“What?” he asked, bleary but alert. His gaze instantly found me, even in the dark. “Mia? Why are you on the floor?”
“I… um…”
I wanted to lie, but what could I say that would explain my presence on his floor?
In the end I hung my head and mumbled, “I had a nightmare.”
Auggie stared at the floor for a moment before understanding dawned on him. He realized what I’d planned on doing and he scowled.
“Hold on, I’ll?—”
I quickly cut him off. “No. Don’t get up. You have work tomorrow. I’ll be fine. I’ll just… go back to my room.”
I started to get up, but Auggie caught my wrist.
“No, if you’re scared you shouldn’t be alone. Um… here.”
There was a rustling sound as Auggie moved on the bed, making extra space among the blankets. Then, he patted the mattress next to him.
“If you’re comfortable with it, you can sleep here.”
I was too dumbfounded to argue. My limbs moved automatically, and I found myself slipping under the body-warmed sheet without another word. Auggie was careful not to touch me, but there was only so much space on the bed, and I could feel the heat radiating from his body like a furnace. The trembling in my limbs stopped and all thoughts of my nightmare were chased from my mind.
How could I possibly think about anything else when Auggie lay just inches away, and I was surrounded by his familiar sent.
Once I was settled, Auggie lay his head back on his pillow and quickly fell back asleep, as though having me in bed with him were the most natural thing in the world.
Our easy comfort with each other felt significant, and I wanted to think about it more. Yet, once my nightmare was chased away, my own fatigue caught up with me. My eyelids felt heavy, and after only a few quiet moments of listening to our shared breathing, I also drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER 23
Auggie
When I opened my eyes,a strange weight on my chest nearly made me jump out of the bed. My instincts were on high alert, and I was ready to fight whatever had attacked me while I was asleep, my hand already slipping toward the knife I kept tucked into the side of the mattress. It was only by sheer luck, and the whisper of a small voice in the back of my mind, that I looked down at my chest before acting.
I had to thank whatever lucky star I was born under for that moment of insight. Just before I shot into action, my gaze landed on Mia’s familiar face and I breathed a sigh of relief as I lay back against the bed.
That was a close call. If I’d woken him up by attacking him, I probably would have undone all the progress I’d made in bringing him out of his shell and he’d probably never trust me again. I needed to be more careful from now on, especially if waking up to find him in my bed was going to become a normal occurrence.
Maybe inviting a grown man to sleep beside me wasn’t the most appropriate thing, but when I saw him lying on my floor, terrified from a nightmare, I couldn’t just leave him there. Now, in the light of morning, with his warmth pressed against my side and his head pillowed on my chest like it belonged there, I still didn’t regret it.
With a careful hand, I ran my fingers through his newly trimmed hair as I listened to his even breathing. He hadn’t worn the wig to bed, but I still remembered what it looked like when he returned to the apartment yesterday. The long hair had been a surprise, but it seemed so natural on him, like his hair was always supposed to be long and I hadn’t seen the real Mia until that moment.
The dress he wore when he returned from shopping wasn’t a surprise. I knew what Chantal had taken him out to buy. What I hadn’t expected was what a difference it would really make. As far as I was concerned, clothes were clothes. People had preferences, of course, and different clothes suited some people better than others, but in the end it was all surface decoration. Until I saw Mia spinning in the middle of my living room to show off the way the skirt of the dress twirled around his waist when he moved, I never understood how clothing could be tied to a person’s very soul.
Melody ended up joining him, and together, the two of them put on a little fashion show to display the new clothes they’d found. I should have been watching my daughter and reveling in the joy on her face, but I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of Mia.
Like a butterfly without its wings, he’d just been a caterpillar crawling along until now, but with his colors restored, he had learned to fly again. He was practically glowing, and his feet barely seemed to touch the ground when he moved. The marksof his past trauma still remained, but somehow the lingering bandages no longer stood out as starkly as before, and the burn scars on his skin seemed to fade into obscurity.
Now, just a few hours later, he lay comfortably in my arms. When he’d joined me in bed after his nightmare, I’d made sure to keep plenty of distance between us, but the mattress was only so big, and we must have drifted together while we slept. One of my arms was trapped under his weight, but with the one that was still free, I reached over to carefully trace the edge of a burn scar that had come precariously close to the corner of his eye. It was a miracle that his face had been left mostly undamaged, but it was such a close call. Another inch or two and he could have lost his sight or worse.
Small blessing, I guess. In the absence of a large blessing, we could only be thankful for the small ones.
The burned skin near Mia’s face was healed, but still tender. I brushed my fingers over the uneven texture as gently as possible, to the point that I barely made contact with his skin, but his expression still furrowed in discomfort. I quickly shifted my touch away from the scars before I woke him up, but I accidentally found myself brushing over his lips instead.
Mia had a very pronounced cupid’s bow. The two little peaks poked at my fingertips like they were trying to get my attention. His lips were surprisingly pink. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was wearing makeup.
Actually, makeup would suit him. He already had the dresses and long hair. I wondered if he’d be interested in makeup as well. I didn’t know anything about all that stuff, but maybe Chantal would be willing to help out again.