AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I woke to the familiar sensation of having my feet seared off with a blowtorch.
It used to bother me, the way the sun’s rays through Ken’s arched window tried to burn me alive at daybreak. I’d begged him to get custom blinds made. I’d even resorted to cutting a piece of cardboard into the shape of a semicircle and shoving it into the top section of the window, but after it had come loose one night and fallen, corner first, into my forehead while I was sleeping, I’d given up.
But I didn’t mind waking up with the lower half of my body on fire anymore. Because it meant that I was waking up next to Ken.
I rolled over and molded myself to his firm back. He always slept in the fetal position, so the whole flaming-hot-rays-of-death-at-the-foot-of-the-bed thing didn’t impact him at all.
I wrapped my arm around his waist, snaking it between him and the pillow he was clutching, and nuzzled a kiss into his back. “You awake?”
“No.”
I lifted my red-hot foot and pressed it against his calf. “What about now?”
Fucker didn’t even flinch.
“You know what? I think today’s our six-month anniversary.” I smiled against his back. “Well, it’s been six months since we went to Cirque du Soleil. I guess, technically, we were dating before that, but that was the first time you called me your girlfriend, and—oh my God, do you remember how drunk I was?” I giggled, reminiscing about how I’d pretended to be asleep when he got pulled over. “We should go out tonight to celebrate! Wait. Shit. You have to work. Can we go out tomorrow?”
Ken nodded slightly and hummed something that sounded like, “Mmhmm.”
I squealed and squeezed him with my whole body. He was so cute when he was sleepy. Normally, Ken was all hard and cold and serious—or seriously sarcastic—but the man slept, curled around a pillow every night like it was a teddy bear.
And nobody knew it but me.
Ken found my hand under the blankets and covered it with his. That simple gesture made my heart sputter and my smile spread. I laced my fingers through his, psyching myself up to finally say what had been on the tip of my tongue for months. What I’d decided needed to be said the night before while I thumbed through the pages of Amy’s wedding planner.
What I was terrified that Ken didn’t feel in return.
With my heart in my throat, I pressed my forehead against Ken’s broad, strong back and whispered the truth into his freckles, “I love you.”
The second those three words left my mouth, Ken’s warm, relaxed body tensed and turned to granite in my arms.
One second went by.
Then, two.
Then, two hundred.
All the while, the statue man lay there, mute and rigid, in my regretful embrace. Confirming my fears without saying a word.
Bitter, humiliated tears stung my eyes as I waited, suspended in awkward agony, for something to happen. For Ken to speak. For lightning to strike. For my fucking alarm to hurry up and go off.
With every second that ticked by, so did another hope. Another dream. Another shiny trinket from my imaginary fucking future.
Tick.
He doesn’t love you.
Tock.
He doesn’t believe in marriage.
Tick.
He doesn’t want children.
Tock.
He said it right to your face.
