Page 90 of Try Hard

She took one look at me and her whole expression shifted. It was subtle enough I doubted the others would fully register it. They’d probably assume she was just back to her standoffish, scowling self, but I knew it wasn’t that. She was scanning me for clues, scanning the room to see what was wrong.

She wrapped an arm around my back, pulling me into her side as Tanika wrapped up a story I still wasn’t following.

I wasn’t really afraid that Sammy would do something dangerous here, even if my body prepared for some of the things I’d seen over the years, but I still appreciated the way Ophelia’s touch steadied me.

“Do you want to go?” she asked as Tanika’s attention focused on someone else.

I nodded. “Are you ready?”

Ophelia laughed and leaned closer so only I would hear her. “It’s a room full of people, Archer. What do you think?”

“Right. Not your favourite thing in the world.”

“Maybe not. It has been fun, though.”

I smiled and couldn’t help but wonder what her favourite thing in the world was. I also couldn’t help enjoying the way our friends said good night to us like we were a couple, or the way we walked out of the club still wrapped around each other.

“So. Home?” I asked as we approached the car.

Ophelia twisted into me as we walked, her cheek pressing to my chest. “Home.”

???

Ophelia was waiting at the bottom of the bed when I reentered the bedroom. I couldn’t stop a smile spreading across my face at how adorable she was. She’d used the bathroom to get ready for bed before I had. While I hadn’t taken too long, had she just been standing there, waiting for permission to lie down the whole time I was gone?

I tossed my dirty clothes into the hamper before standing in front of her, smiling. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” She pursed her lips and looked quickly away.

“You didn’t want to lie down?”

“I did. I just thought it was polite to wait.”

“For?”

She pulled a face, frustrated with herself. “Permission.”

I laughed and moved quickly to gather her into my arms. She gasped and let out a little squeak as I threw us both onto the mattress, keeping her safe in my embrace.

“Eve, oh, my god,” she gasped after we’d landed, and my heart took off racing at her use of my first name again. Thefact that she used it when caught by surprise suggested it was her mental default. Sure, she called me Archer out loud, but, when she thought about me, she called me Eve. It was ridiculous because so many people called me Eve—it was literally my name—but there was something oddly intimate about her using it, about her thinking of me asEve.

“Yes, Ophelia?” I asked, noting how her tense muscles relaxed into me when I made no move to let her go.

“Some warning next time, maybe?”

Her snarky tone wasn’t off-putting. I was both used to it and in love with it—well,in love? I wanted to convince myself that was too strong a term, but fighting myself on it felt wrong.

You could be in love with an aspect of someone’s personality, right?

She wasn’t helping my suddenly racing heart and overly active emotions as she rested her head on my shoulder and laid her arm across my waist. Her fingers slipped just under my back, pressed into me by the mattress beneath us.

I loved her touch too. It was clearly something you had to work to earn, and I loved being able to earn it. I loved the way she trusted me.

“Sure,” I whispered, far more breathless than I should have been. The twitch of Ophelia’s head against me suggested she’d noticed the tone.

My hands skated over the sweatshirt she was wearing, holding her close. I’d long since lost count of the number of times I’d lay in bed imagining exactly this—her beside me, holding each other, talking until the early hours, luxuriating in being around her. And it was still somehow infinitely more incredible than I’d imagined.

We were quiet for several long moments, simply breathing together, and, the more time that passed, the more I felt her relaxing. She never came across as stressed or anxious in public,but I was realising just how much tension she carried with her around other people. Maybe that was what happened to introverts. I wasn’t going to ruin it by pointing it out and asking.