Four days. That’s all it took. She had me open all over again. With us, it never did take long, though. Just like back in the day, I found myself falling for her all over again. She giggled again and I reveled in this moment. It wasn’t about sex. It wasn’t about settling some score. It had nothing to do with curiosity. I just wanted to be near her.
That night, we shared a bed, one another’s body heat, and nothing else. She lie in my arms beneath the covers, still wearing the pajamas minus the robe, and this moment was surprisingly even more enjoyable than the night before. She didn’t have to be naked for me to be completely entranced by her. I inhaled the scent of her hair with each breath as I dozed and willingly followed my heart into the distantly familiar unknown.
I awoke to the sound of my phone vibrating on the nightstand and a vacant space beside me where Sam was supposed to be. I turned over in her bed and checked the message that came through. It was Kira with a very vague, “Good morning,” text.
I replied with the same and turned onto my back to stretch. Sam’s door crept open and I smiled at the sight of her. She’d changed back into the spotted paint shirt from the night before.
“What time is it?” I yawned.
She stepped into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “A little after seven.”
I rolled over onto my side again and took her waist in my hands, forcing her to lie back so that I could hold her again. Something was wrong, though. She seemed distracted.
“You couldn’t sleep?” I asked. Clearly, she’d been up for a while already.
She shrugged and her shoulder grazed my chest while she stared up at the ceiling. Her pulse throbbed at the base of her neck and I became fixated on the steady rhythm of it while I waited for her to answer.
“I slept fine.”
When I ran the back of my hand down the side of her face and neck, her eyes became half-mast and then finally closed.
“You sure about that?” I asked, acknowledging the fact that her first response was a lie.
She nodded and held to her story. “I slept fine,” she repeated. “Everything’s fine.” A slow breath left her lungs and I knew that avoiding the things neither of us had the heart to talk about would eventually eat us alive.
Deep down, I would’ve preferred to continue existing on this plain of denial, but that was completely unrealistic. One day, and one day soon, reality would catch up with us and force us to face it head-on. The best way to brace ourselves for that was to have a firm understanding of where we stood.
Sam turned toward me when my hand fell away from her skin. My eyes drifted up toward hers and we exchanged a loaded stare as we acknowledged that this bubble we’d created around ourselves would eventually pop.
“Do you wanna go for a drive so we can talk?” I asked, feeling unsettled just at the thought of it.
She searched my expression, trying to read me before giving in to a nod. “Yeah…I think we should.”
*****
Sam
While I strapped my sandals, AJ searched for driving directions on his phone. I grabbed my keys and led us out to the hallway, and eventually we were seated inside his car.
We hadn’t said much since getting out of bed that morning, but I had a feeling we’d have more than enough conversation whenever we reached our destination. While AJ showered, I’d written out a list of everything I wanted to say. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to actually whip it out and reference it, but I didn’t want to leave any stone unturned.