Page 45 of For One Night Only

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Please go back to sleep,” I say.

He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it. Finally, he asks, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I just…couldn’t sleep, so I was torturing myself with social media.”

“Did that help?” he asks, his voice soft and rough.

I groan. “No.” I sink back against the chair and groan. “Ugh!”

Caleb blinks, obviously half-awake. “Want me to stay?”

Always, I think, and then I’m jolted back to reality. Starting this up again is a terrible idea. But god, why the hell not? It’s two a.m. What’s really going to happen?

Nothing.

Anything.

Everything.

Clearly I’m gaping, because he grins sleepily at me. “This would seriously be the weirdest booty call ever. I want to know if you want me to sleep with you. Literally. God, you know what I mean. We used to do this all the time.” His eyes widen, and I watch as the realization sets in. “And now by your deer-in-the-headlights look, I realize how inappropriate that suggestion was, so I’m going to go back and crawl into my own bed now and pretend this conversation never happened.”

He’s cute when he talks too much. It doesn’t happen often, because he’s usually so careful and reserved. But when he’s tired like this, I’m seeing past all of his walls.

“Honestly, I’d like it if you stayed. Being around you…it helps make all this feel somewhat normal,” I admit.

His lips twist. “Helps me too. Probably would never fess up to that in the morning, but here we are.”

I clear my throat, suddenly shy. “Right, well…I should probably wash my face.”

He nods. “I can set up the bed.”

Before I can tell him to forget all of it, I hurry over to the bathroom and stare at my greasy, day-old foundation in the mirror. As this impossibly long day hits me all over again, I scrub my face and moisturize, then brush my teeth again, forgoing a longer routine for the promise of sleep. When I get back to the room, Caleb is already in my bed like it’s no big deal.

Maybe it’s not.

As gently as possible, I slip into the sheets and turn off the lamp. I sink in next to him, letting that minty scent of his bodywash fill my lungs. For a moment, I don’t know how this is supposed to go—do I lie flat on my back? Shove a pillow between us? Surely he can hear my pulse thrumming in my ears, sense the heat of me between the sheets the way I can feel him.

“Want to stop freaking out and come cuddle?” he murmurs, touching my shoulder softly in a way that will guide me to him if I let it but isn’t forcing me to do anything. As always, he’s respecting my boundaries even without words.

But this isn’t a boundary I want to keep between us anymore. I’m craving the familiarity of his touch. Without it, I’ve been unmoored. Adrift on the sea of all the things I thought I wanted, floating helplessly on the things that pushed him away.

I need this.

So I let Caleb slip an arm around my waist and pull me to him, and I sink into the softness of his T-shirt. Because even though he’sexhausted, while I was getting ready to sleep, he grabbed a shirt. Probably to make me more comfortable.

I could live a hundred lifetimes and never deserve Caleb Sloane.

Despite the T-shirt, my body remembers just how to fold into his. I know where my head fits on his shoulder, where my arm rests on his chest, where to hook my leg around his so I’m flush against his side but not on top of him. Maybe I’ve been touch starved, but I’m overcome with relief as the warmth of him envelops me. All at once, I remember what it was like to be in love with Caleb, falling into those thoughts like a dream.

Did those feelings ever go away?

My memories are like a photo album of emotions I’m revisiting one by one, but I can’t tell if they’re snapshots in time or places I can return to again and again. I’m too tired to decipher if it’s just all of this nostalgia getting the best of me. Or maybe he’s still got that soft, gentle grip on my heart, safe in his careful hands.

But maybe, just at two a.m. as I fall asleep, I can admit that my foolish heart never stopped wanting him.

14

Caleb

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