Page 14

14

Liam

I didn’t think Lenny’s bed was that small when we were up in her room earlier, dumping our stuff, but as she closed her bedroom door, the room lit only by the moonlight and two floor lamps, the bed looked tiny. The kind of small that had me wondering how we were both going to fit on it. I couldn’t see how it was possible unless we pressed up against each other, which was not something I would be able to cope with. Mentally, emotionally, or physically.

“What side do you want?” Lenny’s voice sounded strained.

“I’ll just sleep on the floor,” I replied, not chancing a look at her.

“For fuck’s sake, don’t be stupid. Just pick a side.”

“What’s wrong with the floor?” I knew it wouldn’t be comfortable, but it was still a better option than lying shoulder to shoulder with her in a bed that would smell overwhelmingly like her vanilla body lotion with the scotch undertones of her perfume. That had been her signature scent since we were seventeen and I doubted she’d changed it. As long as both that perfume and her favourite body lotion were still being produced, she would stay loyal to them, and I knew they were still being produced.

The floor was the safe option.

“Is that a real question? You’re a man in your thirties who has played a very physically demanding sport for over half of his life and has a mostly normal but definitely still dodgy shoulder. And that’s the injury I know about. Fuck knows what you’ve done to that body in the last twelve years that I don’t know about. The floor is not going to do you any favours, so pick a fucking side.”

“I’ve broken a few ribs and received a lot of bruises. But I told you earlier, I’ve been lucky there have been no real big ones.” I stopped myself from saying that the reason I felt so lucky to not have done anything worse than my shoulder was because I didn’t think I could get through an extensive rehab process without Lenny there. She had been key when I was seventeen, and given the fallout of my retirement, I didn’t necessarily have the best people in my court when she wasn’t around.

“Only a professional sportsperson would consider broken ribs a non-serious injury. Your ribcage only protects your heart and lungs,” she muttered, mostly to herself.

“They really weren’t that bad. You got a spare blanket?”

“I dare you to suggest that you’re going to sleep on the floor again. Please continue to pretend that I am going to let you get away with the dumbest idea you’ve ever had.”

I could tell she was getting legitimately annoyed with me now, which was kind of sweet, but I couldn’t resist messing with her just a little more.

“What’s the forfeit?” I asked .

“What?”

“There was a dare in there somewhere, so what’s the forfeit?”

“It wasn’t an actual dare. It would be pretty tame as dares go.”

I shrugged one shoulder. “So the forfeit can be just as tame.”

Lenny opened her mouth and then shut it again before drawing her eyebrows together in thought.

“You owe me breakfast in bed,” she said eventually.

I looked around me at the floor, like I was deep in thought and then looked at her again.

“You still sleep on the right?” I asked. I got a pillow to the face, probably because she assumed I would protest again, but she had given me a forfeit that involved looking after her. I’d take that any day of the week.

“Sorry, that wasn’t the answer I expected, and I was mid-throw when you opened your mouth. Yeah, I still sleep on the right.”

“Then I’ll sleep on the left.” I threw the pillow onto the bed. “I don’t see how we’re both fitting in this bed.”

“This bed fits three grown men in it. Trust me, we checked, although I don’t remember why. One minute, we were putting the mattress on, next thing, Dad was measuring the width of the bed with his own body. Fortunately, I am narrower than my father and even with that hockey physique of yours, you’re not that wide. We’ll be fine.”

I laughed at that image of Rob measuring the bed and sat on the edge.

“Noted. And now I owe you breakfast. Aren’t you lucky?”

Lenny rolled her eyes at me and as she walked to her suitcase, she mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like, “You’re an idiot.”

I’d never felt more at home.