Page 286 of Safe With You

A few minutes later, Ellis reached for the blanket folded over the arm of the couch and draped it over my legs without asking.

I looked down at it before settling farther beneath it.

He didn’t ask if I was cold.

I didn’t thank him.

We just kept watching the movie.

I nudged him with my elbow.

He laughed and tightened his arm around me.

This time, when the quiet came back, I let it.

I didn’t search his face for something I’d missed. I didn’t wonder whether telling him too much had changed the way he saw me. I didn’t start planning how to make up for taking up half his evening with a conversation he’d never asked for.

I just sat there with his arm around me, my legs tucked beneath his blanket and the sound of a movie neither of us was really watching filling the room.

Nothing had changed.

Except maybe me.

Not all at once. Not enough to make the old habits disappear overnight. But enough that when Ellis pressed a kiss to the top of my head and pulled me a little closer, I didn’t wonder what I’d done to deserve it.

For tonight, I let myself believe I didn’t have to.

I’d edited the same photograph four times and somehow liked the first version better than all of them.

I undid the last adjustment and leaned back from the computer.

Usually, this was when I started watching the clock. Mila got out of school in forty minutes, which meant whatever I was working on needed to be wrapped up before I left to get her.

Except today, I didn’t have to.

Tasha had texted an hour ago to remind me that Mila was spending the night with her and Jacob, as if Mila hadn’t reminded me every day since Monday.

Apparently, whatever they had planned tomorrow morning required a sleepover tonight.

What those plans were depended on which one of them I asked.

Tasha said breakfast and shopping. Mila said pancakes and “something Auntie said not to tell you.”

I decided I didn’t want to know.

My phone lit up beside the keyboard, and I reached for it without thinking.

Luna’s name was on the screen.

She was calling.

I stared at it for a second, trying to remember if she’d ever actually called me before.

I didn’t think she had.

We’d texted enough that her name stayed near the top of my messages now. Wednesday she’d sent me a picture of the banana pudding container with exactly one serving left and accused me of taking more than my share. Yesterday, I’d sent her a picture of Mila holding up the spelling paper they finished together like she’d won an award for it.

Luna’s response had been immediate.