I ease out from under Smith's arm and twist away from the heavy leg that anchors me to the mattress. He has grown sweaty under the duvet and there is no pleasure in being held close to his clammy skin. Besides, I have been awake for some time now, and am finding it hard trying to figure out how best to finish a relationship whilst lying next to the man I'm planning to finish with. I glance back at him and my eyes catch the fading stain of a love bite that he was still apologising for as he slipped into sleep, each beery breath gusting forth a sorry that rang with drunken sincerity.
My bare toes scrunch tight in response to the cold wooden floor and I pull down the tee shirt that I'd stubbornly insisted on sleeping in. I narrow my eyes at the memory of Smith's earlier amazement - we wouldn't be having sex? But he's been away for so long! And, as he reminded me, he had apologised. Look, here's another one - sorry. So, so sorry.
I pad silently out of the bedroom, and - ignoring Astin's closed door just opposite - head to the kitchen for a glass of water. Leaning against the counter, I scowl at my reflection in the kitchen window and go over all the old arguments. With some new material thrown in to keep the rhetoric from sounding stale. I have treated myself badly for so long. I have let Smith cheat and return and cheat and return. And now I have used his behaviour as an excuse to fall for someone else. Someone Else. Someone leaving his rented lodgings in five days time, never to return, because - and here is the bit that will make me laugh in the future but not now because right now it's just too fucking ridiculous - because Someone Else acts in the films and is paid for that smile that warms my chilly soul and is paid for the way he watches me, just me, making me feel, retch retch retch, special. I have been a fool.
There is a creaking of footsteps behind me and I squeeze my eyes shut, spilling the tears that have pooled. It will be Smith and he will say sorry yet again, and I will have to smother the anger I feel towards him and towards myself, and climb back into bed with him because the thought of waking Astin with our tired old duet of recriminations and apologies make me want to chew off my own tongue.
Silence ripples from the footsteps. Not Smith's style, the boy is incapable of not-speaking. It must be ...
I turn and Astin is leaning in the doorway. His pyjama bottoms have slipped to just below his hips and he is topless. I blink, reminding myself sternly that he is paid to maintain that physique. And the next time I see it will be in high definition with 300 other people in the local multiplex.
"Can't sleep?" I offer. Sparkling repartee at its best. He shakes his head, eyes fixed on my face. I am frozen to the spot, the two of us normally fizz with conversations and observations, and questions too - Have you ever, Did you know? But now something is different. It began the other night when Smith returned unexpectedly, as is his way, interrupting a raucous game of Scrabble that a few of us were enjoying. Astin and I had been sharing a two seater bench and somehow, as we'd played, we'd moved closer - Astin's leg, warm in jeans, had fallen against my own, bare in an old summer dress. Hip nudging hip, thigh pressing thigh. I'd jumped up at the sight of Smith and when I sat down again Astin had straightened, the better to lean over the Scrabble board, and was perusing his tiles with a concentration that brought a tight frown to his forehead.
Now, his dark brown curls are ruffled and his dark brown eyes stare levelly at me in the moonlight. Eventually, he walks over to where I'm standing and reaches for my glass of water. Taking a sip, he eventually speaks. Steadily and clearly, I think afterwards, so that there can be no room for misinterpretation. "No, I can't sleep. Not knowing that you're in there, sharing a bed. With him."
I swallow. I can think of nothing to say. But I don't look away. He glances down and does he catch his breath? Quietly, he notes "You're wearing my tee shirt ..." And he reaches out to snag the hem of it. Pulling me closer, he tilts my chin with his free hand. His lips brush mine, one, twice, before settling with a slow determination.