Waiting to want to leave.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, it didn't come.
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
I woke up real slow,the way you do when you've slept deeper than you meant to.
Somethin' had pulled me out of it. Not a sound. Not the light, though the morning was already creepin' around the edges of the blinds. Somethin' else.
I opened one eye.
Calvin was propped up on her elbow beside me, head restin' in her hand, watchin' me with the patient, unblinking focus of a woman who had absolutely been at this for a while.
"Mornin'," I rasped.
"You snore."
"I do not."
"You absolutely do."
"That's slander." I scrubbed a hand over my face, buyin' myself a second to fully come back to life. "How long you been starin' at me?"
She considered that a beat too long.
"Calvin."
"You have a very punchable face when you're asleep. And snoring."
"That's not an answer."
"No," she agreed. "It's not."
I dropped my hand and looked at her. Her dark hair was sleep-mussed, the short waves goin' every which way, and she had a faint crease on her cheek from the pillow. No armor. No edge. Just her, in the early mornin' quiet of my bedroom, watchin' me like she was tryna figure somethin' out.
It did somethin' real stupid to my chest.
"You hungry?" I asked.
"Starving."
"I got eggs."
"You got anything else?"
"I got eggs," I repeated.
She sighed like this was a personal failing. "Fine."
I reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, mostly because I could, and she let me, mostly because it was early enough that her defenses hadn't fully reported for duty yet.
"You ever gonna tell me what happened with Rhett?"
She flopped onto her back. "Sassy kissed someone."
I absorbed that. "Okay."
"In front of him."
