Page 16 of All My Broken Dreams

He turned back to the sink, shaking inside himself, and focussed on finishing the dishes. A routine task that he did every night. Twenty-seven-years-old and he’d never experienced something like that before.

She said she wasn’t uncomfortable.

A thing like that, three little words … and Deacon was shot through with joy.

Robbie watched his movements, the subtle changes in his expression and listened to the tonal shifts in his voice. Deacon Wake was somewhat of a mystery. She didn’t know what was happening between them–ifthere was anything happening between them. It could’ve been just her imagination. Or wishful thinking.

You’re moving too fast,Robbie, she thought, hearing her brother’s voice in her ear. She just met him. How hard it was to describe attraction. She had very little experience to go on, but she felt it intensely–an energy that charged the air, weighted every word, and threw everything into doubt.Itbeing the one thing she didn’t want to get wrong. How mortifying it would be to make a move on a guy who was just being nice.

“I should probably make up the bed now.” His voice jump-started her pulse. “I usually go out for coffee and breakfast in the morning. I’ll pick something up for us and bring it back. You don’t have to get up until you’re ready.”

“Don’t you have to work in the morning?”

“Not on Saturday. I get the weekend off unless there’s an emergency. I’m an early riser. I’ll try not to wake you. Are you getting tired yet?”

“I can hardly keep my eyes open,” Robbie said, standing up. She dragged the blanket over her shoulders. “I’ll keep my phone on in case Harry calls.”

Deacon opened the sofa to a double bed, then fetched sheets and a duvet from a drawer in the wardrobe. “It’s lumpy in the middle,” he said. “Avoid lying there if you can.”

She talked to cover her nerves as she watched him make up the bed. “I can’t take your bed, Deacon. I wouldn’t be able to sleep all night. I’ll take the chair with the ottoman pushed up, like you said. I’m smaller than you; I’ll be perfectly comfortable there.”

“I might have exaggerated the chances of getting a good night’s sleep on that chair. You’ll wind up on the floor. We can’t take the chance of reinjuring your shoulder.”

She liked the way he said ‘we’, like they were in this together. It had been a long time since she felt someone was on her side. It made her feel a lot less lonely and anxious.

But the bed.

Robbie stared at it pensively, weighing her options. “Would you object to sharing? Platonically, of course. You’ll take one side and I’ll take the other. We can stick a pillow between us if that makes us more comfortable. Seriously. You cannot sleep on the floor.”

When he didn’t respond right away, she realized her mistake. “Oh god, I’m sorry. You have a girlfriend. I didn’t mean to–that was not cool of me to assume you’re single. Not cool at all. Forget everything I just said.”

Deacon held a pillow against his chest as though it was a shield. She stood opposite him, on the other side of the bed, and the way he was looking at her, she knew he was thinking the same thing she was. Like they had the same mind but there was an obstacle in their way that she couldn’t see.

“I don’t have a girlfriend. I’m, ah, I’m just….” His eyes flicked to the fire and then the window. “It gets cold here at night. The extra body heat will come in handy.”

A slow smile stretched across Robbie’s face and her legs turned to jelly. “I’ve never done this before, have you?”

His mouth twisted to a self-mocking smirk. “Who me? I sleep with a girl at least once a week. There’s nothing to it.”

She laughed, appreciating the fact that he was trying to make the situation less awkward for her. “Fine, I’ll get over myself. I tend to overthink human interactions that normal people take for granted.”

“Has it always been that way for you? Scared to leave the house, I mean.”

She grabbed an end of the sheet to help him make up the bed. “It’s called agoraphobia and a lot of things can trigger it. In my case it was my father’s death. My therapist says I have an anxious personality; I’m wired wrong. I don’t know why. My dad was super chill. I must have got my mom’s genes. How about you?”

They shook out the duvet between them and spread it over the bed.

“What about me?” he asked.

“Well, what’s your family like? You said they pulled strings to get you the job at Locksley Hall. What sort of strings?”

“My mother’s family is in Scotland. Her brother got me the job; he vouched for me with the board.”

“Your uncle lives here in Edinburgh?”

“He’s a professor at Locksley Hall. He’s a very smart man.”

“Sorry, I’m asking too many questions.”

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