Page 25 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

August doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “Heavy. I know what you mean.”

Notthat’s so interestingorhave you tried meditationormaybe drink some milk or chamomile tea before bed.

Just: I know what you mean. Like it’s a perfectly ordinary thing to understand about silence, that it can feel like something pressing down on you.

I look up at him, and just catch sight of his throat, because he’s looking up at the ceiling.

“I should probably head back…?” He says it like there’s a question mark at the end.

Like he’s opening a door and then standing back so I can decide whether he should walk through it or not.

I think about the cabin after he goes. The dark and the silence and the phone face-down on the nightstand and the fact that tomorrow I have to begin the actual logistical project of having to adult really hard?—

“Stay,” I say impulsively.

Just that. He can say no. I’ve survived enough today that I can survive him saying no.

Jake’s always saying howtoo muchI can be. I’m pretty sure trauma dumping on a stranger both before and after fucking him counts as too much, even if we did have spectacular sex.

August and I both understood this was just a one-night stand between strangers, and while there’s no script for this, I figure convention says he gets to get up and go after the sex part?—

But he doesn’t say no to my request to stay.

He doesn’t say anything. He shifts slightly, resettling against the pillow, and pulling the covers over us.

We’re not actively wet anymore, so I don’t complain. And then his arm adjusts around my shoulder, cuddling me to his big, warm chest.

And then he’s… juststill. Like staying wasn’t a complicated decision. Or even barely a decision at all.

“I’ll be gone before seven,” he says with a yawn. “I’ve got an early thing.”

“Okay,” I whisper.

“You’ll be okay in the morning.”

It’s not a question exactly, or even a reassurance. More like something in between—like he’s stating a thing he believes to be true and is offering it to me to hold onto if I want it.

I pull the blanket up.

“Yeah,” I say.

I fall asleep faster than I have in months. Maybe years.

EIGHT

AUGUST

I wake up at five-forty-three.

I know without looking. My body decided on this time at some point in the last two years and has not wavered since. Dr. Delaney calls it a positive adaptation. I call it the universe’s way of ensuring I never screw up anything too important to sleep through.

The cabin is dark with the gray-blue dark before dawn. When the morning light is thinking about it but hasn’t committed yet.

Marie is asleep on my chest.

Fuck, it feels good to have a woman’s warm body nuzzled against me again.

I was never one of those guys always hankering for greener grass. I loved being in a committed relationship.