“Pretty close, though.”
“I was just trying to bring girlfriend-like sleepwear.”
“I’ve never seen a girlfriend in anything even close.”
“Your girlfriends probably only sleep in thongs.”
“At the maximum.” Jack gave an exaggerated sigh and gazed up at the ceiling as if remembering it fondly.
I checked my reflection again. “This seemed,” I said, in my own defense, “like the most professional of all my sleepwear options.”
“But—I mean, is it yours?”
“Of course it’s mine. You think I stole it?”
“Yeah. From a ninety-year-old grandma.”
Now I was annoyed. He’d called me a lot of insulting things today, from “plain,” to “an idiot,” to “the epitome of ordinary.” Now he was saying “grandma”？ To my face?
Somehow, this was the best retort I could manage: “You’re not in a position to throw shade, Mister Clothes-All-Over-The-Floor.”
It was supposed to be a burn, but Jack just started laughing.
Like really laughing—his shoulders shaking and everything. “That’s a terrible burn,” he said. “I think that’s the worst burn I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s not funny,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said, tumping over and pressing his face against the bedspread. “But it absolutely is funny.”
“Hey!” I said. “Nobody wants to see your underwear.”
“Actually,” he said, sitting back up and sobering his face. “People pay very good money to see my underwear.”
“Not your dirty underwear. On the bathroom floor!”
But he just gave a little trust me on this nod. “You’d be surprised.”
“Well,” I said, feeling like I needed to make this point. “I am not one of those people.”
“I know. It’s a thing I like about you.”
Was he trying to weasel out of picking up his mess by flattering me? I tried again. “Let me ask you this. Am I your maid?”
The more he tried to keep a straight face, the more his face seemed to fight with him. “We established that on day one.”
“Then let’s just agree that I won’t make you interact with my dirty underwear, and you won’t make me interact with yours. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said, trying to make his face serious. “Agreed.”
But now he had the giggles.
Jack Stapleton had the giggles.
He fell back down on the bed.
“Go,” I said, walking over to him and shoving at his shoulder to push him off the bed. “Go pick up your dirty clothes.”
He resisted for a second, so I pushed harder, and then, on purpose, he gave way fast and I fell onto the floor—landing on my sleeping nest.
Fine with me. It was time for bed, anyway.
“And don’t leave your toothpaste cap off, either,” I said. “What are you, five years old?”
“It’s my bathroom,” he said.
“It’s our bathroom now.”
* * *
BY THE TIME Jack came out, I’d already turned off all the lights, and he tripped over me making his way back to his bed.
“Watch it!”
“Sorry.”
He climbed under his covers and hung his head over the side to talk to me like we were having a sleepover.
“You really can sleep in the bed, you know.”
“No, thank you.”
“It’s bothering me that you’re on the ceramic tile.”
“Get over it.”
“We could build, like, a wall of pillows down the middle as a barrier.”
“I’m good.”
“What if my mom walks in and sees you sleeping on the floor?”
I hadn’t seen his mom since we’d been here. “Does your mom just walk into the bedroom of her adult son without knocking?”
“Probably not. Good point.”
“And even if she did, we could just say we were fighting. Which is true.”
“We’re not fighting,” Jack said. “We’re playing.”
“Is that what this is?”
The moon came out from behind the clouds and the room lightened a bit. I could see Jack’s face above me. He was still looking down.
“Thank you,” he said then.
“For what?”
“For coming here and doing this, even though you didn’t want to. And for not drowning today. And for wearing that ridiculous nightgown.”