36. Kayla

Chapter 36

Kayla

I manage a couple of hours of sleep, but Ryan tosses and turns all night. Getting out of bed before six feels illegal, so I force myself to stay beside him, watching until the clock on my phone ticks over into the next hour.

Carefully, I slip out of his sheets and into the shared bathroom across the hall. The water pressure is good, thank god, and I scrub my skin pink, while silent tears slip down the drain.

This was supposed to be a fun trip. I don’t understand how being here can hurt so much. How one person can be both a blessing and a curse? I hate that I fell for someone I'll never be able to have in all the ways I want.

After drying off, I make a fresh pot of coffee and curl up on his sofa with my book. On Saturday mornings at home, I like to get out as early as possible, but right now there’s nothing that appeals more than this.

Ryan appears a few hours later, his blankets wrapped around his shoulders like on nights we stayed up late to watch movies in our Christmas PJs. In hindsight, it was an easy ploy to distract us so our parents could eat dinner together in peace, but at the time we three kids felt like it was a treat for us.

“Did you sleep here?” he asks, rubbing his tired eyes.

“No, I woke up early and didn’t want to disturb you.” Nobody benefits from me telling him I lay awake for hours .

“I hate waking up without you.”

He crawls onto the sofa, curling underneath his blankets until his head is in my lap.

Home.

“Are we OK?” he asks. It’s a question that feels impossible for us to answer.

My thumb strokes his temple and his hand wraps around my back, sneaking underneath my t-shirt to find a patch of bare skin. Honestly, I don’t know what OK looks like for us, but I think we’re going round in circles. I don’t want to ruin the rest of our time together.

“Do you need to work today?” I ask him, hoping it won’t start another fight.

“I’m off today and tomorrow. I’ll start late on Monday so I can take you to the airport.”

“OK, so what do you want to do today?”

“I have two options in my head,” he says, yawning in my lap. “It’s a nice day. We can take a drive up into the hills, find a quiet spot, maybe take a little walk. Or we can go to Trader Joe’s and buy a bunch of fun snacks and come back and watch movies in bed.”

“Oh,” I laugh. “I for sure thought one of those options was going to be sexual.”

“Sweetheart, I love having sex with you. I’d make it my full- time job if I could, but I love being with you more. All I want is for you to be happy.”

“I want the snacks,” I tell him, and he lifts my t-shirt to kiss my stomach.

“Then we’ll get the snacks.”

“And I’m picking the movies.”

“Of course you are,” he says, kissing me again.

“And we’re watching them naked. ”

And again. “Deal.”

When his clock ticks past midnight, we’re tangled in his bedsheets, hopped up on sugar, ignoring the movie in the background. I wish him a happy birthday, and kiss him so hard I hope he’ll remember this one over all the others.