Page 120 of Between the Blue
“So you can’t sleep on the floor.”
He ignores me, laying down on the carpet and fluffing his pillow.
“You’re thirty. Your back is going to be killing you.”
He pauses, turning his head slowly to look at me, his brows raised.
“I’m just saying.” I shrug. “I’m not getting paid $11 million a year to take photos.”
Ben tilts his head at me. “Been Googling me, Cherry?”
“What?” I flush. “No.”
He squints his eyes, and I shake my head. “Would you just please take the bed?”
“I’m good,” he insists.
“Well, I’m not taking it,” I say. And then, to prove my point, I pull the blanket off the end of the bed along with a pillow and lay down on the floor on the opposite side of the bed from Ben.
When he doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, I stand back up to click off the light on the bedside table before plopping back down on the ground.
Half a minute of silence goes back before I can hear Ben let out a breath in the dark. “What the hell are you doing, Cherry?”
“Sleeping.”
“What about the bed?”
“Oh, yeah. Look,” I say, “it’s wide open. You may as well take it.”
“I told you you could have it.”
“I’m not interested,” I tell him.
A few more seconds go by before Ben says, “This is so stupid.”
“It would be less stupid if you just took the bed.”
Silence.
“Why are you so stubborn?” I demand.
“Look who’s talking,” Ben retorts.
Okay, he has a point there.
“Would you just get in the bed, Cherry?”
“No.”
“Cherry–”
“Goodnight!” I call, rolling over in the opposite direction of him, even though there’s a bed separating us and we can’t see each other anyways.
I wait for him to fight me further, but the room falls silent.
After a few moments, I hear rustling, and it sounds like Ben is standing up. And as I hear him take a few steps, I can’t help but grin, realizing that I’ve won and he must be taking the bed.
But that smile is quickly wiped clean off my face when someone suddenly grabs me in the dark, blanket and all. I letout a shriek, feeling like a sack of potatoes as Ben hauls me up, tossing me onto the bed. “Hey!” I cry. “What the hell are you doing?” I demand, wriggling beneath him.
