Page 42 of Redline Communion

“In my clothes. In your apartment. Yelling at pasta.”

“I didn’t yell.”

“You threatened it.”

“It knew what it did.”

I smile.

She doesn’t.

For a second I think she’s going to ask again, but her grip loosens around my collar.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she says. “But don’t make me feel stupid for knowing there’s something.”

“I’m not.”

“You are a little.”

She settles back against the pillows, leaving a few inches between us.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

She reaches for my hand anyway.

I turn hers over and run my thumb across her palm, and I don’t let it go any further. I want to. My body makes that clear every time she shifts against me, every time her thumb passes over my knuckles, every time I look down and remember she’s wearing nothing but my sweater and those shorts.

Wanting has never been the problem.

I pull her back against my chest and leave it there.

The show keeps playing. The detective arrests the wrong man, and Lorelei tells me this without opening her eyes.

“You don’t know that,” I say.

“He has sad eyebrows. It’s never the one with sad eyebrows.”

“That’s your evidence?”

“I took a criminology elective.”

“You dropped it.”

“After learning the important part.”

Ten minutes later, her breathing changes. I trace my fingers over her shoulder blade until I’m sure she’s asleep, then stop pretending I’m watching the show.

The room is warm, my arm is going numb under her, and the laptop light flickers over the wall every time the scene changes. She fits against me like this is normal.

I press my mouth to the top of her head.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

She shifts, and for one second I stop breathing. Then she tucks her face closer against my chest and goes still again.

I keep my eyes on the wall.