“Orgasms give you endorphins; that’s what I told the conductor.” She shoved her comforter down to her waist. “I love to dance, don’t you?” She sat up, her eyes open but her face blank. “The moose is waiting for you.”
He knew she was just talking in her sleep, but Ian still looked over his shoulder at the huge kitchen window. Just a few months ago, there’d been a story in the Harbor City Post about a seven-hundred-pound moose (a small one, the article had noted) that had busted into a cabin to get out of a snowstorm. It had taken a massive tranquilizer to knock it out so it could be treated for injuries from going through the glass and relocated back out in the wild. Luckily there wasn’t a moose out on the porch that he could see, but still it was one more thing that his brain would be directing as he tried to get it to shut up long enough for him to go to sleep.
“This is my song.” Shelby shoved more at the comforter, as if she was going to get up. “I’ve never slow danced with a moose before. Don’t step on my feet.”
Worried she’d hurt herself, Ian rushed over to the couch and gently pushed her back down, adjusting the covers so they were back up at her chin. Then, pulling a move from his mom’s playbook when he was a kid and couldn’t sleep, he ran his fingers over Shelby’s hair. Brushing over the prickly buzz of the close-cropped side to the silky smooth waves over and over slowed the spinning of his thoughts, and relaxing back into the couch cushions, he closed his eyes.
Suddenly, she jolted into a sitting position, completely awake, and scooted away from him, her eyes wide and not even a little bit sleepy. “Why are you petting me?”
He held up his hands, palms forward. “It’s not what you think.”
“You weren’t petting me while I slept?”
“You started talking about a moose on a train.” The words came out as fast as a slap shot. He did not want her freaked out that she was trapped with a hair-petting weirdo. “And then dancing and then you tried to get up and I thought you’d trip over the coffee table or something. I was trying to get you to go back to sleep, and the whole hair thing was one of the tricks my mom used to use on me.”
“Oh God, I haven’t done that in years.” She let out an embarrassed groan and slumped against the couch. “Did I wake you up?”
He shook his head. “I’m not a good sleeper, and I can’t without the white-noise app on my phone.”
“Lay down.” She grabbed one of the decorative couch pillows covered in silhouettes of deer, put it near her, and patted it. “You heard me—grab your covers and come put your head here and I’ll teach you the secret to falling asleep.”
That sounded very unlikely but he did it, spreading out lengthwise on the couch instead of on the chaise so his head was close to hers. As soon as he did, she got back into her previous position, snuggled upon her side facing him so that together they formed an L.
“Close your eyes and picture a porch swing,” she said, her voice more of a whisper than its usual volume.
“This isn’t going to work.” None of it ever did.
She flicked him in the shoulder with her fingers. “Not if you’re talking.”
“Fine.” He closed his eyes and his mouth.
“With each inhale, the swing goes back and with each exhale it goes forward,” she said, each word calm and deliberate, without sounding like a carnival hypnotist. “Keep your breaths slow and steady so it just gently swings in the breeze. Back and forth and back and forth.”
He’d tried meditation and visualizations before. None had worked, but there was something about Shelby and the higher pitch of her voice that settled him. It didn’t make any sense. It was supposed to be lower voices that soothed, but he couldn’t deny that his eyes were getting heavy the longer they lay there, their breaths syncing as he imagined a white porch swing moving back and forth.
“I like listening to you talk,” he said, the words coming out before he could second-guess.
“No one likes that,” she said, her voice soft and sleepy. “There’s a reason why I do most of my talking from a keyboard, because otherwise I’m The Squeaker.”
Her voice wasn’t that high-pitched. Jesus. “People are assholes.”
A barely there scoff in agreement. “They can be.”
In and out, he concentrated on the sound of his breathing, making sure to match her inhales and exhales, as the fire crackled in the distance. It was better than any option on his white-noise app.
“Shelby?”
She mumbled something that might have been an acknowledgment that she was still sort of awake, or it could have been a half snore—he had no fucking clue.
“Thank you.”
If she was still awake to hear it, he couldn’t tell, and he was about half a second from joining her anyway.
…
It was still way-too-damn-early-o’clock, according to her body, when Shelby woke up trying to figure out who she was, let alone where she was. It came back to her in bits and pieces as she blinked the room into focus. Ian was hunkered down in front of the fireplace, a cast-iron pan in his oven-mitt grip and the unmistakable scent of bacon in the air. Suddenly, some parts of her were more awake than others.
Sure, she could pretend it was because of the bacon—who didn’t love bacon?—but that wasn’t it. Thank God he was turned away from her, because if he could see her face right now, she had no doubts he’d know every single one of the dirty thoughts she was having about him.
Maybe you should have stuck with Mediocre Matt for longer so you wouldn’t be perving off seeing a
