Page 47 of Rumi: The Hawthornes

“Don’t you need this?” she called as I went to the bathroom to wash my hands.

I scoffed even though she couldn’t hear me. My mom had given that stuff to me months ago, and I hadn’t used it up to that point, I doubted I’d use it in the future.

“No, keep it,” I said as I came back into the living room.

“What if you get a bruise?”

“Then I’ll have a bruise,” I replied dryly.

“You’re so tough,” she said sarcastically as I searched for a movie and simultaneously stuffed my face with guacamole.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you,” I told her around the food in my mouth. “These chips are so crunchy.”

“Pig.” She laughed.

“Like I haven’t seen you laughing with food falling out of your mouth,” I replied after I’d swallowed.

“That was not my fault,” she argued. “And it wasn’t as bad as you shooting beer out of your nose.”

“That fuckin’ burned,” I mumbled, rubbing my nose.

We settled in to watch a movie, Nova insisted on a comedy, but less than twenty minutes later she was fast asleep and drooling on my chest. I ignored the little voice in my head telling me that she shouldn’t be so tired if she’d spent the day sleeping.

I sat there until the movie ended, weighing my options. I wanted to wake her up so I could get her naked, but on the other hand, if she was tired I didn’t really want to disturb her sleep. But if I let her sleep, I was going to have to leave her on the couch and go into bed alone, which didn’t sound fun either. I didn’t want to wake her, but I didn’t want to leave her either, which freaked me out a little if I thought about it too much.

Nova had stayed at my place plenty of times since I’d moved in and it was no big deal for me to leave her passed out on the couch, except it was different now, no matter how I tried to ignore that fact. When I’d finally decided to let her sleep instead of being a selfish prick, I slowly slid away from her and eased her onto the couch cushions.

I didn’t even make it one step from the couch before her hand was on my thigh.

“Where are you going?” she asked sleepily.

“I was gonna let you sleep,” I replied quietly, smoothing her hair out of her face.

“No, stay,” she murmured, closing her eyes.

“Just go back to sleep.” I rubbed my thumb along her cheek. Fuck, what was I doing? “I’m goin’ into bed.”

“I’m awake,” she argued, her eyes popping back open. “Don’t leave yet.”

I watched her as she pushed herself up to sitting and I knew that no matter what she said, we weren’t going to get naked.

“I’m not into fuckin’ corpses,” I joked. “Go back to sleep, No.”

“I’m awake now,” she insisted. “Stay.”

My stomach twisted for some reason I couldn’t explain. She’d never, not in all the time I’d known her, asked me more than once to stay with her. If I had to leave, or was going to sleep, or whatever, she might make a comment about it but she was never adamant. Not like she was now. For some reason, it was important to her that I didn’t leave her and it was seriously out of character and made panic start to bubble in my gut.

“I’m not sleepin’ on the couch,” I said finally, reaching down to scoop her up.

“Who said we’re going to sleep?” she asked, kissing my neck as I carried her into my room.

“I do,” I replied, laying her in the bed. I stripped out of my clothes and by the time I’d thrown them in the hamper, she was completely out again.

I ignored the warning bells ringing in my head as I climbed in next to her. I could get used to sleeping with Nova and that wasn’t a good thing. We were friends. That was it. And we scratched an itch when we felt like it.

Before we’d had sex, sleeping together wasn’t a huge deal, we’d done it plenty of times when we were camping—but now it felt like we were crossing a line that I wasn’t sure I wanted to cross.

But, damn, it was nice.

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