by Teresa Roman
I clasped my hands behind his neck.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to fall back asleep,” I said as he carried me down the hallway toward his bedroom.
“I want you to try. Can you do that?” he asked. “I’ll stay with you until you do and then I’ll go sleep on the couch.”
“No. It’s your house. I should be the one to sleep on the couch.”
“No more arguing with me, Lilli. You need to get some sleep, and you’ll do that in my bed where you can get comfortable, not on my lumpy couch.”
When we got to his room, he laid me down on his bed and pulled the covers over me. “Close your eyes,” he whispered as he sat down beside me on the edge of the bed.
I turned on my side and tried to fall back asleep. It hadn’t been my intention to spend the night or to reveal all my secrets to Devin, but it was too late to take anything back. My churning mind kept me awake. Between thinking about the latest dream, my mother, and my dad, I couldn’t shut down.
After a few minutes, I felt Devin get up. I turned to see where he was going.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he said.
“Can you stay with me?”
“Of course.” Devin took a seat in the armchair that was wedged in the corner of his room.
“No, not there.” I patted the spot on the bed where he’d just been sitting. “Here.”
He got up and asked, “Are you sure?”
I nodded and Devin came to sit beside me again. He folded his hands in his lap.
“You can’t sleep sitting up.” I lifted the covers. Devin hesitated for a moment before sliding in bed beside me. He lifted his arm and I nestled my head on his chest. I felt like I was melting into him, the warmth of his strong chest made me quiver inside. Eventually, my racing heart slowed, and I was finally able to fall asleep.
Chapter 6
I woke up alone and feeling out of sorts. Gradually, everything came back to me. I couldn’t believe that I’d actually confessed all my secrets to Devin. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I’d made him sleep beside me. What had I been thinking? I wanted to throw a pillow over my head and pretend last night never happened, but sunlight burst through the window in Devin’s room and beckoned me out of bed. About to peel back the covers, I heard a knock on the door. I probably looked terrible, still wearing the same clothes from the day before: khaki pants and a white polo with the name Tides Inn embroidered in gold thread over the left side of my chest. Even if I wanted to take a shower, I had no change of clothes.
“Come in,” I called out.
“Did you sleep all right?” Devin asked as he stepped through the doorway. The smell of pancakes filled the room, making my stomach rumble.
“I did.” I threw the covers back and planted my feet on the floor. “Thanks for letting me sleep in your bed.”
“Are you feeling better this morning?”
I nodded and tried to hide my embarrassment by looking around the room for my bag. Then I remembered I’d left it in the living room. “But I really should get back home and take a shower.”
“You need breakfast first. I made your favorite.”
“Blueberry pancakes?” I didn’t have to ask, the heavenly aroma of them filled the air.
Devin nodded. Blueberry pancakes were also my dad’s favorite. He’d taught Devin how to make them. Cooking was one of the things the two of them bonded over. I remembered watching them in the kitchen together. My dad, the self-proclaimed expert, and Devin, playing the part of the dutiful student. The memory sent a sharp pain through my chest. What I wouldn’t give to get those days back.
Distracted and suddenly close to tears, I smoothed my hair. I needed a comb and a toothbrush at the very least before I could feel presentable, but Devin’s pleading look was hard to resist, and I never could say no to blueberry pancakes. I wiped my eyes and managed a shaky smile.
“You look beautiful. You always do,” Devin said as if he knew what I was worried about.
I blushed. If he thought I was beautiful, what was holding him back? Was I not his type? Girls flirted with him all the time at work, but he showed no interest in them, at least not while I was around. I asked him once if he had a girlfriend waiting for him somewhere. Before telling me no, he laughed and made a self-deprecating remark about not exactly being the type of man anyone waited around for. The fact that he seemed to have no idea how incredibly gorgeous he was somehow made him even more attractive.
After practically inhaling breakfast, I drove back home. Maybe it was the blueberry pancakes, but for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about my dad.
He’d worked as an editor and spent long hours locked up in his office, going over manuscripts. It was the first place I always checked when I came home from school or work. I hadn’t been able to step foot in his office since he died.
Editing was the perfect job for my dad because he was a loner. I couldn’t picture him in a suit doing the nine to five thing at a big company. A fitness fanatic, when he wasn’t working, he was usually running several miles almost every day along his favorite jogging trails. With the exception of his famous blueberry pancakes, he avoided sugar like the plague. He worked hard to keep himself healthy, which made his death from a heart attack the ultimate irony.
With only an hour left before my shift started, I only had time for a quick shower before changing into fresh clothing. It was a slow day at work. Rob sent Devin to do a few odd jobs around the hotel, which left me alone at the front desk. I didn’t see much of him until he came to relieve me for my lunch break.
Thankfully, he stayed at the front desk with me after I returned. I hated manning the front desk alone. Without him keeping me company, the minutes seemed to tick by slowly. I kept waiting for him to bring up our middle of the night conversation, but he didn’t. Instead, we passed the time in between check-ins and check-outs talking about other things. Then, the hotel’s computers crashed. Rob told us to take down people’s information so we could send them a receipt in the mail after everything was up and running again.
After Rob disappeared back into his office, the lobby door swung open and a man walked in. He stood in front of the desk and handed me the key card to his room. I explained the situation to him, and he didn’t react well.
Furrowing his brows he said, “You’re kidding me, right?”
“No, sir,” I replied, trying not to feel intimidated by the anger in his voice. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
“You’re sorry?” he snapped. “Well, sorry isn’t going to work for me. Let me speak to your manager.”
I stood there for a second, not sure whether I should try and calm him down somehow or just go and get Rob.
“Are you deaf or something?” He raised his voice. “I said I wanted to speak to your manager.”
I turned to head for Rob’s office. Devin grabbed my arm and spun me back around. He glared at the man who had just spoken to me. “Apologize to her now.”
I don’t know who was more shocked; the guest who looked up from his phone after Devin made his demand, or me.
“I’m not apologizing to anyone.”
“Devin,” I whispered. Confrontation was something I avoided at all costs.
“Look at me,” Devin ordered the man. He spoke slowly and quietly, but there was no mistaking the anger in his voice. “You will apologize for being impolite, and then you’ll leave.”
For a moment the man looked stunned, almost hypnotized. I thought for sure he’d demand to speak to Rob again and both Devin and I would get fired. Instead, he turned to me and said, “I’m sorry for being impolite.” He even sounded contrite. “I need to leave.”
I watched him walk away, still not sure exactly what had just happened and spooked by the way he repeated Devin’s words.
When the door closed behind him, I looked at Devin. “What did you just do?”
“Nothing,” he muttered.
“No, it wasn’t nothing,” I said. “How’d you get him to do that?”<
br />
“He had no business speaking to you like that, so I asked him politely to apologize and he complied.”
“Uh, uh. No way.” I had no idea how Devin made that man to apologize, but there was more to it than he let on. Somehow, I just knew it.
“What are you suggesting? That I have some sort of magical power and can make people do whatever I will them to? You told me yourself last night that you don’t believe in magic.”
I did say that. Because it was true. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Devin was keeping something from me. And this wasn’t the first time, either.
After a pause, I said, “You know what I find curious? Why is it that you know so much about me, yet I hardly know about your life at all?”
“What is it you want to know?” he asked.
I wasn’t sure how to respond. I didn’t have any specific questions, but I felt a growing sense that Devin had secrets.
“Why Crescent City? Of all the places you could’ve moved to, why here?”
“I like the ocean, and the trees.”
“And that’s it? You’re not some escaped gang-banger from Pelican Bay?”
He looked at me quizzically. “I don’t know what either of those things are, so I’m pretty sure the answer is no.”
I’d only been joking, but his response threw me. “How do you not know what Pelican Bay is? It’s only the most notorious prison in the country and where, like, half of the people in Crescent City work.”
“I knew that,” Devin said, smiling. “I was just teasing.”
He wasn’t. I didn’t need to be a mind reader to figure that out, but decided not to press the issue.
At just after five I signed out. Devin was busy checking someone in, so, instead of saying goodbye, I scribbled him a note. Halfway through the parking lot, he caught up with me.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“I can’t convince you to come back to my house?”
As tempted as I was by the offer, I turned him down. I wasn’t looking forward to going home to an empty house, but I couldn’t put it off forever. The longer I did, the harder it would be.
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that . . . I really should go home.”
“I’m going to worry about you, “Devin said. “I don’t like the idea of you being on your own.”
The concerned look on his face made me regret what I’d told him the night before. He was already protective when it came to me. What had I been thinking? Giving him one more thing to worry about had been a bad idea, but I couldn’t take it back now.
“Yeah, well. One way or another, I’m going to have to get used to it.”
“Why? Why do you have to get used to it when you can stay with me?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
Devin reached for my hand. “Then make me understand.”
“I can’t.”
He didn’t get it and he never would. He’d never understand what it felt like to want someone in a different way than they wanted you. Normally, I managed to deal with it, but after I’d opened myself up to him, after I lay in his arms all night, it was harder than it had ever been before. With every day that passed, and every caring thing Devin did for me, it became more difficult to settle for just his friendship.
I pulled my hand away and turned to look for my car. I felt his eyes on me as I walked away, with each step half-hoping he’d try and stop me.
He didn’t.
Chapter 7
An eerie silence greeted me as I stepped inside the house Dad and I had shared. I regretted turning down Devin’s invitation. Usually, when I got home, I called out a greeting to my father. Now, I caught myself before doing it, and a sinking feeling came over me. Grief felt like a bottomless pit. I would always feel Dad’s absence. There were reminders of him everywhere. The distractions of the day—work, Devin—stopped the bleeding in my heart. Now, in the quiet solitude of home, the wound opened again.
I hated crying. Once I started, I felt like I couldn’t stop. I bit my bottom lip and blinked back tears as I ran up the stairs to my bedroom.
Checking email and surfing the web helped occupy my thoughts most of the evening, but eventually my mind drifted. Thoughts of Devin crept in to my head between memories of Dad. At midnight I was still awake and tempted to take another sleeping pill, but fear of turning into a pill freak stopped me. Finally I drifted off to sleep on the couch with the TV on in the middle of another Law and Order rerun.
The next morning, I awoke to the sound of my doorbell ringing.
Still in pajamas, I pulled the door open to find my friend, Emma, standing on the threshold. I hadn’t spoken to her since Dad’s funeral.
“Emma, hi!” I said.
“Were you expecting someone else?” she joked as she stepped inside.
“No, but I wasn’t expecting you, either. What are you doing here?” As the question left my mouth I realized it had been almost a month since we’d hung out. I felt bad that I’d let that happen.
She placed the two coffee cups she’d brought with her on the side table and flopped onto the couch.
“I have news, big news, and since you never answer your phone anymore, I decided to just show up.” Her eyes scanned over my attire. “You were still in bed? Crap. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” I took a seat next to her and reached for the coffee cup without the lipstick smear on it. “What’s your big news?”
“Well, you already know Tim and I are going to UCLA, right?”
I nodded. How could I forget? It was all she talked about since she and her boyfriend had gotten accepted. UCLA was her one-way ticket out of dead-end Crescent City, and the fact that she was going with the love of her life made her doubly happy.
“Get this . . .” Emma practically bubbled over with excitement. “My mom said Tim and I can get a place together. Can you believe it? She’s actually letting us move in with each other.”
“Whoa!” Tim and Emma were tight; they had been for almost all of high school, but her news still came as a surprise. “Are you serious?”
“You don’t think we should, do you? You think we’re too young.”
“I didn’t say that. I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
“I know we’re only eighteen, but I love Tim and he loves me, and I just know that there’s no one else out there for me but him.” It sounded like she was trying to convince me. I didn’t need convincing, though. Emma and Tim were the two most right for each other people I’d ever met. They were both quirky in their own unique way. The only things Tim loved more than Emma were gadgets—computers, video games, smartphones, you name it. Emma didn’t mind his obsession. She saw him as a genius, which he was. And anyone who knew Tim could tell he thought he was the luckiest guy on the planet to have a girlfriend as smart and cute as Emma, a girl who actually found his nerdiness appealing.
“I’m so happy for you.” I hugged her. “So when are you guys leaving for LA?”
“Oh yeah, you just reminded me, that’s the other thing I wanted to tell you. Classes don’t start until September, but Tim and I are leaving in a few weeks so we can look around for an apartment and get to know the city first.”
“A few weeks?” Emma and I hadn’t seen much of each other since graduation, but the idea that she and Tim would be gone so soon bothered me. I didn’t like that I was losing two more people that I cared about.
“Tim’s dad is throwing us a goodbye party next Friday. Can you come?”
“Next Friday? Yeah, I can come. I’m off Friday, and the day after, too.”
“You can bring Devin if you want,” she said. “How is he anyway?”
I was still processing Emma’s news and almost didn’t hear her question. “He’s fine.”
“And what about you? I was so busy telling you about me and Tim that I didn’t think to ask . . .”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m doing
all right.” I knew what Emma was about to say. I looked around the living room. A framed picture of me and my dad stood on the side table next to the couch. Neither Katy nor I had touched any of his things since he died. “I miss Dad like crazy, but every day it’s a little easier.”
“There are so many memories here,” Emma said.
“Devin asked me to move in with him.” I had no idea what compelled me to share that bit of news. Maybe I didn’t want a walk down memory lane, or maybe it was her announcement that she and Tim were getting an apartment together, although their situation was completely different.
“Wait a minute . . . I thought you guys were just friends.”
“We are.” I shrugged. “He only asked because he’s worried about me living here alone.”
“He’s got a point. You know Crescent City is filled with meth heads. Getting a roommate isn’t a bad idea. But . . . I’m not sure about Devin, you know, because of the way you feel about him and all.”
My head snapped up. “Wait a minute. I never told you I liked Devin.”
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out, Lilli.”
My shoulders slumped. “Do you think he knows?”
“I have no idea. I’ve only talked to him a few times. But every time I did I kind of got the feeling that he liked you right back.” She took a sip of her coffee. “You know guys these days like girls who make the first move; maybe you should ask him out.”
I shook my head. “No way.”
*
I spent the rest of the day thinking about what Emma had said. There wasn’t a way in the world I was going to ask Devin on a date, but I wondered if she was right about him liking me back. Maybe he thought I didn’t share his feelings, or that it was too soon after my dad died to bring it up. Whatever the reason, Devin held himself back, and I had no idea what to do about it.
When he called later in the day to say hi, I thought about what Emma had said. Even though I’d sworn that there was no way I was going to ask him out on a date, inviting him to a party was totally within the realm of friendship.
