Chapter 4 Sexual Differentiation #2
Maybe I should do the opposite tonight? Perhaps if I felt uncomfortable going to bed I wouldn’t sleepwalk. Maybe I should sleep in a negligee, just to see if my subconscious was less likely to parade around the apartment in lace and silk.
I peeked at him and caught him watching me. Andreas’s eyes dropped and he straightened his posture, folding his hands on top of the throw pillow. His cheeks, for the record, had still not faded back to their baseline hue. If anything, they’d gone from pink to red.
That hyperawareness buzzed beneath my skin and twisted in my stomach, making me speak before I’d vetted the words. “Sorry again for, uh, invading your personal space. We should put a bell around my neck so you can hear me coming,” I joked, and then internally reprimanded myself for the stupid joke.
I hated this. I was second-guessing everything coming out of my mouth. Horseback riding for six hours wasn’t the worst, this was the worst!
He shook his head. “There is no need to apologize. The last thing I want is for you to feel like you must restrict yourself here. This is your home, too. Please.” Andreas hesitated, as though thinking through his words carefully before saying them, then continued.
“I know this situation with my brothers is extremely stressful. If this is how your brain chooses to cope, I am glad to be useful.”
My eyebrows bounced upward. “Useful?” Goodness. I could think of a few ways to use him, but none of those seemed at all appropriate.
He looked me in the eye, then away, then back. “I want to be useful,” he said quietly.
He had no idea where my dirty brain was going, so I asked, “You’re telling me you’re okay being my personal mattress?” which was the cleanest way I could think of describing my current thoughts. And I made sure to flavor the words with all the incredulity I felt.
There was a beat during which I honestly had no idea what he was thinking and my heart hammered in my chest. He wasn’t looking at me anymore. He stared forward, his face in profile.
My whole body tensed because, Is he thinking what I’m thinking? Is he going to propose a friends-with-benefits situation? I held my breath, waiting. Waiting. And hoping.
Eventually, Andreas’s usual mask of bored indifference slipped over his features.
So . . . that’s a no.
I was suddenly, viscerally aware of how close we still were on the couch. The entire living room, for all its square footage, shrank to a four-foot radius of us. Silence became uncomfortable—for me—so I scrambled to redirect the conversation.
“Uh, so, on a scale of one to ten, how awful was this for you?” Hopefully he would accept my olive branch of self-deprecation. I didn’t want to live in an apartment with someone who felt awkward around me. I didn’t want to become Andreas’s Dr. James Nieminen.
Andreas glanced at me, apparently considering the question with the seriousness of someone reviewing an offer of employment.
“Zero,” he finally said. And when my mouth parted and my forehead wrinkled with genuine confusion—because how could that be?
—he added, “It is only embarrassing if you are uncomfortable. I am not, was not, uncomfortable.”
Staring at him and his serene, dispassionate expression, I realized that he was totally unaffected by what had happened last night and this morning. Maybe women fell asleep on his lap all the time. This was old hat for him. An everyday occurrence.
Okay then.
I will say, his honesty was disarming. It made me want to ask a hundred follow-up questions. Likely, those follow-up questions would reveal too much. Being me, I defaulted to banter instead.
“Well, if you’re a zero, then I’m a zero. You’re a really good mattress. Like, ten out of ten, would recommend.”
Holding my gaze, he said, “Glad to be of service,” pitching his voice deeper, quieter than it had been up to now.
What’s this? What’s he doing? What’s that mean?
Ugh! This really was the worst. Did liking a person mean I would always be this frazzled and on edge around them? Second-guessing and picking apart their words? I hated this.
Our gazes remained locked for a full five to ten seconds before the tension grew so thick—again—it spurred me to stand.
Ignoring the renewed protests of my thighs and hips, I made a show of stretching, lifting my arms over my head and faking a theatric and very loud yawn until I felt certain my legs would carry me back to my room. Now I just needed to—
Somewhere down the hallway, the sound of my phone ringing saved me from coming up with a clever post-cuddle exit line.
“Let me get that!” I darted around the couch, nearly kneeing the coffee table in my haste to leave, and jogged toward the bedroom where I should’ve been sleeping last night.
I wouldn’t usually rush to answer a call, especially not this early in the morning, but fleeing the scene of my own subconscious crime was a top priority.
When I finally found my phone, it was on the nightstand in the bedroom, still plugged into the charger. I answered with a breathless “Hello?”
“Sam! It’s Diya!” Her voice was bright and familiar and a welcome interruption.
“Diya! Hi! HOW ARE YOU?” For the second time that morning, I cringed. This time at the unintentional loudness and breathlessness of my voice.
“Are you—did I interrupt you running a marathon?” She dropped her voice to ask, “Or were you in the middle of something else?” The suggestion in her tone was unmistakable.
“Neither,” I said flatly, hating that I felt myself blush. I wasn’t a blusher. I never blushed! “Just sprinted across the apartment for the phone. What’s up?”
“How are you? How are things? How’s engaged life?”
“It’s all good. I’m just . . . adjusting.” For some reason, Henrik’s enraged face from last night picked that moment flash behind my vision. Psycho.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come back? Pretty sure I heard rats unionizing in the walls yesterday. Sorry you missed it.”
I snorted a laugh, which made her laugh.
The sound of her laughter grounded me, made the world feel less sharp.
In the background, I heard the shouts of hospital workers and the low rumble of what must have been an intercom.
She was at the hospital, which meant she’d carved out time for this call in the middle of her insane day. It must’ve been important.
“Did I leave something behind? Or, why are you calling? Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine! And, as far as I could tell yesterday, you didn’t leave any trace of yourself behind.
It’s like you were never there. So weird.
” Her voice trailed off on this last part and I heard her take a deep breath before she continued, “So, the reason I’m calling is because the girls and I want to invite you and Andreas out to dinner Wednesday night.
Everyone is still in town. It would just be the four of us. Well, five, including Andreas.”
I kicked one of my still-full bins that was parked in the middle of the room. “Dinner Wednesday night with all the ladies? Uh, let me check with Andreas to see if he’s free.”
From somewhere in the apartment Andreas called out, “I am free Wednesday night for dinner with your friends.”
Before I could say anything, Diya said, “Oh! That’s great!” Obviously she’d heard him. “We’ll eat at Kendra’s restaurant. Nakita said that Andreas is vegan?”
I had to clear my throat before I could speak. “Uh, yeah. He is.” Kendra worked at a vegan barbecue restaurant not far from Andreas’s. “Okay, fine. What time Wednesday?”
After we’d finalized the details (7:00 PM, Smokin Greens BBQ, New York casual) Diya said, “I have to tell you something funny. I was talking to my grandpa and telling him about you and Andreas, and—”
“Wait.” I stood up straighter. “You were talking to your grandpa about me?” Did people have those types of relationships with their grandfathers?
I felt a pang of longing for my own grandfather, but then immediately shoved it away.
“Yes. Anyway, just listen. So, I told him that you had gotten engaged to some chess guy, and he asked for his name, and so I told him, and he knew who Andreas was! Isn’t that crazy?
But then he reminded me that in his hometown, there are a ton of chess grand masters.
It’s a big deal there, as it should be honestly.
But I’d forgotten and I love that. So, my grandpa says congratulations. ”
“Huh.” I felt a sliver of unease at the realization that my friends were unknowingly spreading this lie I’d started. Was I making a liar out of Diya if she didn’t know she was lying?
“Are you still there? Sam?”
“Yes! Sorry. Yes. I’m still here. Please, uh, tell him thank you for me.” It was all I could think to say. I’d known and accepted that I would have to lie to my friends, but my stomach felt a little queasy at how large this lie had already ballooned.
After promises to see each other soon, we hung up. Lowering my phone, I thumbed through my notifications and saw that I’d missed two texts from Kaitlyn.
Kaitlyn: You’re coming over for Thanksgiving, right? I’m counting on you to bring cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes.
Kaitlyn: And I saw a photo of you with your “fiancé” online. I guess that’s happening???? Martin and I want you to bring Andreas if he’s up for it. Be prepared to spill tea.
The first text made me smile. The second one made me break into a cold sweat. Not only did Diya’s sweet grandfather now think we were engaged, my fake engagement was the subject of online speculation too. And possibly a meme. I’d never been memed before. But Andreas has.
This reminder did not improve my mood.