I can’t sleep. I’ve been laying in this bed for over an hour with Kat curled up by my feet and the blackout curtains pulled tight, and still I can’t get there.
I look to my right at the dull green glow of my alarm clock.
It’s one in the afternoon. It feels like one in the morning.
I’m in that weird place where I’m tired but I’m not ready to sleep. I want to be, I’d kill to be, but my brain isn’t having it. It’s insomnia at its worst, a problem I’ve struggled with my entire life. That’s the downside to being ‘on’ all the time; you struggle to learn how to be ‘off’. To be still.
I reach for the clock, my fingers fumbling blindly for the buttons. I count them from the left. One, two, three, four, frogs. The sound machine kicks on, the echo of frogs in the rainforest filling the room. I feel Kat shift at the end of the bed. She listens for a few seconds before huffing petulantly and flopping back down against my leg.
Kat doesn’t care for frogs.
I try counting sheep on the backs of my eyelids. Then I try Lions. Jets. All of the opponents we still have to face this season. The ones standing between us and a Super Bowl ring. The biggest one for me is the Chiefs. We’re away at Kansas City in December. My mom is coming to the game with Charlie and Makenzie, driving six hours from Galena to be there. I’m putting them up at the Sheraton, the same hotel the team is staying in, even though Charlie isn’t thrilled about the idea. He’s a big football fan but not a fan of football players around his daughter. Bringing her to a hotel full of them is his worst nightmare. Knowing Makenzie, he definitely should be worried. But me? I couldn’t care less what or who she does. I’ll sleep like a baby either way.
Just not today.
My phone pings on the nightstand, the room momentarily glowing faint blue before dropping back to black. I groan as I reach for it, my tired bones protesting, but inside I’m racing and revving. I’m thinking about Lilly, hoping it’s a message from her. I’m thinking about being with her. About how mellow she makes me and how much I could use that feeling right now. I could have fallen asleep a hundred times last night when we were together, but I fought against it, determined not to miss a minute with her. Now a minute doesn’t go by that I don’t miss her. I could call her now, hear that sexy rasp in her voice. Ask her to tell me a story. I don’t care if it’s about how ostriches like anal, I’d listen to it for hours. I’d fall asleep smiling.
And I’d have the strangest, most sexually confused dreams of my life.
“Damn,” I mutter when I see the message. It’s not from her. It’s The Hotness.
I uploaded the new events to your calendar. Monday at the children’s hospital is locked. Check the time, then check it again. Try not to be late.
Am I late or is everyone else early?
You’re impossible is what you are.
Are you gonna be there?
Trey and I both will be.
Why is Trey going?
Because he loves me and WHEN, not IF, you’re late he can buy some time by signing some shit.
Tell him not to steal my thunder.
Trust me, you have plenty to spare.
Talk to Tyus’ agent. See if you can get him to show up too. If all three of us are there we can ask DQ to send ice cream for the kids.
Please wear clothes.
Please call Tyus.
He’s your friend. Why don’t you ask him to show?
Because it’s not my job, Hotness. It’s yours.
Fuck you, fine. I’ll call him.
I love you.
I follow that up with a GIPH of a unicorn farting a rainbow.
I do not get a reply.
When my phone goes dark again, taking the room with it, I stare up at the nothing above me. The ceiling is there somewhere, tall and open with exposed ducting and beams. My mom hates it. When she was decorating the apartment downstairs she insisted we cover it up with drywall. I told her the place cost what it did because of the exposed areas.
“Well, your granddad has a barn back in Kansas with exposed beams too,” she told me frankly, glaring at the ceiling, “and I wouldn’t pay half a million for it.”
“It’s closer to seven point five.”
“Stop it, Colton,” she scolded sternly. “You’re hurting my heart.”
The heat kicks on with a whoosh. I can hear it in the ducts. I wouldn’t be able to if they were buried under walls, or if there were other noises in the apartment. Someone in the kitchen or the living room cooking and watching TV. Coming and going through the front door, calling out to me to tell me they’re home. Crawling into bed with Kat and I to scratch her ears and talk to me about their day.
Suddenly the silence is deafening, surrounding me and suffocating me.
I check the time. It’s only two. It’s still early. I can’t call her. She’s probably sleeping. I need to let her sleep.