Before he could say anything, she jumped off the bed, grabbed a small bag, and rushed past him. Not a word was said as she went.
Sam was plugging in his phone when she came back into the bedroom, just as annoyed as when she had left. He watched her flounce through the room and plop down on the bed on top of the blankets, the same spot she had been sitting in before going to the bathroom.
“Can we just be adults about this, Sam? Sleep in the bed?” Picking up her phone, she scrolled through it and ignored him.
“I can sleep on the floor.” He looked in the closet for more blankets.
“You probably can, but you can also sleep in the bed.” She didn’t look up from her phone.
“And make you sleep on the floor?” Nothing in there, so he turned to her.
“I think the bed is big enough for two.” She finally looked up at him and tapped on the pillow beside her.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Natalie.” Sam sighed.
“I promise not to touch you if you promise not to touch me. Just sleep. I am so tired I can’t think of anything I would rather do anyway.” She tapped the pillow again.
Knowing it was a bad idea, Sam walked around the bed and pulled back the blanket, crawling in beside her. He wasn’t going to let her see that she was having any effect on him. That she turned him on. That he was having a hard time trusting himself around her.
Laying on his side, facing away from her, he wondered if she was still on her phone. But he didn’t want to roll over and find out. Staring at the wall, he felt her shifting now and then in the bed, and before long, he felt her get out of the bed. Suddenly, the room went dark around him. It was even worse feeling her climb back into bed in the dark room. All he wanted to do was turn over and pull her into his arms where she belonged. Instead, he stayed looking at the opposite wall in the darkness.
“Do you think she’s my mother?” she asked into the dark room.
Rolling to his back at her words, he looked at the dark ceiling. “Yes, she reminds me of you. Just little things.”
“Not looks. We look completely different.” She held up her hand and arm in the dark room. He couldn’t not think she was looking at her skin tone, which was not the same as Della’s.
“You’re right. Your body type is not hers, but your eyes are. And the quick laugh—you both don’t hesitate to laugh,” he replied in the dark, not mentioning how close the laughs were to each other in tone and timbre.
“She’s nice, though.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“I don’t know yet. What if no one knows, and I wreck her secret? It’s her secret, not mine.”
“Natalie, I can’t believe that if it is a secret, she wouldn’t want to know who you are anyway. I’m sure she thinks about you.”
“It was a long time ago, and she was young.”
“Not that young, Natalie.” He dealt with sixteen-year-olds all the time—she did not.
“I’ve been trying to remember what I did when I turned sixteen. I think I was grounded for stealing a bottle of wine from my dad and getting drunk with Hanna while he was off shopping for my birthday present. So, instead of spending the day with my friends, I spent it alone in my room. Except I snuck out and wandered around town until Dad found me and grounded me again.” Natalie went silent. “She had me.”
“Everyone lives a different life. You don’t know how she got pregnant or why she gave you up. Only she knows the answers.”
“I wonder why she adopted her kids instead of having more?” she questioned.
“Sometimes when you want kids later in life, it doesn’t happen,” he guessed. He had no idea what would make her give up one child for adoption and then adopt two others.
“Maybe. Maybe there’s more to it,” Natalie said, more into the night than to him.
“Good night, Natalie.” He turned back away from her.
“Good night, Sam. I promise not to touch you.” He could tell she was smiling as she said the words.
It ended up taking more than an hour for Sam to finally fall asleep. Within minutes he knew Natalie was asleep, as her breathing evened out and she stopped moving, so he rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Four nights in this bed together. Four nights of having to fight pulling her into his arms. Four nights of her breathing beside him. Four nights of trying to keep his body under control with her so close.
CHAPTER12