AllFreeNovel Stories worth discovering

The Forbidden Center

Page 139

by A.J. Kingsley

“You wanted to turn me over.”

I stop with the pillow half where it goes. “Yeah.”

“It was not only your shoulder.”

“What else was it?”

“I have not decided whether to tell you.”

I wait. It doesn’t work.

“I have to be home in the morning.”

“What time?”

“By nine.”

“All right.”

She looks toward the clock and back at me. I wait.

“Tova will be back from Gabi’s.”

“I figured.”

“I did not tell her I was staying here.”

“You haven’t stayed yet.”

Her eyes narrow slightly and I smile before I can help it.

“That wasn’t pressure. That was grammar.”

The sheet shifts when she draws one knee up. There’s still space between us. I could close it, and I do not.

“I would like to stay tonight,” she says.

The answer comes easily enough that I make myself give it without adding anything to it.

“I’d like that too.”

Her shoulders come down a fraction. I reach for my phone, set an alarm for eight, and turn the screen so she can see it.

“Enough time?”

“Yes.”

I put it face down.

“You do not have to get up with me.”

“I’m driving you home.”

“I can take a car.”

“You can.”

She waits, so I give her the rest of it.