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“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. It’s boring. How about we watch a movie?” River’s statement cut off Ben’s reply, and I was surprised by the dark look he shot her. I didn’t think he’d meant for anyone to see it, and he quickly schooled his features into a look of nonchalance.
“Yeah, sure. Sounds good.”
“Kate, do you want to join us?” I patted the empty cushion beside me and scootched closer to Darrio. It was all of a millimeter, but it was the gesture that mattered, right?
“Thanks, but I’m working on an assignment with Lyrie. Raincheck for next time, though. You guys have fun!” She grabbed a bottle of soda from the refrigerator and headed back to the bedroom she shared with Illyria.
“What are we watching, Pond?” Jesse adjusted his position on the couch and I couldn’t fight back a grin when his arm draped behind Rocky along the back of the couch.
“Horror.”
“Okay, but which one?”
“Dunno. It’s a collection. They only have shitty movies here. You’d think we could get a decent streaming service.”
“Alright, then, let’s do this.” He tugged a lock of Rocky’s long hair. “Don’t be surprised if I have to hide behind you when I get scared.”
We all laughed at the mental image and quieted down as the movie started.
Darrio was so warm and comfortable beside me. It was a struggle not to fall asleep as soon as River flipped off the light in the kitchen and rejoined us. Something was gnawing at me, though.
“Is everything okay?” I whispered in his ear. “You’ve been really quiet all night.”
“I’m fine, just thinking about things.”
“Like what?”
“Lotta things, Red. We’ll talk when there aren’t so many ears, okay?”
I nodded, but my frown must have shown I was still concerned.
“It’s nothing bad, I promise.”
“Okay.” With nothing left for me to do but take him at his word, I snuggled against him, my head on his chest.
His hand left my hip to sift through my hair, twirling the tight curls carefully. I’d had to teach him about that. There was no digging hands in at the root and pulling them through, unless he wanted me to punch him in the balls. If he was going to love a curly girl, he needed to know that right off.
The gentle tugs as he played with my hair distracted me from the movie, as I elected to listen to the steady beat of his heart instead. It was only a quarter of the way through the movie when I dozed off.
At some point, I felt Darrio shift and move out from beneath me. Gently, he lowered my head onto the couch, but I was too groggy to ask what was going on. He must have seen my lids cracked open, though, and he leaned down to press a kiss to my forehead.
“Sleep, baby, I’ll be back.”
“Mmm.” In the back of my mind, Awake Thea wanted to demand to know where he was going, since heading out in the middle of the night with a promise to be back never ended well, did it? I mean, had he even been watching the movie? He might as well have said, “What’s the worst that could happen?”
But thanks to my exhaustion, I was back under the waves of sleep in seconds.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when a loud noise from the television made me jump. My eyes flew open, and I saw the killer in the movie had his bloody knife raised to slaughter the ingenue. Dumb girl, didn’t she know better than to be pretty in a horror movie? Guaranteed death.
A warm body was under my head and I hummed as I burrowed deeper. I rested on a thigh and a hand was on my waist. Darrio must have come back, just like he’d promised. My eyes traveled around the room and I noticed everyone else had fallen asleep, too, so I didn’t feel bad for nodding off during movie night.
Well, everyone except Ben. He must have left at some point, because his space beside River was empty. She leaned against the arm of the couch, snoring lightly. From the way her chin was propped against her bent wrist, I knew she was going to wake up feeling like crap.
“Ow!” Darrio’s fingers caught in my curls as he tried to yank his fingers through, tugging harder when his progress was hindered. “Easy, Corndog,” I whispered, careful not to disturb anyone else. He didn’t respond, and I realized he must still be sleeping. I gave his leg a shake, frowning when I noticed the joggers he’d been wearing earlier were gone. He must have ditched the sweats for jeans, but why put on jeans just to come back here? And why did he smell different?
What the fuck?
My body went tense, fully alert and equally freaked out. Who the hell was I laying on? I was half a second from bolting upright when a soft light came from over the back of the sofa.
