The movie had long since finished and the DVD player shut itself off, leaving the TV with only a blue, empty screen. Holly had dozed off even before it ended, her head cradled by a cushion she had purposely put halfway on my lap. I looked down at her affectionately, then shook her lightly.
“C’mon, Holly, I’ll take you home.”
She half-pulled herself off the sofa and blinked at me a few times. Then she dove back onto the cushions, wrapping her arms tightly around her pillow.
Great, I thought ruefully. “Wake up!” I said again, shaking her.
“Mmfggh!” she mumbled through the pillow.
“What’d she say?” Brent asked blearily from the table in the kitchen. He had extracted himself from his room since he couldn’t sleep and watched the movie with us. But he looked on the verge of dozing off at this point.
“I think that was a ‘No, I’m not going anywhere!’” I answered. I gave an exasperated sigh. “What am I going to do with her?”
“Why not just leave her there and cover her with a blanket?” Brent yawned. “She’s not hurting anything.”
I took about a second to think about it, then answered. “You know how bitchy she is anyway. Do you really want to deal with her in the morning? Ouch!” I flinched away as Holly, apparently awake enough to defend herself, pinched me. I looked down at her, snuggled against my leg, a half smile on her face. Of course, I added to myself as I ran my hand gently through her hair, that’s one of her good points.
“Well, you can tell me about the fight in the morning. Night.” Brent trudged off to the bathroom.
He turned the light out and the TV off, but I didn’t move. After a few minutes I heard the toilet flush and the door to his room creak open, but still, I didn’t move. It was really kind of nice, sitting there in the dark, Holly beside me, completely silent except for her breathing. But it was almost five in the morning, and even I was getting tired.
“You awake?” I whispered.
Holly didn’t even murmur a response, too fast asleep to even notice.
The hell with it, I thought. Gently, I rolled her over and, one arm under her shoulder and the other under her knees, I picked her up. She muttered something incoherent and tightened her grip on the cushion. “You can keep it.” I said softly, walking her to my bed.
* * *
“Hey.”
I pried one eye open to find Holly’s face right beside mine.
“Morning,” she said, smiling gently.
I groaned and sat up. “What time is it?”
“Almost noon. I’m hungry.” She put her hands on her hips. I noticed she had slept in one of my t-shirts. “You didn’t have to sleep on the couch, you know.”
“Well, you had the bed.”
“So? Lots of friends sleep together. Uh… I mean,” she stuttered, before I could get a smart remark in, “sleep in the same bed. Like on road trips and at conventions and stuff. And nothing happens. Especially,” she added, “if they sleep in their clothes.”
I straightened my rumpled shirt. “Whatever.”
“Anyway, can we get something to eat already?”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, its way too early to be talking about breakfast. Can’t you just go back to sleep.”
“Look,” she answered, “some of us are diurnal.”
I frowned, but she had me there. “Tell you what; why don’t you go take a shower, and you can wake me up when you’re done. You know where the towels are, right?”
“Hmmph!” she said. I couldn’t tell whether she was actually mad or just pretending to be. “Fine, I guess I’ll go take my hot shower then.”
I watched her walk off and then rolled over, closing my eyes again. “By the way,” she called from the hallway. “You better be up when I get out or I’ll pour cold water on you.”
Holly didn’t pour cold water on me, which was good. What she did do was to drag me, quite literally, off the sofa. I think she would have even dragged me to the shower, had I let her.
Breakfast was a sticky matter. There was nothing in the refrigerator, and most places stopped serving breakfast sometime around ten. I wasn’t about to risk Waffle House, so we ended up at Marty’s Diner, a questionable establishment I’d normally avoid, and ordered lunch. She got some kind of soup and salad, barely enough food, and I ordered a hamburger, the cheapest thing they had on the menu.
“See,” she said, once the waiter left, giving me her most charming smile. “I’m not bitchy in the morning.”
“Oh… You mean you remember that?” I said, feeling a little nervous. Well hell, she didn’t seem mad. “Well, from the way you act at Baskin Robbins…
She waved her hand. “That’s BR, and those are BR customers, whose IQ’s apparently drop about a hundred points when they order ice cream.”
I couldn’t help but grin at her. “How in the world do you not get fired?”
She shrugged. “Nothing big. Whenever anyone complains, whoever answers just tells them I’m a schizophrenic, and that BR is supporting a movement to get the mentally ill into the workplace. Then they just feel too guilty to keep complaining.”
I laughed out loud. “And they let you get away with this?”
She looked a little embarrassed. “Well, I am a manager. And besides, we all agree they deserve it.” I gave her a skeptical look. “Anyway,” she said, sensing she was on unstable ground, “how’d the movie end?”
I grinned. “What? And spoil it for you? Why’d you fall asleep before it ended?”
She shrugged, but her face turned red. “I was comfortable.”
You mean using me for a pillow? I gave her a smug grin. “ ‘They lived happily ever after.’ ”
“I know that; that’s how all stories end. I want to know how it happened. So he wasn’t dead?”
I leaned back in my chair and kept the grin on my face.
“Tell me,” she complained. “So was he just faking, what?”
I gave her a shrug. She glared at me. “Well, you should have stayed awake,” I said, nonchalantly.
“I was tired.” She faked a sulk, tracing patterns in the water from her glass onto the table. “And you were comfortable.”
“That’s hardly and excuse,” I teased. “Maybe I should have just taken you home.”
Her finger hesitated. When she spoke, she didn’t look back up, but it sounded like her smile was gone. “Yeah, maybe I should have just gone home.”
The catch in her voice made me pause. Did I say something wrong, I wondered. Aloud, I forced a laugh, trying to make a joke. “I mean, if you were just going to fall asleep on me…” I didn’t finish the punch line. “Holly?”
She looked up at me. Her eyes glistened and her mouth was tight.
“Is something wrong?”
She shook her head. “No, no. I’m fine.”
She wasn’t fine, obviously, but it didn’t seem like she was going to tell me what the problem was. I went back to focusing on my water, waiting for her to say something. She didn’t, just kept looking at the table, tracing water with her finger, until the food came. Then, at least, I had the meal to focus on, but she still hadn’t spoken. By the time I finished lunch, I was tired of the silence. “Holly…” I began.
“What?” she snapped at me. I bit back what I was going to say. Holly gave me her worst glare. “Well?”
“Nothing,” I muttered under my breath. Dammit girl, pick an emotion!
She went back to stabbing at her salad. Me, I just watched in confusion until I caught the waiter’s attention and signaled for the check. He brought it by and dumped it on the table. “I’ll get it,” I said, standing up.
“No,” she said suddenly, reaching over. I looked at her, surprised. “No, I’ll pay for mine.” Now she sounded contrite. What the hell? And why would she suddenly be throwing down money? We usually just traded off who paid.
The ride home was just as awkward as the meal. I briefly considered going back to my apartment and forcing her to talk, but then decided that would probably only make things worse, as stubborn as she is. When we got to her apartment complex, I parked the car and shut it off. When she reached for the door I hit the lock button. She stopped, surprised, then looked over at me.
“Do you mind explaining to me what the problem is?” she didn’t say anything, and I was getting angry. “Look, if it’s about the comment about taking you home…
She shook her head. “No, no that wasn’t it.”
“Look, it was a joke.”
“That wasn’t it,” she said again.
“Then what the hell was it!” I actually shouted. I don’t think I’ve ever actually been mad at her enough to shout before.
“I… I…” Her countenance crumbled, and I saw a few tears fall before she unlocked the door and bolted.
I watched her flee to her door, then I re-started my car and drove back home.
Well, shit. I thought.
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