Page 67 of Adrift

Her eyes narrow–she’s figured out my tells–and before I can turn around and go back to my room, her hand comes to rest on my chest. “Please, don’t go.”

My eyes go back and forth between hers before I finally nod, giving in to her. I step inside, noticing a lamp lit on her bedside table and a lily stem sitting atop her bed. She closes the door behind us and I turn around to face her.

My thoughts are all over the place. Should I be here? Is this a bad idea? Christ, why can’t I think straight around this woman?

She pulls me by the hand to her bed, and I take in her tiny lavender sleep shorts and the button-down top. She gets into the bed, putting the flower on the nightstand before scooting over and lifting the covers in invitation.

I stare at her. “Rani.”

Her shoulders slump. “Please. I just want . . .” she chews her lip, “I just want you to be close, that’s all. You don’t even have to touch me. Not like that.”

I grind my teeth, closing my eyes for a second, reining in my thumping heart. “I can’t touch you.” I peer at her. “I can’t touch you because if I do, we aren’t going to go slow. And with you, I want to go slow.”

A look of disappointment crosses her face before she nods.

I slide into her bed–thankfully, I’d bought a queen-sized one for this bedroom–but as soon as I do, she pulls up, closing the space between us and lays her head on my arm with her body flush against mine. I swear she’s purposely making doe eyes at me, the nymph that she is. “Is this okay?”

No.

But who’s going to tell her?

I throw my other arm over my head and close my eyes. I haven’t been with someone in a bed in well over a year. More, if I count the fact that Sonia and I barely slept in the same room for most of her pregnancy. Sure, there were nights here and there, but overall, we lived almost separately under the same roof.

“Are you thinking about my sister?”

The fuck? Did I say my thoughts out loud?

My eyes fly open and I turn my head toward Rani, my cheek brushing her forehead. “What?”

She trails a finger down between my ribs and my dick stirs to life. “It’s just, I wonder if she was the last person . . . I mean, unless you’ve been with someone else over the past year.” I hear her inhale a quick breath. “You know what? It’s none of my business. I’m sorry.”

I don’t have to see her to know her cheeks are flaming. I stay silent, peering up at the shadows on the ceiling made by the dim lamp and the moonlight shining in between the little gaps in the covered window.

I move a little and she lifts her head before I twist the small knob on the lamp and turn it off. “Good night, Rani.”

She doesn’t respond for a long minute, settling back down in the crook between my arm and shoulder. “Good night, Darian. I’m sorry.”

Fuck. This is exactly what I was worried about with her, exactly what I told myself I couldn’t get wrapped up in. Emotions. Mine and hers. I don’t have the wherewithal to go through it all again–the tailspin romance that only ends in tragedy.

What the fuck am I doing here, then? Why is it that with every passing day, I feel more and more entangled?

But how can I not? I mean, fuck, she’s magnetizing. Fucking effervescent and sweet. Unlike anyone I’ve ever met in my entire life.

Completely unlike her sister, save for the animated facial expressions and her own brand of determination.

She’s exactly like the damn moonlight seeping in through the cracks in the window, determined to illuminate the room, even if the person inside prefers the dark. She’s relentless with scattering her sweet light over anything she touches, whether it’s wanted or not.

My chest constricts at the thought of her leaving in less than two months. It’s not enough time and it’s too much all the same. And then what? Will I just go back to a version of the life I was previously living with memories of her in every square inch of my house?

A sniffle escapes her and she turns her back to me, scooting onto her own pillow, and the hollowness I feel in my chest threatens to swallow me whole. Why am I being this asshole? What did she ever do to deserve this besides fucking care about me? Besides care about my son?

I’m so stuck, undulating between the past and the present, I can’t figure out which one I want to live in more.

I brush my hand over the back of her arm and she stiffens. I lay back on my pillow, starting up at the ceiling. “Sonia and I weren’t good for each other anymore, Rani.” She doesn’t move, but I know she can hear me so I carry on. “By the time we had Arman, our relationship was way past the expiration date. We were just trying–hoping–to save it for the sake of the time we’d invested in it, but deep down, I think we both knew the truth.

“She stopped loving me.” It’s the first time I’ve vocalized that truth to anyone, maybe even to myself. “I don’t know when or even why, really, but she did. I felt the shift in her when it happened. It was gradual at first, but by the end, when I looked back at us, all I saw was an ashen trail.

“She blamed it on me working too much, but when I took time off to spend with her, she’d tell me I was around too much. We’d get into arguments about the dumbest things–insignificant things–but she wouldn’t let them go.

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