Page 50 of Begin Again
ANNIE
“Well, this is a problem.” We both stare at the couch that’s supposed to turn into a bed. But no matter what we do, the bed won't come out. It’s like the couch ate it and the hotel gods want us to sleep in the same bed.
“It’s stuck,” I say, for the seventh time. “I don’t think we're getting it out.”
“I’m going to try one more time.” He’s determined to make this work, but it’s not working. That couch is not turning into a bed and I can tell he’s exhausted. We watched the sunset and then got some ice cream on our way back to our room. But it’s past midnight at home, and Sam likes to go to bed early, I’m just waiting for him to snap. He has to be so tired.
“One more time,” he mutters to himself again as he grabs hold of the rope and handle to pull the hide-a-bed out of the couch. Then he stands there.
“I thought you said one more time,” I say, watching him.
He grunts. “I’m trying.”
I bite my lip to hold in my laughter. “The bed is a king, Sam. It’ll be fine.”
At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. It will be fine, totally fine. I’m sure not thinking about all those things he said earlier, about how our marriage isn’t just on paper for him or about how he kissed me the last time we were together. Nope, absolutely not going there.
“I’ll just sleep on the couch,” he argues as he puts the cushions back on. “It’ll be fine.”
“You need a bed.” There is no way his back will be fine if he has to curl up on the hard, small couch all night. “You can just sleep on top of the covers with the extra blankets for the couch bed, and I’ll sleep under them. It’s a memory foam mattress, we won’t even bug each other.”
He sighs, resigned. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
I smile at him. “I’m good. Let’s sleep. We have a busy morning.” I move to the right side of the bed, the furthest from the door and unfold the covers. I climb into bed and pat the side beside me. “Come on, I won’t bite.”
He hesitates for a second before he moves to the other side of the bed. He fluffs the pillow and unfolds the extra comforter that was in the closet. The bed shifts slightly at the weight of him and I take a slow, deep breath. It’s just Sam, this is going to be fine.
There is a mountain of blankets between us when I wake up around three in the morning, and I’m drenched with sweat. I wrack my mind for any nightmares, but for the first time in a long time, I was actually having a good dream. One about Sam. I groan and force myself to get up and out of bed to look at the air conditioner, because I cannot sleep when it’s hot. I blink againstthe darkness, only to see Sam’s silhouette by the window, at the AC unit already.
“What’s happening?” I ask him as I yawn. He doesn’t look at me, he pushes another button on the AC unit and nothing happens.
“It sputtered to a stop about an hour ago and now it won’t turn back on. I'll call the front desk to see if we can get moved to a different room.” He moves soundlessly around me and turns on a lamp on the table and presses the numbers needed to get to the front desk.
“Hi, yes. I’m in room 1203 and our air conditioner just stopped working. I see. Can we get moved to another room?”
I watch Sam as he talks to whoever is on the other side of the phone, grateful it’s him and not me, because I do not like talking to people on the phone.
“And you’re sure you can’t move us to a different room?”
My heart sinks. There is no way I’m going to be able to sleep now. It’s way too hot in here. I’m surprised I didn’t wake up earlier. But I’m exhausted from yesterday.
“Okay, thank you,” Sam says, then he hangs up the phone and looks at me. “So they are aware there is a problem, I guess their entire AC system is currently down. They are bringing someone in soon to get it fixed, but it might be a bit.”
I swallow the panic rising in my chest. I am still not great at adapting when things don’t go the way I anticipate.
“So, we’ll open the sliding door. We’re high enough up that it shouldn’t be a problem, and I’m going to see if there’s a fan in the closet, the guy at the desk said there should be. And if all else fails, we can fill up the tub with cold water and dunk ourselves to feel cooler.”
I relax a tad. “Okay.”
He smiles at me. “It’s going to be alright, sunshine.”
I nod, even though I don’t believe him. I’m closest to the sliding door, so I open it and let in the humid, but slightly cooler night air. When I turn around, he is holding a small box fan that is probably older than the both of us, but it’ll be better than nothing. At least we still have electricity. At least we had AC to start with. He plugs the fan in and sets it on the dresser across from the bed and turns it on.
It’s pitiful, the amount of air it moves, but at least there’s some sort of air flow.
He turns off the lamp, plunging the room in darkness again. We shuffle past each other to get to our sides of the bed. He pushes all of the blankets off the bed and I feel the tiny movement of air as I lay back down on my pillow.
“Is it okay if I scoot a tiny bit closer to you?” Sam asks. “I won’t touch you, and we don’t exactly need to share body heat, but I’d like to kind of feel the fan.”
