Page 49 of Without You

I scoff. Then scoff again. “Hardly.”

With a hand on my cheek, he turns my face so I’m looking at him. “Hey. I said you’re beautiful and I mean it. I’m not in the habit of lying to people. Especially not to my girl.”

I let out a deep breath and give him a little smile.

“Thank you. But I don’t feel beautiful,” I add.

“Let’s fix that. What do you need?”

I lean into him again and he holds me tightly. “This is perfect.”

“How about a good night’s sleep?”

I almost weep at the thought. He could have just offered me a million dollars and it wouldn’t have sounded as good. “How’d you know?”

“I’ve been sleeping for shit since we started down this path of busy schedules so I’m just being selfish. Hoped that maybe I just needed to lie down next to you and I’d get some decent sleep. Miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” I whimper again, feeling the tears build up.

“Hey. No more tears, okay? Let’s go to sleep, tomorrow is Sunday and we’re going to relax. Maybe catch up on a few things around here. Go to the store. Do all the domestic shit we need to that we’ve been putting off.”

“Domestic shit? How’d we go from seeing each other a couple times to doing domestic shit together?”

“When I realized that the last five weeks that I’ve been without you have been crap and I don’t care if we’re pushing a buggy through the market to get groceries or folding laundry, as long as I can actually see you.”

Oh my gosh, he’s so sweet. “Now you’re gonna make me cry again.”

“No more. Please, let’s sleep.”

“Just sleep?” I ask, my eyebrows raised.

“I’m so tired I don’t think I’d be able to do anything else. You think you can walk down the stairs so we can sleep at my house or do you want to stay here?”

“Let’s go to your place. I want to see Sabrina.”

“Using me for my cat.”

“You know it.”

We stumble our way down the stairs after closing up my apartment. Once inside his house, which is currently torn apart for the kitchen renovation, we immediately get ready for bed and slip under the covers.

Sabrina jumps onto the bed and curls up next to Brody on the side opposite of me. If I was more alert and not so wiped out, I’m sure I would feel a little confused as to how to cuddle up next to Brody.

All the questions that would normally be rolling through my mind like: What do I do with my arms? Am I supposed to be the little spoon? What if I drool? Or, heaven forbid, fart in my sleep?... none of them even register. And, oddly enough, falling asleep next to Brody in his bed feels like the most natural thing in the world.

Just before I doze off, he says my name.

“Katie?”

“Yeah?”

“I forgot to tell you. First guy’s comin’ to check out his vehicle on Tuesday.”

That has me awake.

“What?”

“Yeah. I told you how everything got moved up because the artist had some other commitments. He wants to take a look at it, drive it around a bit, make sure we don’t need to adjust anything before it goes to the site of the video.”

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