Page 19 of Until Now

“Don’t worry, I made sure to keep our story straight.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Sure about that?”

“I’m more worried about how he’s going to take it when we break up.”

“Doesn’t mean he and I have to break up.”

“Doesn’t it?”

Nick sighs. “Your brother is a cool guy, Nina. Just because you and I can’t make it work, doesn’t mean he and I can’t.”

Pretty sure it does. Doesn’t it? I don’t want to think about it anymore… “Hey, you know, I was thinking about something,”

“That’s not good.” Nick laughs and dodges the decorative pillow I throw at him. Picking it up, he sits on the bed next to me.

“I was thinking…you should sleep in the bed tonight.”

He raises a questioning brow.

“I can take the floor.”

“Dee, I’m not letting you sleep on the floor, this is your house.”

“You’ve been sleeping like shit. I can tell. It’s not a big deal, we can take turns.”

“Or, we can share.”

Or, we can share?

“Or not, whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“No, it’s not that, I just…well, I guess we can.”

“Real couples share a bed, right?”

“Right.” I didn’t notice until then just how close we had gotten. Looking down at the bed, his hand brushes mine. This is new territory, in the past, we have only touched when others were around. This is definitely outside the boundaries. “We’re adults, right? I think we can manage.”

A knock at the door causes me to jump away. “Diana said to drag you upstairs, dinner is ready!” Eileen chirps when she walks in.

“We’ll be up in a minute, Lina,” I say without looking.

Eileen looks between us with a small smirk, I think it’s pretty obvious she just walked into the middle of something. “Everything okay?”

“Great,” Nick says and reaches for my hand again.

Eileen checks the hallway and steps further into the room, closing the door. “I heard you and Teagan had a little reunion earlier. I overheard her telling Lee all about it. Said you were being a bitch to her for no good reason.”

I roll my eyes. “We’ll be up in a minute. Cover for us, please?”

“Don’t take too long,” Eileen winks.

When Eileen is gone, I rip my hand from his and push off the bed.

“You wanna talk about it?” Nick asks.

“No.” My tone has extra bite as I walk into the bathroom. Shit, he didn’t deserve that. He’s just trying to help… I sigh. Stepping back into the bedroom, “Thank you, but I’m fine.”

---