With his head on my chest.
With his come-wet mouth against my collarbone.
With my hand still in his hair.
I lie there and look at the ceiling as I try to remember how to breathe like a normal human person.
Six-fifty-eight. I'm awake enough now that I can't pretend I'm not.
Theo is asleep again, heavy on my chest, his leg thrown over mine. He's drooling a little on me. His mouth's open against my skin. I should be annoyed. I'm not annoyed. I'm something else and I'm not going to name it.
I put my arm around him.
I hold him.
That's what I do. I hold him. My hand comes up without asking me and goes flat against his back between his shoulder blades and I hold him against my chest. My thumb moves in a slow stroke across the dip of his spine because my thumb has decided that's what it does now. I don't stop it.
It's uncomfortable.
It's good.
It's uncomfortable because it's good.
I've spent my entire adult life making sure nothing gets this close. I've had guys for a night. I've had guys for a weekend. I've had one guy for a month in the off-season when I was twenty-three and I broke it off because he wanted to meet my friends and I didn't have any and didn't want him to know that. I've been alone in this apartment for two years.
And now there's a kid breathing into my collarbone and his hand's on my stomach and my thumb's moving on his back and the uncomfortable part and the good part are the same part and they're not separating.
Fine.
Let it be that then.
He stirs against me. His breath changes. His hand flexes.
“Morning.”
“Morning.”
He doesn't move. He just breathes against me.
“That was…”
He trails off. He's waking up the rest of the way. I can feel it happen. The quality of his weight changes.
“Yeah,” I say. “It was.”
“I don't know where I learned that.”
I laugh. Actually laugh. Into his hair.
“Internet, sweetheart.”
“I guess.”
He curls his face deeper against my chest. His hand moves on my stomach.
“What time is it.”
I glance at the clock.
