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I don’t know what to do with her.
With the way she makes me feel.
With who she makes me want to be.
So I don’t think about it.
I just reach for her. Cup my hand around her jaw, my fingers pushing into her dark, damp hair. My thumb sweeping across her delicate cheekbone. I move slow. Take my time. Not like last time. The last time I kissed her I was rough. Angry. Trying to prove a point. Take something from her. This time I lower my mouth slowly, barely more than brushing my lips against hers before I back away. Let her go.
Afterward she just sits there and looks at me like she doesn’t know what to do with me either.
“Are you going to kick me out again?” I say it quietly because I know that she should. That it would the smart thing for her to do. That if I really were a goddamned gentleman, I get up and throw myself out the window.
“No.” She reaches over to pick up the kitten curled up in my lap and she lets out a protesting yowl. “I’m going to tell you to scoot over so I can lie down.
Shit.
I just stare at her for a second, trying to figure out how I’m going to this. How I’m going to stay with her and not touch her. Not take things from her that don’t belong to me. “This is a bad idea,” I tell her, my throat catching and scraping around the words. “You know that, right?”
“Are you going to hurt me?” It’s how she is. Blunt. Honest. There’s no pretense in her. Nowhere to hide.
“I don’t want to.”
It’s not a no.
It’s not even an I’ll try not to.
But it’s the truth. It’s what she needs to hear.
Deserves to hear.
“Then scoot over so I can lie down.”
When I move across my bed, it lets out a squeaky groan. It’s a twin-size daybed and I take up the majority of it.
I lay on my side, trying to take up as little room as possible. She lays down, facing away from me, Her shoulders pressed against my chest. The top of her head tucked under my chin.
She’s nervous. Doesn’t know what’s supposed to happen next. What’s she’s supposed to do.
That makes two of us.
I tuck an arm under the pillow we’re sharing and wrap the other one around her, pulling her as close to me as I can get her. Trapping my hand under her ribcage.
We lay like this for a while. Neither of us sleeping. Neither one of us quite sure how we got here.
She breaks first. I feel her head brush against the underside of my chin as she turns it, trying to look at me. “Dec—”
“You have work in the morning.” I tighten my grip. Hold her against me, her back snug against my chest. “Go to sleep.” Her heart is hammering inside her ribcage so hard I can feel the beat of it against the arm I have wrapped around her.
She doesn’t want to sleep.
Neither do I.
But what I want is something neither of is prepared for, so I don’t say anything else.
I just lay here and wait her out.
Eventually she drifts off. Her breathing slows. Her heart stops knocking.
I don’t sleep.
I can’t.
When her dad’s alarm clock goes off in the living room, I get up as quietly as I can and slip out the window.