My friend let out a grunt as he stumbled away, and I smiled at Rhodes who was back to standing. He was in his uniform, his belt off, and he had the gentlest expression on his face.
“Hi,” I grumbled, dropping my arms. “What time is it?”
Rhodes looked tired but okay, I thought, yawning again. “Three in the morning. Fell asleep watching TV?”
I nodded, muttering, “Mm-hmm,” and closing one eye as I did it. Oh man, all I needed was a blanket and I’d pass right back out. “Everything okay?”
“Some hunters got lost. I didn’t get service out to call and warn you two,” he explained quietly. “Come on then. You’re not sleeping down here.”
Oh. I nodded again, too sleepy to be hurt he’d changed his mind. “Will you watch me walk back to the garage apartment then? Make sure the coyotes don’t get me?”
Rhodes suddenly frowned. “No.”
“But you said—”
He was fast, coming over, his hands going to my elbows and guiding me up to standing. Then his hand slipped into mine, like he’d done it before a million times, his palm cool and rough and big, and he started pulling me to follow him.
Where were we going?
“Rhodes?”
He glanced at me over his shoulder; his facial hair was thick over his jaw and cheeks. I wondered, not for the first time, if it was soft or kind of bristly. I’d bet it tickled.
And just like that, I realized he was leading me toward the stairs. The stairs up. To his room. Someone had hinted once where it was at.
“I can sleep down here,” I whispered, not alarmed but… something.
“You want to sleep down here with the bat?”
I stopped walking.
His laugh was so soft I didn’t know whether that surprised me more than the fact he was getting me to go upstairs… with him? “Didn’t think so. My bed’s big enough for both of us.” He let out a soft breath. “Or I can take the floor.”
My feet moved, but the rest of me didn’t.
Did he just say his bed was big enough for both of us?
And there was a bat in here?
Or that he could take the floor in his room?
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, pal,” I whispered. “I don’t even know your middle name.”
His hand tensed in mine, and he glanced over his shoulder. “John.”
He wasn’t trying to… get me to go up there to have sex with him, was he? I didn’t think so—as in really didn’t think so but… “Not that I wouldn’t mind having sex with you eventually—”
Rhodes made this terrible choking sound in his throat.
“—but I barely learned your middle name, and I don’t know what you wanted to be when you were growing up, and this is going really fast if you want to do more than just sleep in the same bed together,” I rambled out in a rush, so I had no clue what the hell I was even saying.
Apparently, he barely understood it too because he made another choking sound—not as aggressive—and just looked at me for a long second. “Sometimes I think I know exactly what you’re going to say… and then the exact opposite comes out of your mouth,” he whispered back.
Was he laughing?
“No sex, Buddy, just sleep. I’m too tired, and I do know your middle name, but I’m not real big on rushing things, Valeria,” he finally got out. Definitely laughing and trying not to. “But I wanted to be a biologist. It took me a long time, but I got my degree in it. I’m using it better now than I’d dreamed of back then.” He took a deep breath. “What did you want to be?”
“A doctor, but I couldn’t even get through dissecting a frog in high school without throwing up.”
His chuckle sounded rusty.
And I liked it.
“Okay,” I agreed, “just sleep.”
He shook his head and, after a minute, started the journey again. My feet hit the stairs one after another, and even though I was mostly thinking about what it would be like to have sex with him, I still glanced up at the ceiling to make sure there was no bat there. There wasn’t.
Not yet at least.
Were we really going to sleep in the same bed? Or was I going to tell him I could sleep on the floor? Or was he going to sleep on the floor?
I was way too exhausted to think this over so closely. It didn’t help that I had no idea what went on in the dating game anymore. My friends weren’t good examples of real-life dating because their lives were so complicated.
But my thoughts just circled back around to one thing: sex with Rhodes.