Then there were the times when we were in the tent when Dad and Malcolm would take us camping in the mountains. Always, I was stuck between Lee and Ally in my sleeping bag. As I tumbled headlong into my teens, and thus more and more desperate for Lee to declare his undying love for me, this was a form of torture. I couldn’t exactly throw myself at him when Hank, Dad and Malcolm were around (Ally would have slept through it).
And then there was that brief time when Ally and I were nineteen and had gone off rock ‘n’ roll and discovered cowboys. Lee took us to Cheyenne for the rodeo and we got a motel room that just had a big king-sized bed. Out of necessity, we all slept in it together and I slept in the middle. Or at least I slept in middle until Lee moved to the floor, likely to give me room to move. I never woke Ally up with my restless sleeping. Ally could sleep through an earthquake.
So it wasn’t as if I hadn’t already slept with Lee.
But not alone, not just the two of us, not when we were full-fledged, consenting adults, not ever in his bed.
I moved forward, thinking the floor sounded quite comfy.
The heavy warm thing around my waist tightened.
“Don’t move,” Lee mumbled, his voice kinda husky.
My stomach fluttered and as Lee’s hand was splayed and pressed against it, I was pretty certain he could feel it.
Shit.
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
“I was sleeping.” His voice was still husky.
“I mean in this bed,” I clarified, what I thought was unnecessarily.
“It’s my bed.”
True enough.
Time for a different tact.
“I’m gonna sleep on the floor,” I said.
“No you’re not.”
I hesitated for a moment, confused, and then tried Plan C.
“Then I’m gonna sleep on the other side of the bed.”
“No you’re not.”
What in the hell?
I didn’t get it.
“Why?”
“Because you were sleepin’ over there and you hit me in the chest twice and kicked me in the shin three times.”
Oopsie.
I’d heard that before.
“I’m kind of an active sleeper.”
“No kidding.”
I thought about my options.
There was the floor, which apparently was not an option for me.
There was the Command Center, which I probably couldn’t breach and likely didn’t have a couch or bed considering in my imagination it was filled with supercomputers that had a direct link to the Pentagon.
My cobwebby mind chugged along for minute, registering somewhere deep down how warm and cozy I currently was.
Rosie was a little guy, at least three inches shorter than me and wiry. Rosie was also kind of asexual, never had a girlfriend, his life was coffee, pot and rock ‘n’ roll.
Lee on the other hand was not asexual. He might think of me as his little sister and could calmly sleep next to me without his nipples getting hard (or anything else getting hard for that matter) but I was pretty certain I could not do the same.
Lee had one of those big, deep-seated couches, the better to sit on and watch Monday Night Football.
Maybe both Rosie and I would fit on the couch.
“I’ll go sleep with Rosie.”
The reply was instantaneous.
“The hell you will.”
Hmm, all sleepy-husky gone from his voice.
Lee was now all business and using that “brook no argument” tone.
I was stuck.
See, I was too afraid to go against Badass Lee Nightingale and I was too tired to try to get comfortable with Rosie.
Actually, bottom line, I was just too comfortable even to contemplate moving.
So, I went back to sleep.
It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.
*
I woke up again hours later in an entirely different position. Lee was on his back and I was sprawled half-on him, half-off him.
Yikes.
I blinked at the clock on the bedside table. It was seven after six.
I might be a party girl but I’d never been able to sleep late. Even when I fell into bed at four a.m., I woke up before seven.
This caused me, over the years, to perfect the art of the mid-day Disco Nap.
Today was going to be a Disco Nap Day, I could feel it.
There was no way I was getting back to sleep and no way I was gonna remain sprawled all over Lee.
I moved to get up and the arm he had wrapped around my lower back tightened and his fingers dug into my hip.
“Jesus, what is it with you?” he grumbled.
“It’s morning.”
He opened an eye and glanced at the clock.
Then he closed it.
“Barely.”
“I’m gonna make coffee.”
This was apparently an acceptable reason to move as his arm fell away.
“Do you have an extra toothbrush?”
“Probably.”
That was a stupid question. Lee may not still be the dawg he was in high school, but that didn’t mean he didn’t nail his fair share of anatomically impossible babes. He probably had a box full of extra toothbrushes.
“Do you have two?”
The eye opened again and focused on me.
Yikes part deux.
I jumped out of bed, grabbed my clothes and ran to the bathroom. I located one extra toothbrush still in its packaging and went to town on my teeth.
I took care of my teeth, I made a promise to myself that I’d die with my original set and that’s what I intended to do.
I opened the door to the bedroom. “Do you have floss?” I called.
“For Christ’s sake.”
Obviously, Lee didn’t care that much about his teeth.