Bennet shifted again, closer this time. Not enough to touch, but close enough that I could feel the heat of him more clearly.
My jaw tightened.
I wanted to be the guy who could reach back. The guy who could say something honest without wrapping it in humor or excuses. The guy who could admit that the kiss hadn’t been a mistake and that calling it one had been the coward’s way out.
But I wasn’t there yet.
So I lay there in the morning light, wanting andwanting and wanting, and told myself that holding still was the same thing as being good.
I stiffened instinctively, every muscle alert.
Behind me, Bennet shifted, the mattress dipping, his hand brushing the sheet as if he didn’t know where he was yet.
I held my breath as my ears perked up.
“Uh,” Bennet said.
I could get used to him waking up next to me. “You’re awake,” I said softly.
“Did I…spend the night?” he asked, disoriented. His voice was soft with sleep.
“You sure did,” I said, trying to keep it light and casual because I didn’t know anything else. “How’s my bed?”
He grunted as he got up. “I’m in my jeans.”
“I debated it, but then I figured it was better to let you sleep in your jeans than to undress you while you’re out,” I said, hating myself for the teasing tone I couldn’t survive without. I sat up, my back turned to Bennet. I only once looked over my shoulder and discovered that his cheeks were pink and his eyes ridiculously beautiful.
He cleared his throat and swung his legs off the bed, rubbing a hand over his face like he was trying to wake himself up and reset at the same time. “That was…unexpected.”
“That’s one word for it,” I said. “Another would be efficient. You saved yourself awalk home.”
He shot me a look that was half-mortified and half-amused. “I fell asleep in your bed.”
“You did,” I agreed. “Ten out of ten form. Very committed.”
“This is not something I usually do,” he said, tugging his sweater straight and standing. “At all.”
I sat up fully and stretched, rolling my shoulders like nothing about last night had rearranged my internal organs. Humor was easier when I kept moving. “You didn’t snore. That already puts you ahead of most people.”
“That is not reassuring,” Bennet said, but there was a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
I grinned at him, because that smile was a gift, and I wasn’t about to pretend I hadn’t noticed it. “Relax. Nothing weird happened.”
That was technically true. It was also wildly misleading.
Bennet hesitated, then nodded. “It was still…weird. Given everything.”
“Everything being,” I prompted lightly.
He gestured vaguely between us. “You know. That.”
“Oh,” I said. “That.”
We stood there in the quiet room, morning light creeping across the floor, the unspoken thing hanging between us.
I clapped my hands once, sharp and decisive. “Anyway. You hungry?”
He blinked. “What?”