Page 138 of Show Me

This week has been harder than I expected. Harder and easier. He checks the perimeter. We work on renovations. Order takeout. Or grab something on the way home. Watch television, and sometime after that, we fall asleep or have sex and fall into a heap wherever we lie.

That’s the problem. I’m enjoying it too much.

I hesitate. Just long enough for it to matter. “I don’t know.” I bite my bottom lip and inhale. “Whatever’s easy.”

His gaze lingers a second longer than it should—a wrench dangling from his fingers.

“You don’t know,” he repeats.

“It’s just dinner.” The words come out lighter than they feel. He studies me. Not pushing. Not yet. “It’s been quiet.” The words are out before I can stop myself.

His movement stalls. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing’s happened.” I lift a shoulder even though it feels like a weight is pulling it toward the floor. “No notes. No weird stuff. No one showing up where they shouldn’t.”

He straightens, attention fully on me now. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Maybe it does,” I counter. “Maybe it’s done.”

The words sit there. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak right away. The air shifts as more than one meaning for what I said spins around us.

As he straightens his spine, his chin lifts. “You think it’s over.”

“I think…” I trail off, shaking my head. “I think it’s been days. And nothing’s happened.”

His jaw tightens. Barely. “That’s not how this works.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know enough.” Silence stretches between us.

I look back at my phone, thumb hovering over his message again. Dinner. Routine. Normal. Pretending this is real. Pretending this isn’t real. I don’t even know what in the fuck I’m pretending at this point.

“Whatever you want.”

A glint settles in his eyes, causing my skin to tighten. I’m not ready to finish this conversation. “Fine….” I swallow hard over the lump in my throat. “Pizza. I want a pepperoni pizza with handmade crust.”

One beat passes. And then another. “See, was that so hard?”

Yes, yes, it was. Because I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be eaten alive with wanting more and not be allowed to ask for it.

Chapter Seventy-Three

Xavier

The Next Morning

I know she’s awake before I open my eyes. Not because she moves. Because she doesn’t, the room is too still. No shifting sheets. No slow stretch. No half-asleep reach that lands without thinking.

Just space. I open my eyes.

She’s on her side, back to me, one arm tucked under her pillow like she settled there and stayed. Not curled in. Not close. Just… there.

Last night is still sitting under my skin, tight, unresolved, not something that faded when the lights went out. It wasn’t her being ambivalent about what she wanted to eat. The entire night, she was off. Subdued.

Studying for a test I’m not sure she’s even taking. Falling asleep before I made it into the room. I’d love to wake up and pretend it didn’t happen, but now this….

I push up on one elbow, watching her longer than I should. “You’re awake.”