Page 75 of XOXO, Summer
Propping up on his elbow, Daniel brushes hair that’s escaped my scrunchie back from my face, and says, “You’re not going to sleep, are you?”
“Probably not. There are all these sounds outside, and I thought I heard someone slam a door shut in another apartment.”
“You didn’t. The floors have soundproofing, and the windows are the highest-grade thickness allowed in buildings that are also completely soundproof.”
My imagination got away from me. There’s nothing for my mind to focus on, so it made stuff up. Everything around me is so unfamiliar except for Daniel. But this is him in his world, not mine. “Maybe that’s the problem. It’s too quiet. There’s no breeze through the leaves or water at the shore. There’s not even a buzz from an adventurous bee who left the apiary to explore?—”
“Summer.” Falling backward, he hits the mattress and his head lands on the pillow. “Ugh.” Shifting to look at me, he asks, “What do you need to sleep?”
“I don’t know.” I half shrug, blocked by the bedding. “Fresh air and?—”
“Come on.” The covers are flipped off both of us in one swift motion, and his feet land on the floor like a man on a mission. I don’t move, a little worried that I’ve driven him to madness. Holding out his hand, he says, “Trust me.”
“Since you put it like that . . .” I take his hand and slip out of bed. He leads me into his closet and gives me a T-shirt he pulls from a hanger. I’m not sure what in the ChristianBaleAmerican Psychohe’s got going on in here, but tees should always be folded.
I slip it on over my head, and then the boxers that he handed me right after, while he pulls on a pair of sweatpants and nothing else. Okay, I’m softening to this idea he has if I get to ogle him in sweatpants that highlight all the good stuff that’s under them.
“Where are we going?”
“You either trust me or don’t.”
“You’re so bossy when you’re tired.” Realizing that shouldn’t stir a tightening in my belly, but here we are. I’m blaming the sweatpants.
Taking hold of my hand again, he has quite the clip of a pace for someone who claims they’re so tired. Sure, it’s 3 a.m., but who walks this fast? New Yorkers. I rest my own case.
“I never gave you the tour.”Oh.Okay. It’s as good a time as any,I suppose . . .I will never figure this man out. He taps the door across the hall. “This is Roman’s room.”
As we hurry past it, I say, “Guess I can actually see it in the morning. Don’t let me stop you.”
Pulling me behind him, he points at the next door. “Guest room. There’s a bathroom in each bedroom.”
“My sisters would kill for my room. Simply for the en suite bathroom. I used to lie awake at night, wondering which one was going to do me in so they could steal my bedroom after the funeral.”
I run into the back of him when he stops abruptly. Peeling myself off, I ask, “What happened?”
He turns around and stares at me like he can’t make sense of my face. I’m checking if the shape of my nose is still the same when he asks, “Are you serious?”
“About what?”
“Your sisters possibly killing you for your room because it has a bathroom?”
My laughter spills through the hallway, leaving my shoulders rattling under the pressure. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not.” Then Spring comes to mind . . . I laugh again. “Though the youngest is awfully talented with a chainsaw. Spring won the ice sculpting contest at the holiday fair two years ago. She was the youngest contestant to ever enter and to win.”
“What did she carve?”
“Our old neighbor Bill?—”
“I can’t with you, can I?” He’s off again, dragging me along with him like a bee has gotten in his bonnet.
“Well,” I say, bobbing my head side to side. “In Spring’s defense, and to be fair, that neighbor was quite the jerk. He used to drag me around by the hand a lot like you are now.”
Coming to another stop, he ruins any kind of gravity he was striving for with his chuckles, and he scrubs his free hand over his face. Standing in front of me, he huffs with a big old smile on his face before cupping mine and kissing me. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Yes.”
Lifting onto my toes, I kiss him quick like I’m getting away with a stolen piece of candy from a shop. “Thank you.”
