Page 35 of One Room Vacancy
I’m doing it because I want to stay.
Because I want to earn back her trust.
Contrary to popular belief, I’m not an idiot; I know what I did to her was fucked up, and I didn’t just do it once. I kept doing it—so it’s no surprise she’d recoil after what happened between us last week.
I just…wish she didn’t.
I wish she’d talk to me. Hell, I wish I’d just done the right thing in the first place—left Kara when I should have, danced with Sage and only Sage at Jackson and Gen’s wedding.
But I didn’t. I got back together with Kara; I kept choosing the easier path. I didn’t have the backbone to leave her, not when she needed me in ways that felt more like obligation than love.
So now I vacuum the couch.
Not because it needs it, but because I keep hoping that maybe, just maybe, if I do enough, she’ll look at me and smile.
The vacuum hums low as I push it across the worn cushions, the brush head lifting flecks of lint and crumbs from between the seams. It’s not messy, not really. I cleaned it yesterday. But I’m back at it anyway—because movement feels better than stillness, and because I’m a pathetic glutton for whatever scraps of peace I can earn.
It’s sage-green, the couch.
Soft corduroy, slightly faded in the middle where she curls up with a blanket on slow mornings.
Same shade as her name, which feels cruel in a poetic kind of way.
I’m still dragging the vacuum hose along the edge of the armrest when I hear the jangle of keys in the lock. The front door clicks open, and she steps inside, tossing her keys in the ceramic bowl by instinct.
Sage kicks off her shoes one at a time, shoulders slumped, curls frizzed at the crown like she’s had them piled in a hair tie all day and yanked it out in the car. Her shirt’s wrinkled. She looks tired, and beautiful, and not at all like someone who wants to see me.
I turn the vacuum off, the silence that follows a little too loud.
“You don’t have to do that,” she says, not unkind, but distant. Like she’s commenting on the weather, or a neighbor’s dog barking too early in the morning.
I shrug. “Didn’t have anything better to do.”
She doesn’t respond. Just walks past me into the kitchen, pulling the fridge open like it wronged her.
And for a second, I think that maybe this is the most we’ll say all day.
Then, without turning around, she asks, “You want a beer?”
I blink. “Yeah. Sure.”
She disappears behind the open fridge door for a second longer—then walks back into the living room and holds out a Sweetwater 420.
I take it from her, careful not to let our fingers brush.
It’s not a peace offering.
Not exactly.
But it’s something.
And right now, I’ll take something.
I crack the can open with a soft hiss and nod toward the barstool she just passed. “Long day?”
She drops onto the arm of the couch instead, tipping her own beer back before answering. “Fryer’s acting up again. Katie called off. Couple of regulars wouldn’t stop asking if Harry’s dying.”
I wince. “Want me to look at the fryer?”
