Chapter 22
Kevin
Sometime after, the room went quiet.
Lauren asleep against me, one leg hooked over mine like she had every right to take up space in my bed. Her hair spread across my chest. Her hand rested open over my ribs. Every few breaths, her fingers shifted, almost like she was checking I was still there.
I didn’t sleep.
I should have. My flight was in a few hours. My alarm was set. The suitcase was half-zipped on the chair. I had a conference badge somewhere in my laptop bag and three emails I still hadn’t answered.
None of it mattered enough to make me move.
I kept one hand on her back and felt the slow rise and fall of her breathing.
She was different afterward.
Silent.
Lauren’s silence was never empty. It had teeth. Old hurts. Questions she didn’t want to ask because asking meant admitting the answer could hurt her.
I’d wanted to tell her again that I meant what I said.
That I wasn’t passing time.
That whatever this was between us already got under my skin too deep for me to pretend it was casual.
But she looked so tired once the emotion settled over her, and I didn’t want to turn tenderness into another thing she had to survive.
So I held her.
At some point, she stirred and lifted her head. Her eyes barely opened.
“You’re awake?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
I brushed her hair back from her cheek. “More than okay.”
A small smile touched her mouth, soft and sleepy. “Good.”
Then she tucked herself closer, like that answer was enough, and fell back asleep with her face against my chest.
I stared at the ceiling and tried to remember the last time I’d been this happy and this scared at the same time.
Nothing came to mind.
The clock on the nightstand glowed too bright.
Five days.
I thought the trip would be inconvenient before. Clinic obligation. Professional development. A hotel room, bad coffee, lectures in rooms too cold for normal human life.
Now it felt like a punishment I’d scheduled for myself.
I looked down at Lauren again.
She was wearing one of my shirts because hers ended up somewhere near the foot of the bed. The fabric had twisted around her hip. She looked settled there.
Mine, some reckless part of me thought.
I pressed my mouth to her hair and closed my eyes.