I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t. And I must actuallydoze off, because I wake up when he gently shakes my shoulder. “Come here.”
“Where?” My brain’s fuzzy, still half-asleep.
“On the couch.”
I rub one eye, try clearing my throat. I’m mostly dreams—a second ago I was watching the ocean. “You’re on the couch.”
“I’ll move over.”
“But what if it’s too…”
“Not tonight, sweetheart. Only sleeping in the literal sense.”
He sounds much more awake than I am. And I don’t love that, since he’s the person who should be asleep. So, I don’t push back. That’d take up time he should be using to fall asleep. And at first I try to stay away from him, but this sofa isn’t that big. “Here. Just—come here,” he finally says when we’ve both shifted around the elephant in the room. He pulls me closer gently. Guides me onto him. My back against his chest, his hand on my hip. And I’m too comfortable to remember why I shouldn’t be doing this. Things matter less when Monaco’s tomorrow, and Faust is only using me to go to sleep. I’m a glorified weighted blanket.
One good nap won’t kill me.
Wordlessly, his other arm snakes under my shoulders, his hand coming to rest in front of my eyes. I can almost see it in the dark. The fine, microscopic lines etched into his well-worked palm. All the normal ones are there, and then one more, a thin line worn horizontally into the arches of his skin. My heart beats loudly, and something possesses me then. An intrusive thought, like the sudden urge to jump into a pool while fully clothed. I reach up and stroke his palm.
Faust makes a small, surprised noise in the back of his throat, and that brings a flush to my skin. “Sorry. You have a sun line.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a palmistry thing. I got into it when I was a kid.” I trace my fingernail over the tiny stretch of skin. “Basically, it means good luck.”
I wonder if he knows what I’m saying.If you really meant what you said about me being your lucky charm, if this is all an elaborate, superstitious ruse you’d never admit to, then know that you don’t need to sleep with me to win. Because you will anyway. And I won’t be here after today.
Faust is quiet as the pad of my fingertip grazes the dip below his palm, where his wrist turns into valleys and veins. I pull back. “Are you tired now?”
A beat. “Yeah.”
“Good.”
“Are you?” he asks.
“Mm.”
“You should text Bernard, then, that you’ll meet him tomorrow morning.”
I’m almost too out of it to be surprised. “You remembered?”
“I wouldn’t forget.”
I don’t know what to make of that. But I shimmy my hand to where my phone’s in my pocket, text Bernard about breakfast, text Mei that Faust’s alive but going to bed mega early, then turn over to face his chest. For a while, he plays with my hair like he might braid it again, until his breathing’s evened out. I try to stay awake. I want to remember all of this.
But he isn’t asleep.
“It isn’t all migraine medication. In the bathroom. I take an antidepressant, too. And if you ever want to talk about that—what it’s like—we could.”
Maybe it’s how tired I am, or how this really is our last night together, and I want him to know why I am the way I am. WhenI inevitably block his number, once we’re done, and I’m safe, and I’ve cut him out of my life like every other client connection. That has to be why I say, “I can’t do that. Not that I… no judgment. I just can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I, I don’t do doctors. Or hospitals. Or—” I squeeze my eyes shut. “My grandma had cancer. My mom’s mom.”
He stiffens against me.
“So did my mom. Before that.”
