closer. “Fine.”
When his food was gone, Greg settled back on the couch, unconcerned about the dishes. Probably because he’d just watched the entire movie two days before, his eyes began a slow roll closed long about the time Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis started yelling at each other about how she couldn’t say how cool he was in front of everybody. Must be nice, Greg thought, to have the girl of your dreams scream at you so your only option is to kiss her like that.
A wave of exhaustion overtook him, and he let out a long sigh as his head rolled to the side. The jerk of falling asleep woke him back up, and he shook his head slightly. That was enough to draw Taylor’s attention from the love scene on the TV.
“Here,” she said, and she scooted toward the other side of the couch as she put the pillow she was holding down next to her.
Greg put out a hand even as his eyes continued to betray him. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah, right. You’re fine.” She tapped her hand on the pillow. “Here.”
Knowing this was a bad idea but seeing no way to explain that to her, Greg laid over onto the pillow which landed his head right next to her thigh. He pitched and arched to get his back next to the couch back for some stability, and he folded his arms to try to get more comfortable. The second he fell still, a wave of sleep engulfed him, and he had no strength left to fight it. Giving in, the last thing he remembered was Kelly McGillis waking up to find a rose and a tiny paper plane on the pillow next to her. And then he was out.
Taylor would never have admitted it, but she was enthralled with the movie. It wasn’t old-timey like she was expecting. Greg was right, the music was incredible, and although she wasn’t a huge fan of action, she found herself drawn in and held there by it. When Greg had first laid down next to her, she had put her arm up and away so he could have as much room as possible, but after a while, she gave up on not touching him. Her hand fell to his head, and her fingers played gently with the waves in his hair. She had done it so unconsciously that when she realized what she was doing, it startled her, and she looked down at him, ready to apologize or give him a hard time as if it was his fault.
But his eyes were closed and he was sleeping soundly. Knowing it would never matter one way or the other, she sat back and let her fingers brush slowly back and forth through the waves. She was grateful for him. For all of them really. They had been working so hard to get her off the ledge for years now. It was just that none of them had known it.
Strangely, here, in this space, it was the first time she had ever really felt totally safe. Even, she realized, from long before Chris and that whole nightmare. They were her ultimate safety zone. They always had been. Before her mind had a chance to fill in the details she had done her best not to think about for years, the action on the screen went into a higher gear. She watched, knowing but hoping it wasn’t going to be what it suddenly seemed like. “Oh, no. Oh, my gosh… No.”
Sadness cracked through her, and she shook her head at the overwhelming emotions that literally hit her out of nowhere. “Oh, man, are you serious? Oh, man. Oh, man... Ugh.” And just like that, she was crying for men on a screen she had never met and knew weren’t even real. She swiped at her eyes that were hot with tears, and she sniffed and glanced down at Greg. Figures. You’d get me into this movie and then go to sleep on me. Lotta good you are.
She was still swiping at her eyes when the front door opened, and her gaze jerked up and over to it. Quickly she swiped at the rest of the tears, sniffed, and squared herself as if she was and always had been perfectly fine.
“Oh, hey,” Nelson said, coming in. His face registered confusion at the sight they made. Then he glanced at the television. “Top Gun?” he both asked and said as he shut the door.
Taylor fought the