“Come sleep in the bed before you freeze to death,” she says, sounding annoyed.
“I’d rather not,” I tell her, as reasonably as I can.
“Grady,” she says. “For fuck’s sake.”
“I’m fine, really,” I tell her.
Instead of leaving, she stomps forward to the bed, grabs one ankle through the blanket, and tugs.
“Hey!” I shout as my leg comes halfway off the bed.
“I am not explaining to your extremely lovely parents that I’m not even your girlfriend over your blue, deceased corpse,” she hisses. “I don’t know what your deal is. You tell them we’re together. You talk me into the spending the night. We kiss twice and then you insist on sleeping in nothing but a kids’ blanket from Wal-Mart and then you tell me that I’m the jerk when you never bothered to call me after Violet and Eli’s wedding —”
“What the fuck?”
Now I’m sitting up, still cocooned, and Adeline drops my foot.
“You never called!” she says, waving her arms in a truly ridiculous nightgown. “I thought we had a pretty good time and I gave you my number and then —”
“You gave me the number for the county dump!” I shout, then press my lips together. Too loud.
Adeline stares at me, baffled.
“What?” she finally says.
“I called Burnley County Sanitation services at least ten times,” I say, lowering my voice. “I thought maybe you worked there or something, but whoever answered the phone had never heard of an Adeline, so I finally just took the hint and gave up. Good joke, rejecting me by giving me that number.”
“I didn’t give you the landfill’s number.”
“Well, that’s who answered when I called it.”
“I don’t even know the landfill’s number.”
I finally stand, drop the blanket, and pace to where my phone is sitting on a small table.
“Do you want me to call it right now?” I ask. “I’m real familiar with the voicemail greeting.”
She reaches out and grabs my phone from my hand, frowning. She taps it a couple times.
“That’s not my number,” she says.
“No shit.”
“It’s a nine, not a five,” she says, still tapping.
After a moment, she hits a button, then looks at me.
There’s a second of silence.
Then, in the next room, her phone chirps.
“You wrote it down wrong,” she says, handing my phone back to me.
This feels very, very dumb.
“You told me wrong,” I say.
“It’s my phone number, I think I know it.”
“Why would I write it down wrong? I clearly wanted it.”
This was all a stupid mistake. I’ve been mad at Adeline for the last four months because of a stupid mistake and a coincidence. If she’d given me any other number, I’d have gotten the right one from someone else, but I thought the whole dump thing sent a pretty clear message.
“Now will you agree not to freeze to death?” she asks, her voice softer. “Please?”
“Yeah,” I finally say, and we walk into the nice, warm bedroom.
I can’t sleep. I’m tired, but every time I try closing my eyes it feels too weird, so I just open them and stare at the ceiling some more.
Honestly, I feel like a dipshit. I don’t know if Adeline told me the wrong number because she was drunk or if I misheard and entered the wrong one into my phone, but I can’t believe I’ve been upset since August for something this dumb.
It had to be the number for the county dump. Any other number and I probably would’ve double-checked it with Eli or Violet, but this seemed pretty clear, so I didn’t.
Next to me, Adeline sighs and rolls over, and there’s the other reason I can’t sleep. Every time I think that maybe, possibly, I’ll drift off in the next hour or so, she moves and I’m reminded that I’m sharing a bed with someone who looks way too good in a floor-length flannel nightgown.
And who made out with me very enthusiastically on my parents’ couch not too long ago. Who made a casual throw-pillow-over-the-crotch embarrassingly necessary.
I take a deep breath and roll onto my stomach, head turned toward Adeline. I wonder if I should just give up on trying to sleep and head back into my parents’ house to do a puzzle or some other classic insomnia activity.
Then Adeline rolls over again, onto her back, staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide open, and I watch her face for a long, sleepless moment. I wonder if I should shut my eyes, let her think that I’m asleep and not just watching her try to sleep, but then she turns her head toward me and it’s too late.
Busted.
“Oh, I thought you were asleep,” she says.
“I thought you were asleep,” I say.
Adeline rolls over onto her side, and suddenly I realize that queen beds actually aren’t all that big.
“I’m bad at sleeping in new places,” she finally says.
“Same.”
“I thought you slept in here all the time as a kid,” Adeline points out, and I smile, face half in the pillow.
“I’m bad at sleeping with new people, then,” I say, and that gets an eyebrow raise.
I turn my head and groan into the pillow.
Chapter Nine
ADELINE
“I want a restart on today,” Grady says, his voice muffled. “What a shitshow.”
I start laughing.
“At least you’re wearing regular clothes,” I tell him, and he turns his head back. “I look like a wagon train stepped through a portal into someone’s acid trip.”
Grady takes my forearm and pulls it from under the covers, examining it while he tries not to laugh.
“Can I be honest?” he finally says.
“Sure,” I tell him. “Go for it.”
“You still look good.”
I’m pretty sure he’s lying. No one looks good in boob ruffles.
“Thank you,” I say, politely.
“You don’t believe me.”
“Well, I have eyes,” I point out.
“So do I, and you know what I think?”
“That I’m going to tell you to circle the wagons at any moment?”
“You’re still hot in that nightie.”
And now: blushing, not to mention feeling like I was fishing for compliments, which I wasn’t.
“Thanks,” I say, more serious this time. “I like your reindeer pants.”
“Thanks, I save them for special occasions.”
“You mean… Christmas?”
“And laundry day, sometimes.”
“That’s the most special occasion of all,” I say, and Grady grins.
Then he just looks at me for a long moment, eyes moving over my face.
“I had fun at the wedding,” he finally says.
“I did too,” I agree. “That’s why I tried to give you my number.”
“Well, I tried to take it,” he says.
“I had fun on your parents’ couch,” I say.
Under the blankets, Grady’s hand slides over my waist.