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My eyes burned, but I didn’t cry. I hadn’t cried since my father died, and even if I wanted to now, my body wouldn’t let me.
I took the relief she offered and squeezed her back.
I didn’t ever want to let her go.
Eventually, she took a step back and smiled gently up at me. “I think we should eat.”
“All right.”
I heated up two servings of eggplant lasagna while Layana prepared a quick salad. We ate in comfortable silence. Then we made love in bed and held each other all through the night.
THIRTY-THREE
LAYANA
It was dark when I stirred, naked and sprawling in the softest sheets known to man. I heard Gabriel moving around in the bedroom, probably getting ready for a run and then work even though it was still dark out.
“Hey,” I said, without opening my eyes.
“Hey,” he said softly.
“I dreamed about you, and about a big tornado with sharks and fire in it,” I said. “And you were feeding me powdered donuts.”
“Not sure how I’m supposed to interpret that.”
Donuts. Mmmm.
I realized it was my turn to speak again. “I think you should tell Esme.”
He was quiet. Had he left? With great effort, I forced one eyelid to lift. And there, I could see a blurry image of a giant bee standing by the bed.
That probably meant Gabriel was still here, or maybe that I was dreaming again.
Either way, I said, “You think it’s too much, so you shoulder the burden alone. But you don’t know what she can handle. Ibet she’s stronger than you give her credit for. Maybe she won’t crash. Maybe she’ll soar.”
“I think you’re still half asleep.”
“I dunno. Maybe I am.”
He kissed my forehead, sweet and soft. And then I drifted back to sleep.
When I woke again, the bedroom was bright, and it was well into Monday morning. As I stretched, a thought came to me—this was nice. Really nice. The last thing I wanted to do was go back to my own place.
It was weird. I felt like Ishouldbe ready to go home.
Sure, Gabriel’s house was way swankier than my apartment, but that wasn’t the reason I wanted to stay. I’d had such a weirdly good time over the weekend, I guessed I just wasn’t ready to let it end yet.
And since he’d left me here to sleep in and do as I pleased, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to take advantage. I used his shower, heated up a refrigerated egg and veggie scramble which turned out to be crazy delicious, then did some proper snooping.
There was a very generic guest room that looked more like it belonged in a hotel than someone’s house. Everything everywhere was perfectly clean and perfectly tidy.
Even his underwear was so perfectly folded it didn’t seem possible. Every folded square was exactly the same size, every pair exactly the same shade of black. I didn’t know if a folding machine could manage that level of precision.
I stuck my finger in there, and pulled one ever so slightly out of place, for normal human sanity’s sake, to make sure all of this was actually real.
A super neat, perfectly orderly collection of watches sat in a line on top of the dresser. They all looked classic and vintage, and pretty cool, even though I couldn’t remember seeing himwear any of them. At the end was a pocket watch that looked the oldest, like maybe it had been passed down from his great-great-grandfather or something.
In the kitchen, every plate matched. Every glass was exactly the same, turned in exactly the same way. Every mug was a clone of the next, their handles at the exact same angle. I wiggled one a little so it went the other way.
