Page 58 of One Room Vacancy
She settles back into the pillows, and I climb in beside her, pulling the blanket over both of us. She immediately shifts closer, pressing her cheek to my chest, her palm spreading over my ribs.
She’s never done that before, either.
I keep one hand on her back, fingers tracing slow circles over her spine, the other resting gently over hers.
Her voice is barely above a whisper when she says, “This feels different.”
I don’t ask what she means.
Because I know.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “It is.”
We lie there for a long time, nothing but the sound of our breathing and the faint creak of the house settling around us.
And for the first time, she doesn’t get up.
She doesn’t put the walls back up.
She stays.
FOURTEEN
SAGE
It’s been a week since I slept in Gabe’s bed. Since he touched me like I was something precious and kissed me like he meant it.
Since then, everything’s felt quieter. More careful.
We didn’t talk about it afterward—not the next morning, not any of the mornings after. I went back to my room and he stayed in his. And even though we’re still…whatever we are, the silence between us keeps shifting shape.
We haven’t hooked up again, haven’t even really kissed, but he makes me coffee in the morning, puts a hand on the small of my back when he brushes past me in the kitchen. Leaves the light on in the hallway if I come home late.
It’s like we’re playing house with our mouths sewn shut.
And I don’t know what we are; I don’t know what I’m allowed to ask for. But I know that every time he closes his bedroom door behind him at night, something inside me flinches.
At work, I try to keep busy. Stick to the routine, wipe the same part of the bar twice, overfill the lemons just to give my hands something to do.
But today, Harry calls me into the back office. Doesn’t look up when I walk in, just keeps flipping through a folder on his desk like it’s any other day.
“The deal’s about to close,” he says. “Bar’s changing hands end of the month.”
Just like that.
No soft lead-in, no warning.
I blink. “You’re serious?”
He nods, still not looking at me. “Got the final paperwork yesterday. Pretty soon there will be a pretty new sign out front.”
“And you’re okay with it?”
He hesitates. “I thought I would be.”
There’s a pause, a long one.
“I feel…old,” he adds, eyes still fixed on the paper in front of him. “Like maybe this place isn’t mine anymore, even before I hand over the keys.”
