“Caleb, wake up,” I said as I settled my hand on his shoulder.
He barely stirred.
His exhaustion was starting to worry me. It wasn’t normal for someone to sleep so much after having been sleep-deprived for so long. As much as I would have liked to believe being around me made him feel safe enough to lose himself so deeply to sleep, the fact that he’d chosen to cut his own skin during the few minutes I hadn’t had my eyes on him was telling. That peace I’d found so much pleasure in being able to give him was a thing of the past. If anything, being around me now was the reason he’d taken something sharp to his arm in the first place.
I set the milk down on the shelf that was built into the headboard of the bed and then climbed in next to him. I drew the blanket off his body and scooted up behind him until our bodies were pressed together. I let my fingers toy with the soft skin just behind his ear. “Caleb, I need you to wake up,” I urged as I let my hand skim down his shoulder and along his arm until it came to a stop at his waist.
“Mmmm,” was all Caleb said, then he was turning over and pressing his face against my chest. He kept moving until I shifted my arm beneath his shoulders and cuddled him closer to me. He let out a breathy sigh against my neck. I managed to position a pillow beneath my head so I was a little more comfortable and then just held him for a while, relishing the way his breath fanned over my skin. His left hand was wrapped around my upper arm as if he was afraid I was going to try and get away from him. I played with his hair for a while, then pressed a kiss to the top of his head before I said his name again.
He let out a little groan of protest when I began tickling his ear. When it became too much, he frowned and swatted at my hand. His eyes opened and for the briefest of moments, they were completely clear as he looked up at me. A small smile graced his pretty mouth as he muttered, “What are you doing?”
Before I could even answer, his eyes shuttered themselves again and he righted himself so that he was no longer pressed against my body.
I immediately missed the contact, despite what having his lithe body practically draped across mine had been doing to my libido.
He looked around the cabin. “What time is it?” he asked.
“Just after ten.”
“Oh.”
Caleb sat up, so I did the same.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
Not surprisingly, he shook his head. I reached behind me and grabbed one of the milks and handed it to him. “Would you please drink this? You need to get something into your system.”
I was amazed when he didn’t argue with me.
“Strawberry milk?” he said with a smile. He worked to rip the straw free of the small container, then got it out of the plastic. “I haven’t had this in… God, I don’t even know how long.”
I reached for my own container of milk. “It’s a weakness of mine,” I admitted. “One that Dalton indulges me in every time I come up here.”
I swore I saw Caleb tense when I said Dalton’s name, but the moment was fleeting.
“I wouldn’t have pictured that,” he murmured.
I shrugged my shoulders. “My father had a hopeless sweet tooth that he passed on to me and my sister, so my mother had to come up with ways to feed our need for sugar while still keeping it somewhat healthy. She’d let us have a treat every night before bed and it was always strawberry milk for me. Can’t explain it,” I admitted with a smile as I tugged the straw free of the packaging. “But knowing there’s strawberry milk waiting in the fridge for me just makes everything look better, you know?”
Caleb smiled. He was quiet for a moment before he said, “Sno Balls.”
When I looked at him in confusion, he said, “You know, those round pink coconut-covered cakes?”
I laughed and nodded. “Oh yeah, I remember those. They were nasty.”
“They were awesome,” Caleb countered, his grin growing wider. It did funny things to my insides to see him smile. I’d seen it a few times when he’d shown me around Seattle once a couple of years earlier at Christmas, but I hadn’t thought I’d see it again anytime soon.
See, Caleb, not shattered beyond repair, I wanted to say.
“I’d eat them any chance I got. I even used to ride my bike down to the store after school every day to buy some when my mom stopped getting them for me. She had to go down there and tell the manager to tell his cashiers not to sell me more than two a week.” Caleb chuckled and said, “As soon as I walked in the door, the cashiers would call out to each other and say if they’d sold to me already that week or not.”