Chapter Ten
Micah didn’t think she’d be able to sleep at first, no matter how tired she was. For one thing, she still didn’t feel right—lightheaded and somehow empty, every movement of the boat swaying through her like she had nothing to hold her up.
For another thing, it was strange to be in John’s bed.
It wasn’t the bed itself, which was standard issue for these cabins and which, as John himself pointed out, he’d never even slept in.
But she couldn’t help but be conscious of the intimacy of it, the fact that this was where he would be sleeping, that she was surrounded by his things, from the gallon Ziploc she’d seen in the bathroom with his deodorant and toothpaste to the shirt he’d been wearing earlier draped over his luggage.
It had been the one she’d spilled punch all over, so he must’ve changed into another of his seemingly never-ending black band T-shirts while she was in the bathroom.
How strange, to have been out of each other’s lives for so long, and then to have both gotten semi-naked within feet of the other within the span of the last hour.
She wondered if John had ever gotten any tattoos, like he once said he wanted.
She hadn’t seen any, but then there were a lot of places to get tattoos that you wouldn’t see.
They’d gone to get their first tattoos together when they were seventeen years old.
Technically too young, but they’d felt more than ready.
That was one thing about being in a band from such a tender age—you grew up so fast. You still couldn’t vote, or smoke, or gamble, or drink, and yet you’d traveled the country with very little adult supervision playing to crowds of people, many of whom were old enough to do all those things you couldn’t.
She stretched her toes under the covers.
John had even pulled the bottom of the top sheet out from under the bed, apparently remembering how much she hated having her feet constricted while she slept.
She would often kick the covers off her feet entirely, letting them out in the open air while the rest of her body was cocooned warmly in blankets.
It wasn’t the most comfortable, sleeping in a bra.
She reached around to unhook it from the back, sliding it down her arms and dropping it on the floor next to the bed.
And there was that first tattoo she’d gotten, on her ribs right under her left boob.
If she’d known that was supposedly one of the most painful places to get one, maybe she wouldn’t have done it.
It definitely felt intimate, rolling over until she was lying on her stomach in John’s bed, her breasts pressed against the crisp white sheets. She still felt lightheaded, but she no longer felt as empty, and when she closed her eyes it was no time at all before sleep pulled her under.