My Not-Yet Mate and the Thirty-Day Trial novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Spare Room

We got through day twenty-six.

He went to the mill and I went to a ranch up the valley, and we were careful with each other at dinner.

He did the dishes while I dried.

At ten o'clock I stood in the kitchen door with a pillow under my arm.

"I'm sleeping in the spare room tonight," I said.

He set the last plate in the rack and turned.

He did not look surprised, and he did not look hurt, which was worse.

"Okay."

"It's not a punishment."

"I didn't think it was."

"I want to find out what I want when you aren't the first thing I touch."

He nodded slowly, with the dish towel in his big hands.

"That's fair," he said. "Do you want me to go to the cabin?"

"No. The roof is mine and the Thirty says one roof." I tried to smile. "Stay in my bed."

"Laney."

"Please."

"All right," he said, very gently. "I'll be right down the hall."

The spare room is at the end of the hall, small and cold, with a fold-out couch and a window that looks at the barn.

I made up the couch with the clean towels I had once threatened him with.

I lay under a wool blanket and stared at the ceiling.

It was a wide quiet house, and it had never felt empty before.

The pipes ticked.

Down the hall, the iron bed creaked once under his weight, and then it was still.

I thought about Colorado.

I thought about the sound of eighty people saying Luna.

I could say Fort Collins in my head and feel my pulse pick up.

I could say Joss and feel it do the same.

Both were true.

Neither of them was a rule or a rope.

They were both mine, and they pulled in different directions, and no one could tell me which to pick.

I listened for the knock.

I was sure it would come.

He would stand at the door, big and gentle, and say something right, and I would let him in.

I would be tired of choosing, and he would choose for me by just being there.

No knock came.

The house creaked and settled.

The clock in the hall chimed midnight, and then one.

At a quarter past one I got out of the couch bed and crossed the floor in my bare feet.

I put my hand on the knob and stood there.

I knew that if I opened it, I would not be proving anything about the offer.

I would just be walking toward the thing I wanted, with my own legs.

I opened the door.

Joss sat on the floor of the hall with his back against the opposite wall.

He wore only his boxers.

His knees were drawn up, his arms wrapped around them, and his dark hair hung forward over the marks on his chest.

He lifted his head.

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