Page 24 of Brash for It
“Yeah.”I tip my head toward the mattress.“In.”
She slides in, careful, still wearing my shirt because it makes her smaller and bigger at once.She fusses with the edge of the blanket.She glances toward the chair like maybe I’ll take it this time because normal men are supposed to leave women alone in beds and be gallant and uncomfortable.I strip down to my boxers again because I’m not a liar and the day’s sweat doesn’t belong in clean sheets.I catch her looking the way people look at a cliff—afraid and a little curious what it feels like to fall.
“Um?”she says, replaying last night because repetition is a way to survive.
“We’re both adults,” I repeat, same tone, because consistency is also a way to survive.“I can sleep beside you without sex.”I climb in, mattress dipping.“Well… unless that’s what you want.”
She bursts out, “I—” and then clamps her lips.
I let the beat stretch and then put her out of her misery.“Joking.Chill, Kristen.”
She mutters, “You’re the worst,” but it’s soft and not real.
“Yeah.”I hook my arm and pull her the way I did before because she slept like death when I did it and I’m not an idiot—I do what works.She slides into the space like it’s the shape she was made in.Half on me, half beside me.We fit better than we should.I don’t dwell.
“Long day,” I say.“Sleep.”My hand finds her hair, goes to work with the same absent patience, slow strokes that teach the nervous system it can stand down.Her breath catches and then sets to a steady count.Her fingers find a resting place against my ribs, feather-light like she’s testing whether I’ll bolt.I don’t.
“You keep touching my hair like that,” she murmurs, already halfway gone, “I’m going to start expecting things from you.”
“Dangerous game to play, darlin’,” I warn.
“I know.”A yawn eats the last word.“Yet, I… don’t feel… scared.”
“That’s the point.”
She hums like she believes me, and then she drops.
I lay there with a woman asleep on half of me and a night that feels like it’s not out to get me for once, and I think about what comes next.
Not tomorrow.
But not far off because I don’t do five-year plans.
Just next.
Mentally, I prepare my task list.I need to call Trina because if I don’t check in, she’ll send a posse.Tell Tripp I can’t run to Salemburg tomorrow early; he’ll pick up the slack because that’s what we do.Figure out a burner for Kristen until she gets her name on something that rings when she calls.What do I do to help her figure out what comes next for herself?
The ceiling doesn’t answer.It never does.My hand keeps moving in her hair long after she’s done needing it because I do.At some point, I sleep.And when I do, it’s clean.No dreams with teeth.No falling without a floor.Just the steady weight of a person who trusted me long enough to make it to morning and the simple fact that I didn’t screw it up.
When the sun starts to think about rising, I crack an eye to the pale light creeping under the blinds.Kristen’s still there, mouth open, that tiny snore like a secret I’ll keep.My arm is pins and needles.I don’t care.The AC clicks.The world does its usual tricks.
I breathe.
For once, the empty place in me isn’t a hole; it’s a room with someone in it.Doesn’t mean I’m healed.Doesn’t mean I turned into a man with a porch light and a chore list and a calendar with anniversaries circled.It just means last night, when someone saidWhat am I supposed to do?I had an answer that wasn’t cruel.
I’ll take that.
I tilt my head and talk to the ceiling in a whisper so I don’t wake her.“Long day,” I say again, like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence we both needed.“Sleep,” I add, even though she already is.Then I shut my eyes relaxing into the day and meet the morning halfway, not fighting it for once, with a woman half on my chest and a hand that doesn’t want to stop doing the thing that put her under.
Seven
Kristen
The smellof bacon wakes me before the light does.For a moment, I’m disoriented.I don’t remember the last time I slept so deep.Warm sheets, a heavy weight of safety pressing down on me, my cheek pillowed on something that isn’t mine.I roll over and the blanket falls away, air cool on my skin.
I’m in Kellum’s bed.
Memories pour back in slow, steady waves.The spa.My Porsche being towed.Brian’s power play disconnecting my phone.The gate code changed.Kellum’s arms catching me when my knees buckled.His shirt on my body as I fell asleep against his chest, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat guiding me down into the deepest sleep I’ve had in months.Being here with him, my body relaxes in a way I haven’t ever had before.
