13. Felix

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Felix

We wake up pressed together. Someone must have kicked the blanket off in the middle of the night, because the only thing sheltering us is the thin top sheet.

Shira's nestled against me, her back to my chest. Her toes are cold against my ankles; she mutters in her sleep, words that sound a lot like fuck off to whoever she's arguing with in her dreams. My lips are against the back of her neck—a kiss like the press of her mouth to my palm last night.

Blake is lying just beyond her. My arm wraps around them both—around the slim curves of Shira's ribs and the plains of Blake's torso. His chest hair rubs soft against my hand.

Pulling them closer might wake them up. And when they wake up, this will all be over.

No, it is over; we agreed. Last night was like a meteor shower—a bright coincidence. A thing that happened that won't happen again.

I tuck Shira closer to me, stroke my hand down Blake's belly. He must be ticklish because his sleepy laugh vibrates my fingers. We could have this. If only…

I don't have time to finish that thought. Blake startles awake. Instantly, he casts off the sheet, then pulls himself up and across the room quick like he's been burned.

"Morning," I call, and stop myself from asking, You good, bro? when it's clear he's not.

"Morning." He practically jumps into a pair of gray joggers. "I'm gonna get coffee." He pauses when Shira sits up. Her hair has slipped from its bun during the night, falling in a dark waterfall on her shoulders. I'm still lying close to her, but maybe I shouldn't be. Maybe the clock has struck proverbial midnight.

Shira stretches her arms above her head. I resist the urge to kiss the wing of her shoulder blade, to tuck myself at her back and smell morning on her skin. "Babe, is everything okay?" she asks Blake.

"Yep, all good," he says. "Just want to get moving. Ten hours of driving today."

"Yeah." Shira gives another prodigious yawn. "You sure something else isn't the matter?"

"I'm fine." But Blake plucks a T-shirt from his bag, pulls it on with a grunt, shoves his feet in his slides, and vacates the room.

Once we're alone, Shira turns to me. In the months we were apart, most of my fantasies about her were hazy things—not about the sudden intimacy of the pillow creases on her cheek or the color of her unglossed lips.

A frown works its way between her eyebrows. "You think he's freaking out about last night?"

"Maybe."

Her frown deepens. "Are you freaking out about last night?"

Yes. That we won't ever get to do that again—that I never got to really kiss either of you.

"I'm fine." But I ease back from her. "I should shower." And not be so close to her in only my boxers in the full light of day, with her boyfriend somewhere else.

"Do you think he found out about us?" Shira asks.

That makes me stop. "How would he have?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. I just feel like shit not telling him."

Shira's face is pinched in a faint frown, and I can't help but feel the same way: that we're still lying to Blake after he opened up to us. "We could tell him." Even if that conversation might end with Blake politely punching me in the face.

Shira's eyes go wide. "Absolutely not."

"He might understand." I did and don't think less of you.

"He might not."

"Then he doesn't deserve you."

"He deserves not to be lied to." She bites her lip. "He wants to meet my family."

I imagine that: Shira bringing Blake to her parents' house, all good manners and practiced smile. No one could want a better boyfriend for their daughter. Or—I swallow—a better son-in-law.

"I haven't seen them in a few years," she adds.

That catches me off-guard. Did she ever mention her family at the club? It's all a haze—I'd have a few drinks, let the muscles in my back unwind. Bask in her attention, even if I was paying for it. The next day, my throat would be hoarse and my mind at ease. But that was about me, for me. Run away with me. No wonder she turned me down if I spent our time together only thinking about myself.

"I'm sorry?" I say it as a question. There are plenty of reasons someone might not want to talk to their family.

"Yeah, me too." She sounds a little wistful but doesn't elaborate. "I just don't want to dump all this onto him. Like, hi, I'm Shira, I spent the last six years failing ballet auditions and dry humping strangers for money."

"Maybe if you say dry humping in Latin, it'll go over better."

At least she laughs at that.

"For what it's worth," I say, "I think he'd like the real you." I cut myself off before I add I do . "I think he deserves to meet her."

She blinks up at me. "You know, you're a really good friend."

Friend . A word that might have been a victory back when I asked her to come away with me in June, one I longed to hear in those months apart. Now it's a disappointment—a barrier between us as thin as a sheet.

Sweat still coats my skin from sleeping close to her. What happens here stays here. So I pull myself out of bed to rinse that away in the hotel shower.