Page 44 of So This Is Love

“Is there anything I can do?” I whisper.

Bryce gives my hand a quick squeeze. “You’re doing it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “Driving has always been my way of clearing my head, but tonight I wanted to see you and you came. So yes, this is enough.”

Bryce turns up the music and returns his hand to hold mine and we just keep driving.

I don’t last much longer before my eyes get heavy and the lull of the car sends me to sleep. When I open my eyes again Bryce is nudging me awake. We’re parked in his parking spot in the garage under his building.

“Stay with me tonight.”

Bryce says the words as a statement and I don’t fight him on it.

“Okay,” I reply with a yawn.

I unbuckle my seatbelt and get out of the car following Bryce into the building and into the elevator to go up to his condo. Bryce holds his key fob to the reader and presses the button for his floor and the elevator doors close.

Bryce tugs on the strings of the hoodie I threw on when I changed out of my pajamas. “This looks familiar.”

I look down and realize in my haste to meet him outside my apartment I grabbed the hoodie he gave me the first time we met. Since we’ve become friends, I’ve taken a couple more ofBryce’s hoodies, but this one has remained my favorite of them all.

“Yeah?” I reply. “I stole it from a friend. I think it looks better on me though.”

He gives me a small smile, the first one I’ve seen from him all night and my heart constricts at the sight of it.

“I think so too.”

The elevator doors open and we walk into the condo.

“Let me get you something to sleep in,” Bryce says, walking to his bedroom.

In his room he goes to his dresser, pulling open a couple of drawers and taking out a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt.

I take them from him, escaping to the bathroom to change. The shirt is soft, the kind of soft where you can tell it's been worn a million times and has gone through the washing machine just as many. I leave my clothes in a folded pile on the counter for me to change back into in the morning and leave the bathroom to go to the living room. I don’t make it far down the hallway before I hear Bryce behind me.

“Where are you going?”

I turn around and see him walking towards me until he’s less than an arms length away.

“To the couch,” I reply, confused by his confusion

“Nah pretty girl,” he says, shaking his head. “Take the bed, I’ll take the couch.”

“No, I don’t want to kick you out of your own bed. I can take the couch.”

“Laila.”

“Why do you have to be so difficult?”

“I’m not being difficult,” he replies. “I want you to have the bed and you want me to have it so where does that leave us?”

I let out a deep sigh. “We can share.”

“Share?”

“Share,” I repeat. “The bed is big enough and then no one has to sleep on the couch.”

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