Sorry for what? I want to ask him so badly, but he closes his eyes, ending the conversation before it begins. Maybe it’s better this way.
It should be hard to fall asleep by the side of the man who hurt me so badly I thought I would never recover, but it isn’t. He drifts off first, but I stay awake, etching his relaxed features into my memory, and it feels good. Like a broken part of me that needed answers finally settles just a little.
I don’t know everything, but maybe I don’t need to.
Maybe just having a few days with Tyler will be enough for me to let the past go.
9
TYLER
I wake with a start as my leg drops off the edge of the wrong side of the bed. My mind scrambles over where I am. I never sleep this side. Except that last night, Sandy was in my bed.
I roll slowly, finding her facing me, a sleeping angel with her wavy hair spread over the pillow. Her sweet, pouty lips are parted, revealing just a hint of her straight white teeth.
I kissed those lips last night. I slid my tongue over those teeth, deep and then deeper.
My breath leaves my chest in a rush.
Last night feels like a dream. In fact, the past twenty-four hours is a long blur of disrupted emotion and overwhelming feeling. A fucking mess of desperation and pain and grabbing, grasping need.
We fucked.
My dick kicks at the memory, already hard as a rock between my legs.
How the hell did it happen?
One minute I’m flailing in the recuring dream that never seems to leave me alone. The next, Sandy is there with soothing words and fingers that feel like a warm balm on my skin. I shouldn’t have reached for her. I should have told her to leave me alone, but I couldn’t. In that moment, with my heart beating like I’d been sprinting and everything in me terrified, I needed her.
My girl.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have thought anything about waking up next to this woman. It was just a part of my life, like eating and breathing and showering—a routine.
Now it feels like the greatest gift I’ve ever been given.
She stayed.
After I barked at Andrew and Greg to leave me the fuck alone, I waited with my head in my hands. I contemplated staying on my makeshift bed, but I couldn’t just leave things with Sandy in a mess. I had to make sure she was okay. When she didn’t tell me to leave, I took a chance. There were no words I could find to tell her how I feel, and she didn’t ask for any explanation.
She gave me peace in the way she always used to.
And what have I given her?
My face flushes with shame. I used her body knowing that she’s conflicted, knowing she’s wounded, and knowing there is too much unsaid between us to go that far. But she wanted it. My shoulders still hurt from the way her nails dug into me. She kissed me hard and deeply, in a way that matched me completely.
But what do I do now?
If I lie here and she wakes, there will be so much awkwardness between us. We will need to have conversations about what happened, now and in our past, but I’m not ready yet. We both need some time and space.
It takes a lot of control to slide myself out of the bed without waking her. I pad to the door as quietly as possible. My jeans are downstairs, and I’m sure I’ll have some underwear and a fresh shirt in the drier. If not, I’ll borrow someone else’s. We’re not precious about our belongings in this house. If it fits, we wear it. Sharing has become second nature to me.
Sharing.
The wedding yesterday has planted a seed in my mind that feels fucking alien but also strangely right. Sandy’s friends are all freaky as shit, marrying multiple men like they’re buying multipacks of candy. I don’t know if Sandy was telling the truth about getting introduced to the cowboy cousins or whether she was saying it to rile me up, but the fact that polyamory is something ordinary to her has gotten me thinking things that would have seemed crazy to me yesterday.
Greg is already in the kitchen. When he sees me, he nods, still chewing a mouthful of cereal. “You’re playing a dangerous game, my friend,” he says, lowering his spoon. Without a shirt on, his prison tats are dark and distracting. Greg is the kind of guy who looks like a murderer but would never hurt a soul unless they threatened someone he loves. Then, well, I wouldn’t want to be the man in his path.
“Nothing happened after…I just…I couldn’t leave it.”
“You should have left it. That poor girl up there. I don’t think she knows if she’s coming or going.”