“I gotta carry you upstairs?” I heard Max ask and I struggled with it but I opened my eyes.
“Sorry?” I whispered when I semi-focused on him.
“Never seen anything like it, honey, when you’re out, you’re out,” Max said, took my hand and pulled me out of the chair.
I blinked and looked around.
The last thing I knew, dinner consumed, beers consumed, three glasses of wine consumed (all by me) to Max’s displeasure, we moved to the living room with our uninvited guests and a plate full of cookies. Max made a fire while Arlene and Cotton ate my cookies and entertained me.
I didn’t want to admit it but I thought Max put up with them and allowed them to stay because he knew that Arlene and Cotton were entertaining me. Arlene simply because she was entertaining. Cotton because he’d been a lot of places, done a lot of things, met a lot of people and he was almost as good a storyteller as he was a photographer. I hadn’t laughed that hard or that much since…
Well, since the night before, with Arlene and Mindy at The Dog.
But before that it had been years, before Charlie died or, more to the point, before he’d been so badly wounded.
Arlene and Cotton claimed the couch and I sat in the armchair. When Max was done with the fire, I was shocked when he sat in it with me, settling right down, forcing me to scrunch to the side.
I was right when I first saw the chair. It could fit two but it was cozy. Cozy, warm, snug and safe and with three (working on the fourth) glasses of wine in me, I curled up in it with Max. It was a little chair of heaven. He put his feet on the ottoman, crossed at the ankles. I bent my knees and put my feet in the chair, my thighs against his. His arm curled around my shoulders and, for comfort’s sake (I told myself), my arm curled around his belly. I rested my head on his shoulder and I listened, laughed and sipped wine while the fire burned in the grate and Max sat relaxed and close to me then, apparently, I fell asleep.
Which, even standing, I mostly was at that moment.
I finished looking around, noting Arlene and Cotton were gone, the only light was coming from the loft and my eyes hit Max.
“Asleep,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, baby,” Max said on a grin and tugged my hand, leading me up the stairs to the bedroom.
I did not argue with this. At that moment I needed Max’s bed and I didn’t care if he was in it.
In fact, if I was honest, that made the prospect even better.
I grabbed my nightgown from the suitcase, shuffled to the bathroom, changed, did my washing face, brushing teeth, moisturizing business, left my clothes in a pile on the floor and then shuffled out.
Max was in bed by the time I finished these onerous tasks.
His side of the bed was the side closest to the bathroom.
I hadn’t had enough energy to wash my face, brush my teeth and moisturize. I certainly didn’t have the energy to walk around the bed.
So I didn’t.
I walked right to Max’s side and he watched me do it. When I got close, he threw the covers back.
A wall of hard, muscled chest, cut abs and pajamas bottoms were all I saw.
The chair wasn’t heaven, the bed was.
I crawled over him and flopped to my side.
He tossed the covers over us, switched off the bedside lamp and turned into me.
Like it was the most natural thing in the world, his arms came around me, his knee went between my legs, my thigh moved to hook over his hip and my arm slid around his waist as I got closer to his warm, solid body.
“You have a good night, darlin’?” he asked quietly into the hair at the top of my head.
Seeing as I was really mostly asleep, I didn’t guard my words, I just said straight out, “Best night I’ve had since Charlie got hurt.”
His arms got tighter. I nestled closer.