Page 62 of Line Change

“Books. A lamp.”

He looks toward the hallway. “You own a lamp.”

“Apparently. I don’t remember packing it.”

“And you left it in a box while the team gave you three ugly ones.”

I look at the three lamps. “The light works.”

Fraser lets his eyes close. “I’m going to unpack it next time I’m here.”

“What makes you think there’s going to be a next time?” I ask.

He smiles without opening his eyes. “The fifty-percent-off Pad Thai.”

His words are starting to run together. He’s stretched across the couch with his feet over my legs, one arm wedged behind his head. I finish stacking the empty containers on the coffee table while he tells me my lamp is probably embarrassed.

His sentence stops halfway through.

“Fraser?”

He doesn’t answer. His head has tipped into the corner of the couch, mouth slightly open, with one foot trapped under my thigh.

He was supposed to go home.

I could wake him. His car is downstairs, and he has his own bed.

I turn the television down and let him sleep.

18

NOLAN

Bacon wakes me up.

I open my eyes to Pope’s gray couch and a stripe of morning light across the coffee table. My neck is bent wrong, with one foot numb beneath me and the taste of extra-spicy Pad Thai still in my mouth.

For a few seconds, I don’t know why I’m here. Then Pope crosses behind the counter in a T-shirt and sweatpants, carrying a plate to the stove, and last night catches up with me.

He looks over when I sit up. “Morning.”

His eyes stay on me long enough that last night I would’ve crossed the room and kissed him. This morning, I only get both feet on the floor before Pope turns back to the stove, leaving me to look for my phone instead.

Grease spits from the pan as he turns down the heat. For once, the counter is crowded with breakfast: cooked bacon on a plate, a stack of toast, and an open carton of eggs beside the stove.

My phone is wedged under my hip. I check the time and get up so fast that blood rushes back into my foot all at once.

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“I was about to.” Pope tips the last of the bacon onto a plate lined with paper towel and turns off the burner.

“I have to go home and change.”

I can make it if I leave now. My building is in the wrong direction, but traffic shouldn’t be bad yet. Ten minutes upstairs to shower and pull on clean clothes, then straight to the rink.

Pope looks at the clock. “Eat first.”

Two plates are already waiting on the counter, each with eggs and toast, and there’s a cup of coffee beside the empty stool. Pope divides the bacon between them without asking me again.