Page 56 of Far From Sherwood Forest
I peer around his room, wondering what I’m supposed to do since he said he put my clothes in the wash.
“Do you have any clothes I can borrow?” I ask even though I’m sure I’d drown in them.
He doesn’t answer.
“Henry?” I take a step forward, but he doesn’t budge. “I can see if Spencer minds giving me a ride.”
“It’s late,” he finally says, his voice gruff but soft. “You could just stay.”
Maybe I’m imagining things, but I swear I heard a question mark at the end of that sentence.
Does hewantme to stay? Does he not want to be alone?
When it comes to Henry, it’s difficult to make assumptions.
“Um, okay.” I peer behind me through the open door into the living room, trying really hard not to grin like a damn idiot. “I could sleep on the couch, I guess.”
He lets out a short, breathy sound that’s almost a laughand shakes his head. “We just had sex and then took a shower together. Get in the damn bed, Robin.”
Now I’m definitely grinning like an idiot.
Since he’s wearing underwear, I decide to leave the towel around my waist as I pull back the covers on the side of the bed closest to me and slip beneath them. Once I’m settled in, he does the same. He keeps space between us, but I’m not going to complain. Just sleeping in his bed with him is enough to try to wrap my head around.
I want to talk to him. I want to ask him why he’s letting me stay.
But if it is because he doesn’t want to be alone, he’s not going to tell me that.
“Goodnight, Henry,” I whisper into the dark.
“Night.”
It’s a single syllable, but it has my heart doing somersaults in my chest.
I don’t know how long we lie there awake, but I know he doesn’t fall asleep right away because his breathing doesn’t change. His thoughts are loud, nearly deafening in the quiet darkness. I wish he could share them with me, but I’m not going to push it.
It’s like I’ve been chipping away at the mortar of his stone wall with nothing but my bare hands—slow, deliberate, one piece at a time. If I hit it too hard, the whole thing could collapse and bury us both.
I think I probably fall asleep first. When I wake up sometime in the early hours of the morning, it’s to the heavy weight of Henry’s arm draped over my waist, the length of his warm body pressed against my back.
I pretend to still be asleep.
I let him pretend it never happened, that he didn’t hold me just a little bit tighter before he rolled away.
He can pretend. He can forget if he wants.
But I won’t.
Ican’t.
Three years ago.
Day six hundred and ninety-one.
It took almost three days to dig a horse grave. By myself. With a shovel.
Isolde was already an old horse when we showed up here nearly two years ago. Back in Nottingham, that’s all she was to me. Just a horse. Here? She was the only companion I had.
And now she’s gone.
