the stand,” I said, and to my embarrassment my voice sounded choked, “I’d probably still be locked up in there. I don’t know if I ever thanked you for that.”
“You don’t have to thank me.” Tex lay back on the bed so we were lying side by side, perpendicular to the length of the mattress, our feet on the floor. “I was just telling the truth.”
I stood up suddenly, crossing the bedroom. The memory was too close to the surface. And Tex was too close to my body. I stepped into the bathroom, leaving the door open, and turned the sink on, running my face under the cool water, because I was way too close to tears.
I felt like I was being dragged toward the edge of a cliff, and I had to claw my way back before I did something crazy like kiss Tex on the stupid, concerned downturned corner of his mouth.
I heard Tex sit back up, and I was simultaneously grateful and regretful that I couldn’t act on my insane impulse. “I meant it,” he said. “Those guys might’ve gotten away if you hadn’t done that.”
“The store owner still died.” I swallowed hard. My own lack of judgment had helped them kill someone.
“That’s not your fault. If you hadn’t agreed to drive them, they just would’ve found someone else. You didn’t know,” Tex said fiercely. “You did more than enough. You brought them to justice. And you paid for it, too.”
I sighed and toweled the water off my face before stepping back into the bedroom.
“Come on,” Tex said. “It’s almost three in the morning. You need to sleep.”
“So do you,” I said.
Tex stretched out on the bed, and then patted the space next to him. “Yeah, I know. I’m staying here tonight.”
I froze in the center of the room. “What? You don’t need to do that.”
It was awful. Awful in how bad I wanted it. We hadn’t shared a bed since we joined Hell’s Ankhor eight years ago, and before that, when we did, it was out of necessity: crowded foster homes, and then shitty motels or campsites. Never just because.
“I know,” Tex said. “I also know you’re going to have nightmares.”
He raised his eyebrows like he was daring me to argue otherwise.
I stared at my feet. How did he know?
“I hear at night, sometimes,” Tex said, softer now, as if he could read my mind. “Tossing and turning. Sometimes it sounds like you’re hurt. Then you wake up and pace around for a while.”
“Sorry for waking you,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. I was handling the nightmares—or at least I thought I had been. Shame burned in me that Tex had heard me.
But from his expression, he didn’t look like he was annoyed, or irritated, like he was when I woke him up in a single motel bed by kicking him in my sleep. Instead he looked sad. I hated that expression on him.
Would sleeping beside him soothe that expression off his face? Or was that wishful thinking?
Either way, I couldn’t say no, even though I knew it’d only push me closer to that cliff’s edge. How was I supposed to lie down in a bed next to Tex and pretend like all I felt for him was friendly camaraderie? Especially with the way he’d looked at me earlier, when I’d gotten out of the shower—an expression dangerously close to the ones I’d dreamed about for so long.
But as soon as he offered to stay with me, I wanted it. Wanted it all the way down into the deepest part of myself. Wanted the smell of leather that always clung to him, the aftershave, the familiar steady sounds of his breath in sleep. The closeness. Because maybe—maybe all he needed was a little push, too.
And on top of that, he was right. There was no way I’d sleep comfortably without him. Not with the edge of a chill in my bones from the cold cell and the memory of that night at the convenience store knocking around in my memory.
So. Fuck it.
Fuck worrying about what happened tomorrow. I’d let myself have this. Just this, lying on a bed with Tex, wishing we were something we weren’t.
I shut off the light in the bedroom and climbed gingerly onto the bed, filling in the space he’d left for me. To my shock, Tex slung his arm over my waist, flattening his hand over my rib cage. The weight of it was solid and