Page 21 of Knights Like These
She picks up on the second ring, her voice groggy. “Someone better be dead.”
“I fell asleep on his shoulder.”
Silence. Sheets rustling. She’s sitting up. “Go on.”
“We were on the couch, drinking wine, talking. I fell asleep, and my head was on his shoulder, and my hand was on his—” I press my face into the pillow. “His thigh.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. A while. Like twenty minutes, maybe?”
“And he just sat there?”
“He just sat there. He didn’t move. He didn’t wake me up. He just sat there.”
Lauren is quiet long enough that I pull the phone away to check if the call dropped.
“Lauren.”
“I’m here. I’m just—” Another pause. “Syd, a man who sits perfectly still for twenty minutes because he doesn’t want to wake you up is not a man who thinks of you as a friend.”
“He was being polite.”
“Polite is waking you up and saying ‘hey, you fell asleep.’ Polite is not letting a woman drool on your shoulder without moving a muscle.”
“I wasn’t drooling. And this is not helpful.”
“It’s the most helpful thing I’ve said in weeks. He sat there, still and unmoving so you could sleep on him. That’s notfriendship. That’s a man who’d rather lose feeling in his entire left side than risk you pulling away.”
I press my face deeper into the pillow. “Goodnight, Lauren.”
“You know I’m right.”
“Goodnight.”
“Call me tomorrow. I want a full report on the situation.”
I hang up and lie there in the dark, phone against my chest, staring at the ceiling fan going in slow circles above me.
I can still feel his shoulder under my cheek. The warmth of it, the cotton of his t-shirt, the way he smelled—like body wash and laundry soap. I can still feel his thigh under my palm, the muscle and the warmth and the way he didn’t flinch, didn’t shift, didn’t do anything to try to wake me.
It didn’t mean anything. Except Lauren thought maybe it did.
And the problem is, Lauren is always right. The thought I keep trying to bury keeps clawing its way back up: he stayed still because he wanted me there. He sat in the dark holding his breath because my hand was on his leg and he didn’t want me to take it back.
I roll onto my side, pull the blanket up, and close my eyes.
I’m going to overthink this. Analyze it to death most likely.
Fantastic.
Chapter Seven
Making a Friend
Sydney
Archer drops this on me while I’m making the twins’ lunch.
