Page 80 of The Space Between
It just is… and maybe that’s enough.
For now, it’s enough.
I don’t remember fallingasleep, but I must have passed out on the dock.
I wake up in my own bed with his shirt on my pillow, but the bed is still warm. He must have just left.
My collarbone feels tender. My body aches in all the best ways. And for the first time in years, my dreams didn’t chase me.
There was no Tyler.
No shouting. No fists or boots.
No slamming doors.
Just water. And skin. And the sound of Gruene’s voice in the dark whispering,“Don’t… please don’t...”
I pull the shirt over my head, make coffee, and sit on the porch with my feet tucked under me and my knees pulled to my chest.
I don’t check my phone. I don’t open my email. I just watch the way the sun catches the riverbank. The way the wind plays in the branches. The way the door to his cabin stays closed until almost 8AM. And when it finally opens, he’s there, looking at me like I’m a choice he’s already made.
Gruene
I wake before the sun.
The room’s still dark, the kind of heavy silence that feels thick enough to choke on. Her naked body is curled into minewith one leg thrown across my hip. Her breath is soft and warm against my chest. She doesn’t stir when I run a hand down her back, slow and steady, tracing the dip of her spine with the tips of my fingers.
I could stay like this forever.
I don’t deserve to.
And… that’s the part that always breaks me.
I wakeas she starts to stir, and my eyes instantly widen, staring at the crack in the wooden bean above her bed. I carried her in last night and tucked her in before climbing in beside her. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but I did.
I stayed. I stayed all night.
Standing, I grab a towel from her bathroom and wrap it around my waist. Our clothes are still on the dock.
After leaving her cabin, I grab them, toss hers onto her porch, and head to my cabin to shower.
Openingthe door after stalling all morning, I spot her sitting on the steps of her porch. My heart gallops within my chest as I cross the distance and say, “Morning,” as I lean down to brush a stray strand of hair from where it’s falling over her amber eyes.
She blinks up at me, soft and unguarded in a way I know she doesn’t show many people. “You stayed last night. The spot beside me was warm when I woke.”
I lean back on my heels. “I fell asleep.”
Her lips twitch as she smiles and says, “That’s progress, Gruene.”
I can’t say anything, so I nod. “You want coffee?”
She nods, “I made some. It’s in the pot but I was thinking I could maybe make pancakes.”
I freeze for half a second.
Pancakes. Is she asking me to have breakfast with her? After I slept beside her all night?
Aubree loved pancakes.
