I dump in some laundry soap and she starts it, and then she walks back toward my bedroom. “Do you have a blanket I can put on the floor?” she asks.
What the hell? “Why?” I ask.
She looks at me like I’ve grown two heads. “To sleep on?”
“You are not sleeping on the floor,” I tell her. “You take the bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“The couch is about five feet long. You’re too tall. I can sleep on the couch.” She nods like she’s made up her mind.
I grab her arm gently as she goes to walk by me. “No,” I say. “You take the bed.”
The bed is full size, so it’s not the biggest bed in the world. She draws her lower lip between her teeth and nibbles it. That has to be one of the most erotic things I’ve ever seen. I reach out and touch her lower lip with my thumb, gently pulling it from between her teeth. She licks her lips and looks everywhere but at me.
“Are you sure this is all right with you?” she asks.
I lean close to her and pull her into my chest. I don’t know why I feel the need to do that, but I do. She hesitates briefly and then wraps her arms around my waist. I kiss her gently on the forehead. She looks up at me and she looks almost lost. The color is high in her cheeks and she steps back. “Thank you,” she says. She stands up on tiptoe and kisses my cheek almost like it’s an afterthought.
That kiss touches me like the deepest tongue kiss never has. It’s like my breath is trapped in my throat and I can’t draw it in or out.
“Are you all right?” she asks.
“Fine,” I say. But I’m anything but fine. She raises her arms to lift her wet hair from her neck and her boobs shift beneath her shirt. I’m instantly hard. “Let me know if you need anything?” I say. But I’m not looking at her anymore. I’m walking toward the door as fast as I can, before she notices that I’m getting hard just thinking about the fact that she doesn’t have a bra on.
She touches my arm and says, “Logan, please don’t tell anyone that I can’t read, ok?” She looks worried and I hate it for her. I hate that she even has to worry about things like this.
“That was between me and you,” I tell her. I like that it’s our secret. Kind of like my talking is.
She closes the door behind me and I hear the thumb lock on the door click. She just locked me out of my own room. I can’t say I blame her really. She’s in a strange place. And she’s surrounded by strange men. But there’s a piece of me that’s glad she locked the door.
I walk back to the living room, taking a blanket with me from the linen closet.
“I still can’t believe you’re going to sleep on the couch,” Paul says.
I can’t believe it either. But I am.
Emily
I’ve been lying in Logan’s bed for what feels like hours, but I can’t sleep. I heard Pete when he came home, and I heard Paul tell him to go to bed. Then the apartment got quiet. No one has made a sound for hours, until now. I think it’s Matthew, because it sounds like quick, muffled footsteps and then an awful gagging noise.
I open the door and look out, the bathroom door is open about an inch, and I’m pretty sure that’s Matthew in there getting sick. He’s miserable, and I want to help him, but I also don’t want to intrude. I tiptoe into the kitchen because I’m thirsty, and I look over at the sofa, where Logan is sleeping. His feet are hanging off the edge by about a foot, and he’s flat on his back, his head bolstered by the arm of the couch. He doesn’t even have a pillow.
I open the fridge and bend over see what they have to drink, and when I stand up, Matthew is looking at me over the top of the door. “What are you doing?” he asks. His eyes are rimmed in red and bloodshot, and his face is pale.
“Getting something to drink,” I whisper. “Can I get you anything?”
He shakes his head. His gaze darts down to my bare legs, and I tug on the hem of Logan shirt. “Nice shirt,” he says. He jerks a thumb toward Logan. “Did you two have a fight?”
I look over at Logan too. He’s sleeping soundly, his mouth hanging open. “No,” I whisper. “Why would you think that?”
“Wait.” He stops like he’s thinking about something. “Why are you still here? Are you spending the night?”
I nod, lifting a bottle of water to my lips.
“Logan’s girls never spend the night.” He looks amused. But I don’t understand why.
“He insisted,” I whisper.
“Why are you whispering?” he whispers loudly and dramatically.
“Logan’s asleep,” I reply.
“He’s deaf.” He grins.
Oh, yeah. I forgot. It’s so easy to forget that he can’t hear. I laugh and shrug.
Suddenly, he turns on his heel and runs back to the bathroom. He’s sick again, but it sounds like his stomach is empty. I open drawers beside the sink until I find a drawer with towels in it. I wet one with some cool water, and I meet him when he’s coming out of the bathroom with it. He takes it from me with a heavy sigh and dabs his face with it. “Do you need anything?” I ask.
“Ginger ale,” he says. “There’s some in the fridge.”
I nod and go back in that direction. While I’m there, I grab an empty margarita mix bucket off the counter. I start down the hallway, and assume his door is the one with the open doorway. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. I put the bucket in front of him. “For later,” I say.