Page 50 of Alive At Night

I tried until everything was fuzzy, spinning, warm. A bed—I needed a bed. To lie down. I told my parents earlier that I would be staying with Gemma, but all the doors in the hallway were closed when I made it to the second floor. God, this hallway. It felt like home. It smelled like sleepovers in high school and mischief and the vanilla bean candles Jenny Briggs always lit.

I counted the doors as I walked down them. Gemma’s was the third on the left, and I sighed with relief as I found it, ready to sink into her mattress.

I didn’t bother turning on the lights. I wanted it dark, like a mask. I wanted to escape in it.

A body turned on the other side of the bed when I slid beneath the covers, and I frowned, wondering when Gemma had gone to bed and why she hadn’t told me. But asking her didn’t seem worth waking her up. And it definitely didn’t seem worth delaying my sleep or the release of my worries. Not tonight when they crawled over me, getting stuck in that web.

We’d talk in the morning. For now, I pressed closer to the familiar warmth in the bed, to the feeling of home.

And let myself fall.

CHAPTERTWELVE

julian

THERE WAS SOMEONE IN my bed.

Fuck, had we slept together? Under my parents’ fucking roof?

I might have been going through the longest dry spell in the history of dry spells after that fling I’d had in law school, but had I really stooped this low? Was I this desperate for a hookup that I slept with a Whitebridge local, someone I risked seeing every time I returned to town?

The apple pie was too strong. Next year, I needed to tone it down a little bit. I drank more last night than I had in a long time. Janie found me in the garage, and I’d let her talk me into refill after refill while I listened to her college roommate drama. I’d needed a distraction, and it had worked.

But how I ended up with a girl in my bed was beyond me. I didn’t remember talking to very many people last night. My family.

Kennedy.

Juniper.

Shit, I was afraid to open my eyes and see who it was. She was soft, though—whoever she was. One leg draped over my hip, and hot breath warmed my skin as it hit a sensitive spot right below my ear. I nearly moaned from the feeling, wanting more than that tease.

Goddamn.If we’d fucked, how was I still this ready to go?

She just felt so good. Her weight was delicious, the perfect blanket for a chilly morning, and I tucked my head deeper into the crook of her neck. If I’d tasted her last night, then it wasn’t enough. Because hunger unraveled deep in my gut, a want I wasn’t prepared for. I let my lips brush soft skin as I nuzzled deeper into hair that smelled like—

My eyes flew open.

Roses. Her hair smelled like fucking roses, and it was the same smell that invaded my office every Monday through Friday.

Juniper was in my bed.

Juniper was in my bed, and I wastangledin her.

Juniper was in my bed, and she’d just gasped delightfully at the hint of a kiss—a kiss, for fuck’s sake—that I brushed along the curve of her neck.

“What thehellare you doing here?”

Her head jerked upward at the sound of my voice, wavy dark hair flying everywhere. It was on my pillow. It was on me. Juniper squinted sleepily, and I ignored the pang of softness in my chest.

No, no, no.

“Julian?”

Saying my name aloud seemed to do the trick, to make the realization sink in, and then the air rang with her ear-splitting squeal.

I clapped a hand over that mouth of hers, but noises still flooded out, so I rolled us over, pinning Juniper down on the bed and giving her a glare. A glare that saidshut the hell up.

“Greg Kennedy isn’t the only one who’s going to think we’re fucking if you don’t quiet the fuck down,” I hissed. “Do you want my entire family to burst in here?”

---