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“I was supposed to be in that car,” I say against his skin.
He doesn’t move under me.
“Danielle’s car. You know about April. If I’d said yes, she wouldn’t have been alone. Whatever happened, she wouldn’t have been alone.”
He sits up and shifts so he can take my face in both of his hands. His eyes are oceans of the darkest gray tonight. And his thumbs feel extra callused and cold against my cheeks.
“Listen to me,” he says, voice gravel. “You were seventeen.”
“Gabe said that too.”
“Gabe’s right.” His eyes hold mine. “You don’t have to carry that. It was her car and her road.”
A sad sound comes from my throat and Travis pulls me into his chest. His heart is slow and heavy under my ear.
“We’re a mess,” I say into his hoodie.
“Yep.”
“A big, sad, sleepless mess.”
“You slept last night,” he says into my hair. “I slept last night. Want to see if it happens again?”
I lift my head. He’s watching me with his mouth tipped up, just barely.
“Travis Raines,” I say. “Are you asking me to go to bed at two in the morning?”
“I’m asking you to sleep.” He stands up and pulls me off the couch with him. “Just sleep, honey. I want to hold on to something.”
We undress silently in the dark. It’s a comfortable quiet that promises rest.
Travis crawls into my grandmother’s bed with me, under her quilt, his chest against my back and his arm locked around my waist like I might float off.
He sighs. Within five minutes he’s sound asleep.
I listen for a while, but the warmth of him at my back pulls me under too.
When I wake up, it’s full light. There’s no Dolly Parton. My alarm didn’t go off, and the truck came and went at five without me.
I sit straight up. Oh, crap. My roses.
There’s a note on my pillow, written in square, careful capital letters.
TRUCK CAME. ROSES ARE IN THE COOLER. WATERED THEM. DIDN’T SING. COFFEE’S ON — T
I lie in bed and read it again and again. Then I put on his shirt and a pair of jeans and walk across the gravel lot to the shop.
Every rose is in the right bucket. Every bucket has fresh water. He even cut the stems at an angle, the way he watched me do it that first morning.
There’s a mug of black coffee on my steel worktable, still warm. Then I turn the radio on and sing.
At eleven I text him.
Where are you?
Station. Rob’s teaching me the reports.
It’s your day off.
