Chapter 8
chapter
eight
Jules
I can feel him looking at me.
Not a quick glance. A long, steady look, the kind that has weight to it. I turn my head on the pillow, and he's watching me with this achingly soft expression, like I just handed him something that matters.
Which, apparently, I did. I don't know why. It's the middle of the night, a man I met six hours ago has his pinky hooked through mine, and I'm narrating my placement history like it's a true-crime podcast.
"Don't," I say.
"Don't what?"
"Whatever that face is. Don't."
"It's just my face."
That's the whole problem, though. Everything he feels plays out in vivid color. No locks, no curtains. And right now, what he's feeling looks a whole lot like tenderness.
I pull my pinky free and sit up, tucking the sheet under my arms. My quilt pools around my waist. I need something to do with my hands and my mouth that isn't him.
"What time is it?"
He reaches across me to the nightstand, a whole warm wall of chest, and checks his phone. "Three thirty-eight."
"Not three-forty?"
"It's three thirty-eight."
"You count everything."
"Only the stuff I like."
He says it easily, like it's nothing. Like it doesn't land somewhere in my body like a live mine that will detonate at a later date.
I look at him for a long moment. He's sprawled across my bed like he belongs in it, one arm tucked behind his head, hair wrecked from my hands, feet hanging off the end because my bed was built for regular-sized humans.
And for one dangerous second, I think about lying back down.
Letting him stay. Waking up to his pretty face on the pillow next to mine.
That's exactly the kind of thought that gets people hurt.
So I fold it up small and put it away.
"You should go," I say.
He doesn't argue. Doesn't sulk. Doesn't try to sweet-talk me into round two or breakfast or a cuddle, the way I'd braced for.
He just sits up and goes hunting for his clothes.
His boxer briefs are at the foot of the bed.
His jeans are inside out by the closet. His shirt is by the door with the undershirt still tangled in one sleeve. His tie is nowhere to be found.
"Okay," he says.
I narrow my eyes. "You keep saying that."
"You keep saying things I can agree with."
That shouldn't be charming. It's absolutely charming. I tug the sheet higher.
"I meant what I said in the parking lot. One night. No flowers. No phone calls. This doesn't become a thing."
"Okay." He buttons his shirt. Gets it wrong. Frowns down at the mismatched buttons like they've personally betrayed him and starts over. "What about tacos?"
I stare at him. "What?"
"You said no flowers. No phone calls. You didn't say anything about tacos."
I open my mouth. Close it again.
He waits. Patiently. Of course he does.
The correct answer is no. No tacos, no anything. Goodbye, it's been lovely, drive safe.
"Tacos," I hear myself say, "are a gray area."
His grin is so wide it's a miracle his face doesn't crack. It's so unfair. It's almost four in the morning. Nobody should look like that at almost four in the morning.
"Get out of my house, Payton."
"Going."
I don't walk him out. That's a rule, even if I haven't had much reason to use it in a while. Walking a man to the door is how you end up kissing him against it, and kissing him against it is how he ends up staying.
He stops in the bedroom doorway and looks back at me. Just looks, one big hand on the frame, like he's taking a picture he plans to keep. I stay exactly where I am, sheet tucked under my arms, and hold his stare until he goes.
Then I listen.
It's a small house. I hear everything. His boots in the hall. The cabinet by the sink that squeaks because I never got around to oiling it. The faucet running. Apparently he's getting himself a glass of water, because why wouldn't he make himself at home?
The sink gurgles.
Then there's a sound like a coffee can full of bolts falling down a flight of stairs.
It cuts off fast.
"Sorry!" he calls. "Habit! My mama trained all five of us!"
I press my face into my pillow so he won't hear me laugh.
After that there's a long stretch of quiet.
Too long for a man who's supposed to be leaving.
I'm about to go out there and find out what the hell he's doing when the front door finally opens and closes.
His truck rumbles to life under my carport.
Headlights sweep across my bedroom ceiling, across the water stain, and then they're gone.
The house goes quiet. My kind of quiet. The kind I've built on purpose, one careful rule at a time.
It’s never felt this empty before.
I lie there and tell myself all the true things.
He's twenty-two. He's Oliver's younger brother.
Cora is having a Blankenship baby, and a family like that shows up for every birthday party and baptism and Fourth of July from now until the end of time.
This had to be one night. It was one night.
A very, very good one. Now it's over, and that's the whole point.
Clean. Contained. Nobody gets hurt.
Eventually I give up on sleep and pad into the kitchen for water.
There's a receipt tucked under the jar of paintbrushes by my coffee maker. It's from the taco place: two orders of carne asada and extra guac. I flip it over. He wrote on the back in pencil, with one of my good drawing pencils. The thief.
Your garbage disposal is dying. In case of tacos (or plumbing emergencies), here's my number.
—P
I read it twice. Then I stand there in my dark kitchen in nothing but a T-shirt, grinning at a taco receipt like an idiot.
I should throw it away. That's what you do with one night. You don't keep souvenirs.
I open the junk drawer instead and slide it in under the takeout menus and the spare batteries, where I'll never have to look at it.
Not because I'm going to use it. I'm just not in the habit of throwing away perfectly good phone numbers. Plus I might want to remember that taco place and what I ordered.
When I crawl back into bed, something silky slithers against my foot. His tie, wedged between the mattress and the footboard.
I'll give it to Cora to give back to him. Probably. Eventually.
I drape it over the corner of my headboard and fall asleep before I can think too hard about why.