“Don’t tell anyone,” I reply. “I have a reputation to maintain.”
He promises to check in the morning. I end the call and set my phone down, suddenly aware of how tired I am.
And how much of that tiredness is emotional.
I glance up the stairs.
His bed is upstairs. A proper bed. A duvet. A pillow that won’t turn my spine into a modern art installation.
I could sleep up there.
I don’t.
I climb the narrow stairs anyway, find his bedroom, and steal a pillow and his duvet like a responsible burglar. Everything up here is neat as well. A small office. A bathroom. His bedroom with the bed made so perfectly it looks like nobody has ever slept in it, which is both impressive and faintly depressing.
I drag the pillow and duvet downstairs, throw the blanket from the back of the sofa over Phil, and then settle myself into the grandfather chair beside him.
The chair is uncomfortable. The duvet smells like him.
Warm soap. Clean cotton. A faint sweetness that makes no sense and yet reminds me of the way babies smell on top of their heads. It’s ridiculous. It’s also painfully intimate, because it feels like being hugged by someone who isn’t actually hugging you.
I open my Kindle app and try to read the romance novel I started a few days ago.
I don’t absorb a word.
My eyes keep sliding back to him.
Why did he do it?
Why did he have to ruin the night I’d been quietly looking forward to ever since he asked me out?
Why did he ask me out, only to show up like he was bracing for impact?
The anger rises again, sharp and immediate, but underneath it sits something else. Something colder.
A doubt.
Not about whether he’s kind. He is.
But about whether he’s capable.
Capable of showing up sober. Capable of handling feelings without escaping into something else. Capable of being with someone who will not shrink herself to make him comfortable.
I read the same line four times and still don’t know what it says.
Eventually I switch off the light, curl up in the chair, and try to sleep while my back begins protesting immediately.
This is going to be a long night.
Chapter 6
Christina
Iwake to groaningnoises and the sharp ache of a neck that feels like it’s been held in a vice.
For a moment I don’t know where I am.
Then I see him on the sofa, one arm draped over his eyes like the light has personally offended him, and the memory of last night comes back in one humiliating rush.