Page 80 of Quiver

She yawned again. “We suck at progress.”

“We have,” Fletcher admitted, “but maybe we’re getting better.”

“Maybe.” Kylie mumbled as her eyes fluttered closed.

“I want to get better,” Fletcher whispered, even though she wasn’t entirely sure what that might entail.

Kylie didn’t respond as her breath grew shallow and steady.

Fletcher gently moved her almost-empty soup bowl to the bedside table and folded up the legs of the tray before scooping up the pain pills into the palm of her hand. She was sore, and the wound at her side pulsed, but when she glanced down at the woman sleeping sweetly beside her, her heart picked up a stronger beat of its own, more than enough to drown out the other. No, that wasn’t true. One didn’t overtake the other. They existed together, the pain and the pleasure. She could dull them both by covering one, but neither would go away completely, and she didn’t get to extract herself from half the equation.

She set the pills on the table and scooted lower as gingerly as she could until she lay facing the beauty of Kylie’s serene features, choosing for the first time to feel everything instead of nothing.

Chapter Eighteen

Kylie yawned and stretched but didn’t open her eyes. She could tell it was getting light outside, but she’d slept so deeply she had no real sense of time, only place. It’d been years, and she’d tested a thousand beds in a thousand rooms trying to recapture the restfulness that came from a night next to Fletcher. They hadn’t even touched. She’d merely been beside her, close, constant, comfortable. She didn’t want it to end, and a part of her ached to slip back under the surface of consciousness, but a stronger part couldn’t resist the urge to see her. As her body and her head warred on the edge of awareness, she waited to see which would win, but the sensation of Fletcher shifting on the bed broke the stalemate, and her eyelids fluttered open.

Instant gratification served as her reward, with Fletcher stretched out, so close and unguarded. Her curls fell across her brow, and dark lashes rested sweetly against smooth skin, every detail carved of pure perfection from her cheek bones to the slope of her nose to the slight part of her lips. Gone was the twist of tension, the tight jaw, the stoic stare. If not for the physical distance of minuscule inches separating them, she may’ve been able to convince herself they were in a different time, back when they’d been different people, or at least before they’d known what kind of people they would become. Still, the lines had been blurred enough in the preceding weeks that she dared to break through them once more by extending her hand and trailing her fingers along the ridge of Fletcher’s proud cheekbones.

Fletcher didn’t flinch, nor did she linger in the realm between sleep and wakefulness the way Kylie had. Her eyes opened quickly and fully, the sight of their dark depths startling in their intensity. Kylie’s lips parted, but her throat was too tight to gasp. It would’ve been so easy to kiss, but hard to stop, and neither of them were in any condition emotionally or physically to collide in the ways they inevitably would, so she wet her lips with her tongue and forced a whispered, “Morning.”

“Morning.” Fletcher’s voice was low in both timbre and volume.

“How do you feel?”

She stretched, turning her torso slightly, then a little more. “Passable. You?”

“Good.”

“I didn’t take the pills.”

“Of course not. You’re more stubborn than any mule you’ve ever had on the farm.”

“Insert some clever response about pots meeting kettles, then tell me how you slept.”

“Perfectly, magnificently, the way I’ve always longed to but have rarely achieved.”

“Sounds like a good way to start the day.”

“Oh, do we have to? We could stay here for … for a while.” She’d almost said “forever” and then caught herself as another layer of comfort gave way to caution.

“Seems like a tempting but dangerous proposition,” Fletcher said.

“Sums up most of our interactions, yes?”

She smiled slightly. “Which is why we should probably get to work.”

“I’m not disagreeing, but I do wonder if we need to go all the way back to where we were before the accident.” Kylie braced herself against the tinge of fear the idea sparked.

“I can’t,” Fletcher said quickly. “I’m physically incapable, and maybe emotionally unwilling. Let’s ease back in on both counts, see how we do, and take things from there.”

“How measured and reasonable.” She placed her palm on Fletcher’s forehead. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Fletcher caught her hand and held it for a minute before smiling. “You know how you and I have brought out the worst in each other?”

She frowned.

“I think it could work the other way around,” Fletcher continued. “We did on Saturday. It’s precarious, but we might have a chance to keep doing better, and I feel kind of dumb saying that, because I’m not even sure you want—”