Page 46 of The Drifter

That's the first thing. Not beside him. On him, with my ear over his heart and my leg thrown across his thigh and one of his hands still in my hair. The light in the room had gone the color of a peach.

I lay very still and took inventory.

My mouth was dry. My hip ached in a way that was going to be a whole conversation with me tomorrow. There was a man in my bed. There was a man in my bed and the man was huge, and warm, and his chest went up and down under my cheek like the deck of a boat.

His heart was slow. Absurdly slow. I lay there and counted it against my own. Mine was going about half again as fast. I couldn’t tell if that was the man or the moment or years of caffeine.

He was awake. I knew it before I looked. His hand hadn't stopped moving in my hair.

"You're up," he said.

Gravel and somewhere else, and rougher for the sleep in it. I felt it in the bones of my face where they were resting on him.

"Mm."

"You want water."

I lifted my head. "How did you⁠—"

"You swallowed twice."

He was looking at the ceiling.

I got up.

That stupid, small, ordinary moment took more out of me than the rest of the day combined.

I got up off that bed, and my hand went out for something to put on.

It wasn't a decision. It was less than a decision. It was the same reflex as reaching for the light switch in a dark room in a house you have lived in your whole life. My hand went to the chair and found his shirt. I had it half off the back before I even had my feet under me.

"Sasha."

I stopped.

He hadn't moved. He was up on one elbow now, and the sheet was down around his hips. He didn’t care about that even slightly. He was looking at me with his head tipped a little to the side.

"Don't," he said.

"Don't what?"

"Put that on."

Something in my chest went tight and hot and unpleasant.

"I'm getting water," I said.

"I know."

"It's ten steps."

"I know."

"So, I'll just—" and I lifted the shirt again. My voice did something I didn’t authorize. I heard it.

He heard it, too.

He sat all the way up. He didn't come toward me. He put his back against the headboard and folded his forearms on his knees. He looked at me across that room and gave me every inch of air in it.