Page 66 of My Irresistible Enemy

“What?” he asked, frowning. “Are you trying to tell me you’renotbeing stupid about your pride?”

I sighed. I shouldn’t have laughed. Or gargled.

“Dinshleepyou.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You really want to talk semantics at a time like this? Whether or not you call itsleeping together, you can’t deny we hooked up.”

I closed my eyes again. I was too tired to argue the point. “Dunmat. Shlepfim too.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You’ve slept with Mal? I thought he was married.”

I groaned. Why the hell had I said anything in the first place?

“Long timgo. For—for married.”

I still didn’t open my eyes. It was too embarrassing. Not that I’d slept with Mal—that really was ages ago, and it had never been anything more than physical. But thinking about Mal reminded me of who I used to be, back when we’d hooked up. Thinking about him now only brought home how much he’d changed, and how much I was still stuck.

Somehow, I started crying again.

I didn’t want to be this person, this mess who was so uptight and tense and anxious all the time. But I didn’t want to be the old me either, who’d been so careless he’d been asking to get hurt. And even now, even when Iwasbeing careful, I’d fucked up again. I turned my face back into the pillow.

“Hey.” Aiden’s voice was soft. He didn’t make me look at him, didn’t tell me to open my eyes. Didn’t even touch me. But I could tell he was close, probably crouching at my side. “Hey, are you…I mean, I know you’re not okay. Obviously. But are you—do you—do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head.

“Do you…need anything else?”

I shook my head again. I needed a lot of things, but all of them involved going back in time and being a different person, and Aiden couldn’t fix that for me. No one could.

There was a long pause.

“Okay. Well, I—I guess I’ll…go…then?”

He said it like it was a question, and when I didn’t answer, he stood. I heard him walk away, his footfalls muffled on the thick carpet. Heard the doorknob turn in his hand.

“Aiden,” I said, half-hoping he was already gone.

“Yeah?”

Fuck.

“Canyou—canstay?”

At first I thought I might not have said it loud enough, he didn’t answer for so long. But just as I turned my head, wondering if I should clarify or tell him to go, he pushed the door shut again.

“Yeah. I can do that.”

I couldn’t decide which was worse—the fact that I’d asked him, or the fact that I was grateful he’d said yes.

He didn’t talk as he turned out the light. Didn’t talk as he walked around and settled on the far side of the bed. He didn’t say a word for so long that I’d begun to drift off again, lulled by the soft sound of his breathing in the dark.

“Good night, Nolan,” he whispered finally. “Wake me up if you’re gonna die, okay?”

I thought about pointing out that if I were going to die, I’d probably be too incapacitated to do much of anything, but words seemed really complicated just then, and before I’d found a way to string that sentence together, I’d fallen asleep.

* * *

It was hair that woke me up the next morning. Hair, tickling my nose, soft and smooth. Which was weird, because my hair wasn’t long enough to fall into my face like that.

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