Wind Therapy - A.J. Downey Page 0,13
off its surface. Hard? Yes. Not the most comfortable? Also true, but it would allow me to keep her close tonight as it was easily big enough for the two of us. I went back by the front door and grabbed my bedroll. It was just a couple sleeping bags rolled together, good enough to lay down for a base and throw the other over the top of us.
Deacon got up and helped me, anyway, in making up the table into a makeshift bed. Fen threw some couch pillows our way for our heads. I was unsure at first, touching her shoulder lightly not wanting to just go for it and scare the shit out of her. She jolted away, and I took the weight of her pack with my hands.
“Come on, beautiful. Your bed awaits.”
She yawned, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth to cover it as she stretched, and she was like a sleepy kitten. I smiled and she let me have the bag. I passed it to Deac without looking and he pulled a chair from one of the regular tables over and set it in it next to the pool table so it would be at hand for her.
“Up you go,” I said, turning her back to the pool table.
“I thought you were joking,” she said, voice thick with sleep.
“When I joke, you’ll know it,” I promised her. She hoisted herself up onto the table and feet dangling, finally shrugged out of my coat. I laid it over the arm of the chair beside her bag and she went to settle.
“Keep moving over,” I said and gestured. She scooted to the other side of the table and I hoisted my own tired ass up onto it and laid down, raising an arm so she could tuck herself into my side. She hesitated, but finally did, turning onto her side, resting her head cautiously on my chest.
Deacon flipped the top sleeping bag over us, and I propped my head on the couch pillow, my other arm up under the back of my head.
I watched the rest of the fight and let her sleep. It was going to be a long ride tomorrow, and she was far more tired than I’d thought earlier on.
I woke when she shifted against me, pushing herself up onto her hip sometime the next morning. The rest of the guys were racked out in one spot or another around us.
“You alright?” I asked, voice rough with sleep.
“Yeah, just have to pee,” she said frankly.
I smiled and said, “Bathroom is through those doors there,” and pointed at the doors past the bar to the left of the entertainment center where Squatch, Fen, and Deac were passed the fuck out on the sectional. Cipher was nowhere to be seen, but I didn’t worry about that.
“Who dat?” his voice came from under the pool table Marisol and I were on when her booted feet hit the concrete floor. I closed my eyes and tried to suppress my laugh, but it was hard.
The Eastern Washington boys had apparently fucked off back to their respective homes at some point last night, which I couldn’t say I blamed them. I would damn sure take a real bed over this bullshit if I had the option. A penny saved was a penny earned, though. Why spring for a motel in what was essentially hostile territory and invite suspicion and trouble?
Fucking Rebel, I thought dispassionately. He just had to make shit difficult for nothing other than his own fuckin’ greed.
Marisol disappeared into one of the small bathrooms that had only a toilet and sink, shutting and locking the door behind her.
“Are you seriously under the table?” I asked Cipher.
“Yeah, you drank me here, don’t you remember?” he asked and without realizing it, I walked right into it.
“No.”
“That’s because you drank me here.”
I rolled my eyes, Fen cracking up from over on the couch, sitting up and shaking his head.
“Cipher, you’re a fucking nut,” Deacon declared, from where I couldn’t see him, still lying down in the bend of the ‘U’ shape the sectional made.
“Fuck,” I muttered and laid back, pressing the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. My eyes felt gritty and tired from a combination of allergies and shitty and insufficient sleep. I wanted to go the fuck home, take a hot shower, fuck the shit out of the hot woman that’d be sharing my home for the next month and finally, sleep for like the