara clung to my lashes in clumps, so I ran my fingertips under the tap and rubbed them clean. In the absence of moisturising my face after my shower, my skin felt a little tight and sore.

‘Ethan, have you got any face cream?’ I called through the door.

‘Yeah, there’s some stuff in the cupboard under the sink – help yourself.’

I found a brown glass jar of fancy-looking ‘night balm’ and slathered a blob of it over my face and neck; like every toiletry product that Ethan possessed, it smelled incredible. This guy really did have impeccable taste.

I must be the anomaly.

By the time I clicked off the bathroom light and headed back to the sofa, Ethan was all tucked up in bed, reading his book, a single reading light attached to the headboard switched on.

‘All set?’ he asked, placing the reading material down on a small bedside table, removing his glasses and resting them on top of his book.

‘All set,’ I said, climbing back under the blanket on the sofa and clocking that Ethan had replaced the single cushion I’d been resting my head on with two pillows from his bed, along with adding a sheet on top of the sofa cushions and an extra blanket. He’d evidently been busy while I was in the bathroom.

‘Sleep well!’ I called cheerily, as if I was a nurse bidding good night to an in-patient rather than a woman lying at the foot of a bed that belonged to a man she fancied the pants off.

‘You too,’ Ethan replied quietly, before switching off the small light and plunging the room into darkness.

I closed my eyes and searched for the route to sleep that had been so easy to find just a few hours previously. But it proved fruitless.

The whistling of the ongoing storm was audible through the double glazing, but that wasn’t what was keeping me awake. It was the knowledge that Ethan was lying right there and that, if the irregular rhythm of his breathing was anything to go by, he was nowhere near sleep, either.

I tried to force my own breath to settle, but it kept catching, as if my lungs were suddenly the spokespeople for the rest of my body, urging me to do something reckless.

He made it clear that we should sleep separately.

The thought triggered a full-on argument between my common sense and my uncommon bodily sensations while I tossed and turned a few times, as if I might discover a magical position that would open up a secret sleep portal.