“Since when did you turn into Mr. Chivalrous?” The wire-tripping expression deepened before she patted the space on the bed beside her. “There’s plenty of room. No need to wake up with a stiff neck and back.”

I stared at the empty space. Fuck, if I slept beside her all night, I’d wake up with something else stiff. “Really, the floor’s good.” I slid off my hat and set it on her nightstand.

“Oh, please. We’ve already done the worst in this bed, so you don’t have to worry about that. Just get in and get some sleep already.”

I knew I shouldn’t, but since the invitation had been extended, I couldn’t say no. Tossing the pillow back onto the bed, I peeled off a few layers of clothing and crawled in beside her. Josie’s back was to me, but her shoulders were so stiff I knew she wasn’t asleep. Despite her no-big-deal attitude, could Josie be just as conscious of me beside her as I was of her beside me? The journey to that answer was a road I couldn’t take. I already knew the ending, and I wouldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t hurt Josie any more than I already had. She deserved better, and she deserved a million times better than I could ever give her.

“See? Was that so bad?” she asked, her back still to me.

I slid my hands behind my head and grinned at the ceiling. I hadn’t been paying attention the last time I was in it, but Josie’s bed was the most comfortable thing I’d ever been on. “No, Joze, that wasn’t so bad.”

“Told ya.”

My grin stretched wider. “Oh, and you don’t have to worry about me crawling into your nice clean bed in the same clothes I worked in all day.”

“Why’s that?”

I positioned the blanket just below my navel. “Because I sleep naked.”

“What?!” she hissed, twisting around. As soon as she saw my bare chest, her eyes widened. At least I could still get a rise out of her. That part of our relationship hadn’t changed. She shrieked and covered her eyes. By then, I was laughing. I would have been howling if her parents weren’t a mere floor below us. “Garth, please, for the love of god and Montana, please put something on. Anything on.”

Josie in her itty-bitty tank top with her hair in a floppy ponytail and her hands clamped over her eyes . . . It was the funniest, sexiest sight I’d seen. “Okay, fine. If you’re going to go all prude on me.” Sitting up just enough, I pretended to get up to grab some clothes, but I was watching her without blinking.

A couple moments later, her fingers splayed just enough for me to see her eyes, which meant . . .

I flashed my face in front of hers and winked. “Made you look.”

Josie’s hands dropped from her eyes and went straight to my chest. She shoved me hard enough I almost tipped off the bed. “Nice jeans, asshole.”

I laughed again when she threw herself back down, her back to me again. “Nice sneaking a peek there, Secret Agent Gibson. Hoping to catch a glimpse of something?”

Josie gave an irritated sigh. “Shut up, Black.”

“Why would I do that when it’s so much more fun to tease you?”

“Because you like-slash-love your dick and probably want to keep it.”

“Hold up. Are you threatening the very piece of anatomy you were just hoping to sneak a peek at?” I pulled off my socks, left my jeans in place, and laid back down. Josie had been checking me out. I was back to grinning at the ceiling.

“My threat’s about to turn into a reality if you don’t zip it and go to sleep like I thought you were dying to do five minutes ago.”

“Come on, it’s no big deal. It’s perfectly natural to want to inspect a fine specimen like myself. I’d be happy to give you the whole show—the full monty—free of charge. But only looking, no touching. Or wait, you prefer peeking, right?” Our endless banter felt good. It took me back to a happier time before things had gotten so complicated between us.

“Sleep now or forever hold your peace, Black.” I was working up my reply when she added, “I mean it.” From her tone, I knew she was done. She’d hit her bullshit limit.

I’d learned enough to know when to back off. After a few minutes of silence, I was close to falling asleep when I felt the mattress quaking. It was so infinitesimal, I was surprised I’d even noticed. When I glanced at Josie’s back, I understood where it was coming from. She was shivering. I didn’t think next. I responded.

“You’re shivering.” I scooted up behind her and draped my arm around her before pulling her close. I couldn’t tell if she was cold. The only thing I felt was her body pressed into mine.

She didn’t pull away. In fact, she seemed to burrow deeper into my arms. “Yeah, well, I had to go and save this asshole from freezing to death.”

I tilted my face into her hair and smiled. “Plus, you’re wearing lingerie to bed.”

“Plus that.” I heard the smile in her voice.

We didn’t say anything else for a while. We just lay together until our breathing synced and her shivering stopped. I’d been on that bed with Josie before in the most intimate way a man and woman could be together, but I hadn’t felt connected to her the way I did with my arms around her, both of us mostly clothed. I wasn’t familiar with that kind of intimacy, but it felt strangely more intimate than sex. I was close to falling asleep, and I was sure she already must have been, when I whispered, “Better now?”

I wasn’t expecting a response, but the last thing I heard before letting myself go was a quiet, “Better now.”

I WASN’T A dreamer. Never had been, never would be. That translated into my sleep state as well. I didn’t dream at night. Or at least not the kind I remembered when I woke up.

Waking up in Josie’s bed, I remembered so many different dreams, it didn’t seem possible that much could have run through my brain in only one night. I wanted to discount the new dream phenomenon with sleeping in a warm house, in a soft bed, but I couldn’t even bullshit myself into believing that. I knew what had caused the dreams. Or who.

A certain someone who wasn’t curled up beside me like she’d been all night. Peeling my eyes open, I scanned Josie’s empty room. If it wasn’t a work day, I wouldn’t have minded throwing the covers over my head and passing out for a few more hours. I hadn’t slept that great in my whole life. I hadn’t woken up feeling so good ever. That might have had something to do with not passing out with a heavy dose of whiskey in me, but it also had a whole lot to do with sleeping beside Josie. Falling asleep beside her was so . . . peaceful. So easy. Those concepts—peaceful and easy—were terms I wasn’t familiar with. They were ideas I’d never really thought I wanted to become familiar with until last night. Until I felt them so strongly I wondered if my whole life, I’d been doing it wrong.

Unfortunately, a good night’s sleep hadn’t eased my confusion. If anything, it had only increased. Confusion was the new normal for me, but one thing I had been able to pinpoint—Josie was somehow connected to it all. The confusion, the dual consciousnesses warring with one another, the steady stream of questions, the dry river of answers . . . it all connected to her somehow.

My life had become one giant cluster-fuck all because of a woman. I suppose, given my history, that wasn’t so hard to believe. What was hard to believe was which woman had brought it on. The girl I’d grown up with. My childhood friend, my adolescent secret obsession, my biggest mistake. That was a whole lot of screwed up I just wasn’t up to working out without a cup of coffee in me.

Rolling over, I sat up. My gaze immediately landed on Josie’s vanity mirror across the room. Not because I was so relentlessly vain I couldn’t go thirty seconds after waking up without checking myself out—I might have been a cocky son of a bitch, but vain was a stretch—but because it was impossible to miss the red lipstick note taking up the whole mirror.