Page 223 of The Lies We Play

I set the phone on the nightstand.

Halston shifts closer without saying anything. I open my arm, and he comes to me like he has been waiting for permission all night. His head settles on my chest. One hand rests against my stomach, fingers curled into my shirt.

I put my hand in his hair.

He exhales.

That one breath tells me more than anything he said.

“You okay?” I ask.

“No.”

“Good answer.”

His mouth moves against my shirt. Not quite a smile.

“I’m tired,” he says.

“I know.”

“I don’t know what happens now.”

“Sleep happens now.”

“After that.”

“After that, Liv comes home. Or you go to Paris. Or both. Then we find someone you can talk to who isn’t me, isn’t Liv, and can survive you being difficult in a chair.”

“I am excellent in chairs.”

“You’re terrifying in chairs.”

“Liv will make a list.”

“I bet my next Olympic medal that Liv already has a list.”

That gets the smallest laugh out of him. “The Olympics aren’t happening for another couple of years.”

I shrug.

I keep my hand in his hair, slow, careful, the way I know he likes and pretends not to need. His breathing changes after a few minutes. His body loosens against mine by degrees, like sleep has to negotiate with him before he lets it in.

He falls asleep on my chest in nine minutes.

Outside the window, the city makes the small sounds it makes in late November. Cabs on Twenty-Second Street. Someone on the corner is laughing into a phone. Cold air pressing against the glass, waiting for December to give it permission to become mean.

I don’t know how, but soon we’re going to get married.

The thought should scare me more than it does.

Maybe it will be in the morning.

Tonight, it doesn’t feel like a question.

Tonight, Halston is asleep on my chest wearing my shirt, and Liv is in Paris counting down nine days.

We are going to get married because Halston Saint Claire stayed.