“I’ll be holding down the other cot next door. I’m not leaving.”
“No, I mean stay with me. Stay here?”
There is only sincerity and open vulnerability in his request. The problem now is that she wants to agree. More than anything, she wants to curl up with him and waste the rest of the day together, and that’s how she knows she’s extremely fucked. She’s so far beyond the point of no return when it comes to caring about this man, and that scares her to her core. Integrating herself further into his life will offer nothing but heartbreak. Still, the idea of saying no feels like an impossible task.
“Only to sleep, I promise. I don’t wanna be alone,” he tries again.
“There’s no room. That cot won’t fit both of us.”
“We’ll make it fit,” he deadpans, without an ounce of the flirt that should accompany that statement. “I won’t let you fall off.”
“Scoot over,” she agrees, knowing that slipping into this bed is the first step toward the kind of immeasurable grief she would love to avoid should anything happen to him. And they are absolutely stuck in a world with plenty of terrible opportunities for that to occur. How could she deny him, though, when she is the only one who can offer what he needs?
He does as he’s told. Keeps a reasonable amount of space between them as she settles in to stare up at the popcorn ceiling. The bed is relatively comfortable for a cot. Some kind of paper-thin memory foam mattress covered in sheets that smell like him now. Those pheromones are doing more for her stress levels than she’ll ever admit. He does not reach for her, but she can feelhis need for comfort nearly vibrating the bed. She is weak. That much she’s coming to accept at record speed. She is weak for him, and there’s nothing to be done about that right now except embrace it. They’ve slept close before, but this feels brand new in the wake of shared trauma.
Nora rolls her head against the pillow, her eyes soft and her words gentle as she lifts her arm. “You can come closer.”
Why the fuck not, she reasons in her head. They’ve already blown past a hundred boundaries today. What’s one more?
He takes no coaxing whatsoever, and that surprises her. She assumed he would be the last person to want anything resembling a proper cuddle. But he is needy and tactile instead. That throws her for a loop as he moves in to press himself against her, his face puffing warm breath against her upper chest, and his hair tickling her chin.
It should be painfully awkward, yet somehow she’s never felt more like she’s exactly where she needs to be.
Her eyes slip shut, and she curls an arm up to stroke the soft hairs at the back of his neck while the other draws absent shapes along his bicep. “I’m so sorry I gave you fentanyl. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what else to do, and you were in so much pain.”
She knows better than anyone that sometimes it only takes once to create an addict. She exposed him to a substance without informing him of the consequences. If anything deserves an apology, it’s that.
“I’m not sorry. I was ready to take a hammer to my skull. You saved me.”
It doesn’t feel like she saved him. It feels like she bought him a brief moment of peace that comes at a hefty price.
“What the hell does it matter anyway if I start craving it? Nothing matters now. Not really. The whole world is ending, right?”
“Stop talking like that,” she hisses. “You might be ready to give up, but I’m not.”
“I’m not giving up. Only being realistic.”
“We’re so close to the wildlife center, and there’s an airstrip there, you heard Gwen.”
“Then what? Fly back into a more populated area?”
She goes quiet. Her face breaks, and her nose wrinkles as she holds in how badly she wants to cry all over again. Fuck him for that, she thinks angrily. How dare he? Maybe she lets out a little half-growl of frustration because he notices, shifting his weight against her to inhale hard as if she might leave, and he needs to grab one last breath of her scent.
“Mad at me now?” he says. “Good. Go with that. It’s easier.”
“Theo?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up. For someone who didn’t want to be alone, you’re trying really hard to make me pelt you with a pillow before I go.”
“Fair enough.” He is only quiet for a few seconds, though, before his next question breaks through the silence. “You um…you knew how much to give me.”
She should be offended, but there’s no accusation in his tone, and she merely sighs in resignation. “I know exactly how much. That’s a very specific skill, too, because it’s temperamental. The smallest amount over the correct dose and you’re done for. That’s who you’re in bed with right now, someone who can do the math on whatever drug you want to smoke, snort, eat, or inject, and don’t you ever forget it. I thought about taking some too while I was watching you breathe. I almost did.”
“But you didn’t. That’s what matters. And you won’t.”
“You seem pretty confident about that.”
