I’m not sleeping.

I’m laying here in her enormous bed, on soft, perfumed sheets, committing it all to memory. The feel of her curled against me. Her warm breath on my chest. Her hand, soft and relaxed, splayed across my stomach. Her leg hooked around mine, cold toes burrowed under my knee. The curve of her hip under my hand.

The time Henley let me stay.

I’m not delusional enough to think this changes anything. I know she’s still leaving. I know she won’t choose me. She’d have to be crazier than me to do that. What do I have to offer her? Eight-hundred square feet above a garage? A bookshelf full of books? Shopping at Walmart? Worrying about me. Am I eating enough? Sleeping enough? Am I fucking around on her? Even a fake marriage to her gay best friend sounds like a better option to me and I hate that son of a bitch.

After she asked me to come up, I turned off my car and climbed out. By the time I circled the front of the car, she was standing on the sidewalk, waiting for me. I give my keys to the valet and she reaches for my hand. Threading her fingers through mine, she leads me through the door, held open by another attendant. Across the lobby, the desk jockey gives her a strange look when he catches sight of her short skirt topped with my beat-up jacket.

“Good evening, Gerald,” she says to him, offering him a polite smile as she passes by, pulling me along behind her.

“… Good evening, Ms. O’Connell.” His gaze shoots toward the registry he made me sign the last time I was here like he wants to insist that I sign it again. Instead he sinks back into his seat.

We ride the elevator quietly to the fourteenth floor and I wait while she digs through her purse for her keys, suddenly nervous about what happens after she gets the door open and we’re alone again.

“Henley—”

“Pancakes?” She says, slipping her key into the lock and opening the door.

“Excuse me?”

She ushers me inside and shuts the door behind us both. “Pancakes.” She left a lamp burning in the living room and it casts soft light around the room, revealing evidence of what she told me earlier. A bottle of wine, open on the coffee table. One glass. A beer bottle. Two piles of discarded candy wrappers, one roughly twice the size of the other. “Can I make you pancakes?” she says while peeling herself out of my jacket.

I know what I’m supposed to say. This is where I make a sexually inappropriate comment to make light of what happened the last time she made me pancakes. That’s what she expected, but I can’t. Not tonight.

“It’s one o’clock in the morning.”

“So?” she reaches down and pulls off her heels, tossing them into the living room.

“So, it’s late and you have work in the morning.”

She shrugs. “So do you.”

I scrub a hand over my face. “Look, you don’t have to—”

She stacks her hands on her hips and glares at me. “Do you want pancakes or not, Gilroy?”

Right now, what I want is to bend her over the kitchen counter, jerk that ridiculous excuse for a skirt up, over your hips and fuck her until she can’t walk. But that’s not going to happen because I can’t let it. Things are messed up enough as it is. “That sounds great.”

“Okay.” Like she can read my mind, she blushes. “Pancakes it is.”

She made me pancakes. I ate a dozen of them, drowned in about a gallon of melted butter and maple syrup, while she picked at one on her plate. As soon as I was finished, she reached for my plate. “My job, remember?” I told her, giving her hand a gentle nudge. “I’ve got this.” I stand, gathering our dishes. “You look like you’re about to fall over. Go get ready for bed.” When all she does is stare up at me with her huge brown eyes, I reach for her and pull her out of her seat and turn her in the direction of what I’m pretty sure is the master suite. “I won’t leave without saying goodbye.”

As soon as she disappears, I get to work, putting things away. Washing dishes. Wiping down counters. Finally, with nothing else to do, I find my jacket and pull it on. The apartment is quiet. She’s probably already asleep. If I just left, she’ll never know.

Instead of leaving, I cross the living room, grimacing at the thought of my dirty boots marking up her polished, hardwood floors and hand-woven rugs.

The door to her room is cracked and I push it open, expecting to find her sleeping. Instead, I find her sitting on the edge of her bed, waiting for me. Face scrubbed clean of make-up. Long, auburn hair caught back in a loose braid. Silk nightie—pale pink edged in delicate cream-colored lace. Every inch of skin I can see covered in freckles.

Jesus.

“I’m gonna take off.” I clear my throat because it’s suddenly cracked and dry, jerking my thumb over my shoulder. “I’ll just—”

“I didn’t ask you up here for pancakes, Conner.” She looks up at me. “I want you to stay.”

I look down at my boots because I can’t look at her and say what I have to say next. Not if I want to mean it. “I’m not going to fuck you, Henley.” When she doesn’t answer me, I look up to find her staring at me, eyes wide and dark like I just slapped her in the face.

Shit.

“That came out wrong.” Jesus. Just shut up and leave. “I didn’t mean—”

“No. Don’t apologize. I deserved that.” Her voice cuts across mine. “I…” she shakes her head. “I don’t want—I mean I do want… but that’s not why I’m asking you to stay.” She catches her bottom lip between her teeth and shrugs. “I’d ask you to read to me, but I really don’t have any books here.”

“I don’t need an actual book to read to you.” I’m through the door in an instant. This, I can do. This, I can give her. “I remember every book I’ve ever read.”

“Isn’t that more like reciting?” She looks up at me, a small smile curving the line of her mouth for just a moment.

“I guess if you want to get technical about it,” I say, my mouth going a little dry when she starts to scoot across the bed to lie in the center of it. Turning onto her side, she lies down and faces me. Like a complete idiot, I just stand there and stare at her like I don’t know what happens next. Like I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

“Come here, Conner.”

I nod at her, swallowing hard against the panic, rising in my throat. How long have I waited for her to say that to me? How many times have I lay awake and thought about what it would be like to be here? Too many for even me to count.

And you’re gonna puss out now? Stop being a bitch, take off your goddamned boots and get in bed.

Lowering myself to the edge of the bed, I pull off my boots and tuck them under her bed before scooting back until I’m lying next to her, gaze aimed at the ceiling. “What—” I barely get the word out, my throat is so dry. “What do you want to hear?”

I feel her shift closer to me a moment before her fingers weave themselves between mine. “You know,” she whispers, her cheek coming to rest on my shoulder.

Gatsby.

Opening my arms, I pull her closer. Wait for her to settle against me before I start from the beginning, reciting from memory.

“In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice…”