Page 44 of Broken Cedar

Later that night, the house is quiet. I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and replay Colt’s words in my head.

You were my favorite person. Then one day you were gone.

I’ve been turning them over for hours, examining them from every angle, holding them up to the light like something fragile. They don’t break, they get heavier. The weight of them settles into my chest, into my ribs, into the hollow space behind my sternum where I’ve carried this thing I feel for Colt for as long as I can remember.

I glance at the time on my phone. It’s almost midnight, but my body is too wired to sleep. I throw back the covers. The floor is cold under my bare feet. I don’t grab a robe. Don’t put on clothes. I’m wearing an old t-shirt of Colt’s and underwear, and nothing else as I tip-toe down the hall to Colt’s room.

His door is closed. I turn the knob, and sneak into his room the way I used to when I was younger and couldn’t sleep and wanted company.

He’s awake, or half-awake when I enter his room. Lying on his side, one arm under the pillow, the sheet pulled to his waist. The room is dark, but there’s enough moonlight through the window that I can see the ridge of his shoulder, the dip of his waist, the way my body recognizes the shape of his beneath the sheets, the way your hand recognizes a doorknob in the dark.

He doesn’t ask what I’m doing here. Doesn’t say anything. Just watches me cross the room, his eyes tracking me in the half-dark.

I lift the sheet and slide in beside him, the mattress dipping under my weight. His body is warm as I press myself against his back. My chest to his shoulder blades. My knees fitting into the hollow behind his knees the way two pieces of the same puzzle find each other without being told where to look. I bury my face between his shoulder blades and breathe him in. Soap. Sleep. Something uniquely Colt.

His hand finds mine where it rests against his stomach and laces our fingers together. For a long time, neither of us says anything. We just lie there. His breathing is slow beneath my cheek. My fingers move over the roughness of his hand, the calluses at his palm, the small scars I know the stories behind. A lifetime of evidence that Colt has spent years fixing things, building things, holding things together.

Wanting him has always been easy. The strange part is how natural this feels. The weight of him beside me. The quiet. The complete lack of needing to perform or explain or convince.

“You still sleep with the window cracked,” I whisper.

His fingers tighten slightly around mine. “Yeah.”

“Even in winter?”

I feel his chest rise and fall as he takes a deep breath. “Sometimes.”

I smile against his shoulder. “That’s insane.”

A quiet laugh moves through his chest. It’s such a small sound, but I close my eyes because I realize I’ve missed it, the way he sounds when he’s half-asleep and trying not to smile. Colt shifts onto his back and I settle against him.

“Do you remember,” I whisper, “when you used to come into my room during thunderstorms?”

His breathing changes slightly. “No I didn’t.”

I lift my head just enough to look at him. “You absolutely did.”

“I was checking on you.”

“You would sleep on my floor.”

He shrugs. “The floor was closer to the door.”

I laugh softly, and his expression softens.

“What?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

He watches me for a moment. Colt has always been too good at noticing things I don’t say. “You’re thinking too loud.”

I smile. “That’s not possible.”

“With you, it is.”

I look back down, resting my cheek against him again. The truth is, I couldn’t sleep without him. That after eight years of convincing myself I had moved on, my first instinct when I couldn’t sleep was still to find Colt.

After a while, I feel his hand move, his fingers brushing my hair away from my face.