Evvie Drake Starts Over(63)

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She never messed up the sheets in 204. They fell asleep, and when they found they were both awake at three in the morning, they lay with their faces inches apart and whispered about a dream she’d had about Halls of Power. She said she was cold, and he found his T-shirt and gave it to her. He smoothed her hair, and they dozed off.

She woke up again a little after five thirty, and she turned over to find Dean flat on his back, dead asleep, visible by the slivers of streetlights coming in through the slats in the blinds. She would not be one of those women who watched someone sleep, she thought. It was creepy. So she closed her eyes and listened instead to the inhale and the exhale, the trading of air for air without effort. She synced her breath to it, and she went back to sleep.



* * *



—

The next time she opened her eyes, it was light outside and he was awake, staring at the ceiling. She stretched, and he turned to look at her. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said, sitting up in bed to lean toward her toes and stretch out her back. He scratched lightly between her shoulder blades.

“Did you sleep okay?”

“Yeah.”

   He extended his arm behind her, and she curled up and settled back down, resting on his chest with her arm across his ridiculous abs. It was not a terrible place to lie down, all things considered.

“So,” she finally said.

“So.” He picked up her hand that was resting on his tattoo and idly played with her fingers.

“I think I hurt my hip,” she said.

“Seriously?” He froze. “Are you okay?”

“No, no.” She laughed. “I’m fine, stop. It’s just…have you ever worked out with a new trainer?”

He looked at her. “I don’t know how I feel about you forgetting I was a professional athlete at this particular moment.”

“Good point,” she said. “Anyway, I think it’s like that.”

“It’s absolutely not like that. What gym are you going to?”

“I’ve been working out alone, mostly, if you get my drift.”

“Well,” he said, throwing an arm over her, “I appreciate you leaving it all on the field. I hope it was worth it.”

“Yes, completely worth it,” she said. She looked gravely into his eyes. “Hearty, with oaky undertones.” They laughed in their barely awake hoarse voices, and she kissed him on the shoulder. “What time is it?”

He checked his phone. “8:27.”

“So, what now?”

“Checkout time is eleven,” he said. “I need a shower. They have breakfast downstairs, I think.”

Evvie turned her head to look at him. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Ah,” Dean said.

“I mean, I’m not trying to start a status conversation. No big status conversations before everybody’s got their clothes on and had coffee—I feel like that’s a good rule. I’m just not sure even where you want to sleep tomorrow and stuff like that, that’s all I mean.”

There was a pause. It might have been the longest pause ever, she thought. It felt like tides went in and out, planes took off and landed, buildings were built before he talked. “I like you a lot,” he said.

   “Well, good, I like you a lot, too.”

“And you live here, and I live in New York.”

“Right.”

“I’ve got to admit, I haven’t thought about it much farther ahead than that.”

“Sure,” she said. What does being completely chill sound like when you don’t have any pants on? She sat up and swiveled around so she was lying back on her pillow. “I do think it might be better if we kept it between us.”

“You don’t want to tell Andy.”

“I don’t want to tell anybody. You’re not staying. And my dad and Kell and Andy and whoever, if they know all this, they’ll think that you’re staying, or that I’m leaving. I think it’s…better to skip it all. Besides, right now, there’s not anything to tell except, you know, this. It’s not like you’re my prom date.”

“I could bring you a corsage next time.”

“Hey, don’t make promises you’re not going to keep.” She stretched her arms straight up in the air. “I have weird fingers. Do you see how they’re crooked?”

He scooted his head over next to hers on the pillow. “They look like fingers.”

She folded her arms back over her body. “You don’t know what it’s like being a mortal.”

“Hey, you should see inside my elbow. It looks like everything looks at the beginning of WALL-E.”

“WALL-E the cartoon?”

“Yeah, when the whole world is trash and bent metal and beat-up shit. That’s what the inside of pitchers’ elbows looks like. I had an MRI once and the doctor said, ‘I have good news and bad news, and the good news is that your bones are still attached everywhere they’re supposed to be attached. The bad news is everything else.’?”

She paused. “What do they do if your bones aren’t still attached?”

“They do surgery. They use a tendon from your leg and tie your arm bones together.”