I had been using Max’s chest as a pillow, not to mention stroking a little patch of his chest hair.
“Sorry.” I pulled my hand away quickly and he smiled.
“Not a problem, I enjoy being called Petal.”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“When did you start talking in your sleep?” He turned his head towards me.
“Don’t know.” I pulled the duvet back and looked down at my leg. It was threaded through Max’s. He bent his knee and I pulled my leg out and apologized once more for having slipped it between his.
“We used to sleep like this,” he said, sitting up and turning his back to me as he swung his legs off the edge.
“Like octopuses,” I said, a memory coming back to me.
“Exactly.”
That’s what we’d called it. Going full octopus, when every single one of our legs and arms were tangled up in each other.
“So corny,” I said, feeling slightly embarrassed by our childhood phrases that now sounded so naïve and ridiculous.
“Corny but cute,” he said, standing up and raising his arms above his head in a stretch.
My jaw dropped on the floor. Exaggeration, it didn’t drop on the floor, but when had he gotten so many muscles? They rippled as he stretched his arms, muscles that basically begged to have a hand run over them. I quickly sat up and climbed out of the bed.
“What time are we leaving for the next location?” I asked, trying to steer us away from being tangled up with each other and back to business. But it was hard to focus on work when he’d just turned to face me, shirtless, and was now stretching his chest.
“At ten.” He hung down from the waist, put his hands on the floor and started bobbing up and down.
“What are you doing?”
“My morning stretches.”
“You do morning stretches?” I asked, not hiding the amusement in my voice.
“I like to keep supple,” he said, swinging from side to side. The word “supple” made my heart race a little, not in a comfortable way.
What was he keeping supple for, and why? And just how supple was he?
“And you?” he asked.
“And me what?”
“What new little things do you do now that I don’t know about? Besides talking in your sleep.”
“I try to meditate sometimes,” I said.
“With that racing brain of yours?” He smiled at me.
“I went through a patch where I was struggling to sleep, on account of said racing brain, and my doctor told me to try meditating, so I went to some classes and sometimes I try and meditate.”
His smile grew. “Ash, the meditator.”
“Max, the stretcher.” I pointed at him. His arms were up in the air again and he was swiveling his body from side to side, various muscles rippling.
“So many things have changed,” he said, coming to the end of his stretches. We stood and looked at each other, the large bed dividing us. “But so many things have stayed the same too.” He gazed at me meaningfully. The gaze was loaded, but it was way too early for loaded gazes and muscles.
“How’s your snake bite?” He pointed and I looked down.
