My hard shell almost cracked completely.
Instead, I pulled my phone out of my back pocket.
“Don’t move,” I instructed her.
I held my phone up. Ophelia followed the camera’s eye, smiling at it as I snap a picture of her.
“Blackmail material?” She asked.
“The opposite.” I held my phone to her. “Can you make this my lock screen?”
Ophelia blinked, surprised, then a small smile settled across her mouth. She took my phone, and I watched her fingers fly across the screen. Then she turned it to face me.
“Like that?”
She dimmed the screen. When I tapped it, there she was. Ophelia and her beautiful smile and those big, trusting, sub-space eyes.
“Perfect,” I said. I tucked my phone away again.
But her smile dimmed suddenly. I could see a conflict rustling behind her eyes. “What is it?” I asked.
She closed her eyes, leaning into my touch. “I like this.”
“I know. So do I.”
“No, I mean…what if I like thistoomuch?”
The confession broke my heart.
Tell her you love her. Tell her she’s not alone in this feeling. Tell her?—
But I couldn’t. My tongue trapped itself behind my teeth.
“It’s late,” I told her.
She yawned. “I’m too wired to sleep.”
I put my hand over her eyes. “Drop,” I commanded.
Ophelia sighed—the loveliest, softest sigh—and her eyelashes flutter against my palm before she settled into a deep, sound sleep in my lap.
23
Phantom.Then.
I didn’t mean to fall asleep with her. One moment, I was just resting my eyes, and the next, hours had passed. Ophelia stirred and I found I had folded over her like origami; her head in my lap, my head on her hip.
“What time is it?” she mumbled groggily, trying to push herself up on the sea of pillows and blankets.
I glanced at the hanging clock. “Nearly seven.”
“Shit!” Ophelia suddenly jumped up. Her hip knocked into my chin and I grunted, rubbing the spot. But she was already up, hunting around the blankets. “Where are my clothes?”
“I’m sure they’re upstairs…slow down.”
She stumbled out and I heard her feet patter upstairs. I pushed myself up to my feet and followed after her. When I got to the third floor, Ophelia was yanking her pants over her hips.
“I promised Aleena I’d take the kids today,” she said.
