My back aches from the springs of the mattress. If I could’ve forced myself up more than once to pee since Machlan left, it probably would’ve helped. But I couldn’t.
I shouldn’t be surprised by any of this, and I’m not, really. Rationalizing it took some time, but in the end, this one is on me. I knew what I was getting in to. I pushed. I accepted his pushbacks, and I don’t regret it. I only need to temper any expectations that this will go anywhere. It won’t.
The knock raps again, a little louder this time. The covers are tossed to the side. Grabbing my phone in case it’s not Machlan and I need to call 911, I shove it in the pocket of my shorts like a girl who doesn’t care about her life.
“Who is it?” I ask, hand already on the knob. A bubble of excitement is on the verge of bursting as I wait for a response.
“Who else are you expecting at two thirty in the fucking morning?”
He came back.
Running a hand over my still-damp hair from the sponge bath I gave myself in the kitchen sink, I say a prayer and swing the door open.
“Never know,” I say, trying not to show how happy his arrival makes me. “Could’ve been the guy from the other day.”
“That would be your best bet. Pretty sure you could take him.”
He’s standing, both hands shoved in his pockets, the start of a grin on his face. The wear of the night shows in the puffiness of his eyes.
Despite the late hour and the trickiness of how we ended things earlier, he came back. I don’t know what that means, but it’s a good sign. I think.
I turn away to get myself together. The door shuts softly. I turn back around to see him standing in the middle of the room. He doesn’t touch anything. He doesn’t look anywhere but at me.
This is a look I can’t decipher. He doesn’t look angry or apathetic, just like a guy in the middle of a room.
“How was your night?” I ask to break the silence.
“It was good. I kept having to refigure tabs, and Navie had to balance the drawer at the end of the night, but it was a clean, bullshit-free night for the most part.”
“For the most part?”
“Yeah.” He rocks back on his heels. “I had a girl run me up a little. She had a mishap in the bar. Went to check on her and she ended up sticking her tongue down my throat.” He can’t contain his grin.
I can’t contain mine as I buckle with relief. “Not exactly how I heard it went down, but whatever works for you.”
“Oh, it definitely worked for me.”
Staring at the wall above the bed, pointedly not looking at Machlan, I will my face to return to its normal shade of peach. I tell myself to stay calm and not put too much hope into this. He’s walked away enough times after giving me something to hold on to.
“About earlier …” Machlan says. His voice resonates deep in my core. I’m drawn to the timbre of his voice, to the way it wraps around me in the gentlest of ways.
“I’ve overanalyzed it enough for both of us.”
“I don’t want it to be that way, Had.” He sighs.
“I don’t either. And I’m trying really hard to go with the flow but …” I look at him over my shoulder as my voice falls away.
“But it’s me and you, huh?”
“Yeah. It’s me and you.”
He reaches for me. I hold my breath until the tip of his finger touches the bottom of my chin. He lifts it so I’m looking at him.
Each breath I take is much louder than it should be. My blood runs hot while my body shivers at the tiny bit of contact; the contrast enough to make it feel like I’m losing my mind. I close my eyes to regain my composure, but he nudges my chin again, and I open them.
“I thought you’d come down tonight,” he says, peering at me. “Why didn’t you?”
My insides trip over themselves as I scurry to make sense of the mayhem I’ve been dealing with all night. It’s hard to pinpoint why I stayed up here and didn’t go to Crave. I wanted to. I wanted to so badly. But something changed when he walked out.
As I laid in bed and looked at it from every angle, the only difference in this time and most is that I had some control. I chose to spend time with him, knowing damn good and well it wasn’t going to end with some fantastical proposal. I came to town and went straight to the bar. I got in his truck. I let him hold me on Bluebird, and I sat down there tonight and received his advances while giving some of my own.
I’m never surprised when he walks away. I always just go into it hoping he doesn’t push me away. Even though it stung tonight, I had the Band-Aid ready.
“You left,” I say. “I figured you knew where I was if you wanted to see me.”
His eyes burn hot as he continues to cup my face. He peers so deeply, I swear he’s searching my soul. I have nothing to hide. He won’t find anything buried in there he doesn’t already know if he’s honest with himself.
“I want you to promise me something,” he says, a grit to his tone that makes me shiver.
“What?”
“Don’t ever change who you are for anyone. Not for me. Not for some dickhead auditor. Not for anyone.” His hand falls away from my face.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I gulp.
“It means …” He twists his hat around. “You’ve always done exactly what you wanted. You have an uncanny ability to follow your gut, you know?”
I don’t answer. My stomach churns, unsure where this is going. Unsure I even want to know.
He fiddles with his hat. “Whether anyone likes it or not, me particularly, you do what you want. And that’s something I’ve always admired about you,” he says, talking in a rush. “When you’ve had enough, you leave. When you want more, you come back. And I just hope that’s something you never lose, you know?”
“Where is all this coming from?”
He licks his bottom lip. “The truth?”
“I don’t know. Would I rather you lie to me?”
He holds my gaze until we both laugh softly. He shakes his head as my stomach settles.
“I went back to the bar,” he says, “and was fairly sure you’d reappear. And then you didn’t—which is fine. But as the night wore on and the place emptied out and you didn’t show up, I hoped you stayed away because you were stubborn … and not because you were scared.”
My throat tightens as he looks at me with an uncertain glimmer in his eye. “It was probably a little of both.”
His face falls.
“The weird thing,” I say carefully, “is I’m never scared of the big things. Like when I told you I was pregnant.” Tears dot my eyes. “That’s huge, and I wasn’t scared to tell you that. It was the biggest thing I think I could ever say, and I knew you’d be there. I wasn’t scared to tell you I love you. I wasn’t even that scared to ask you to marry me.” I blink back the tears. “But to tell you I wanted you not to leave tonight? Terrified. Because that’s something you can brush off, and those are the things that really hurt at the end of the day.”
“Had …”
“No,” I say, looking up again. “I knew you had to go. But I won’t say I wondered if you would’ve left had the bar not been open.”
He slips his can of chew out of his pocket. He doesn’t open it. Doesn’t flip it between his fingers. Just slides it around his palm while he watches me.
I try to look away but feel him pulling my eyes back to his. “It occurred to me while I laid here and listened to the music blaring under me that we’ve always kind of pussyfooted around each other. We’ve never had a real adult relationship.”
His grin turns mischievous. “Oh, I think we adult amazingly well together.”
“Not that.” I swipe his shoulder as I walk by, needing the space. “What I mean is, we’ve always interacted with all this baggage.”
He glances at the messy bed and at my bag on the couch. “You ever wonder what would happen if we met each other now? Like you moved to town or came in Crave and we met for the first time?”
“All the time.”
“What do you think would happen?”
“Probably what happened up here a few hours ago,” I say.
The chew can slips back in his pocket. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t?”
He laughs to himself. “I’d want to. But I think I’d be a little intimidated by you.”
“Ha. I knew it.” I laugh. “I scare you, don’t I?”
The levity in his features melts away. Before I know it, the playfulness is gone.
I try to figure out how to rewind the last few seconds and bring back what we had before. It’s nearly a panic inside, a ‘no, no, no’ chant in my head not to let him start backpedaling. Bracing myself for the inevitable, for Machlan to leave, I take a deep breath.
“It’s been a long night,” he says. “I need to get home.”
“Okay.”
“Why don’t you come with me?”
I grab the back of a chair as naturally as I can. There isn’t a breath deep enough to steady myself from that.
There’s no response from me. I wait for him to rethink his offer, for him to walk to the door on a phone call and leave me standing. But the longer I wait, the more certain he seems.
It’s a tedious ledge, and I feel myself falling over the side. This is what I want. But if I reach out and take it, attempt to walk the ledge that’s so slippery it shines, I’m risking everything. What if I can’t recoup? What if I’m not the adult I think I am? What if sleeping with Machlan and having a fun few days isn’t something from which I can recover?
When I fail to respond, he moseys toward the couch and lifts a shirt off the floor. “You have a lot of laundry here. And—”
“You know, this probably isn’t a good idea.” My eyes squeeze shut. “I’m good here.”