Bedtime comes early around here. Well, we're up at five-thirty in the morning, so we usually go to bed no later than ten or so. It was nine forty-five, and I was just getting my pajamas out of the drawer when there was a knock on my door.
Okay, nothing unusual there. I figured it was Len or Nolan with a reminder about one-on-one training tomorrow. I opened the door.
To my surprise, Ian was standing there.
"Hey," he said.
"What's up?"
He kind of bit his lip, looked up at the ceiling, and then sighed.
"What?" I asked.
"What what?"
"What was that big sigh about?"
"Why's it gotta be about something? Can't I just breathe for the sake of breathing?"
I refrained from rolling my eyes. "Okay, fine. What is it you want?"
"Can I sleep with you?" he blurted out.
I blinked.
"I don't mean sleep with you, sleep with you. Unless you want to. But you don't have to. I . . . um . . . you . . ."
I put my hands on his shoulders. "Stop. Take a deep breath. Start over."
He did so. "Is it okay if I sleep in here?"
"Don't you have your own bed?"
"Yeah, but . . . I kinda miss lying there in the dark and listening to you breathing. I always liked that, when we were together. Not together together, I mean . . . in the same room. Sleeping. Can I do that?"
"My bed isn't that big, buddy."
"That's okay. I don't take up too much room."
"Why didn't you tell me this before? I could have arranged something."
"I didn't want you to think I was being a baby. I'm not afraid to sleep alone, I just . . . like sleeping with you better."
Well, that didn't sound so bad. Just one night, right? In the morning, he could go back to his own room. "Fine. You can stay."
"Great! Let me get my stuff!"
"What stuff?" I said, but he was gone already. How long did he think he was staying?
I hoped he brought his own pillow. There was no way I was sharing Illy, not even with Ian. I grabbed an extra blanket, remembering that Ian was always cold at night. By the time I had it on the bed straight, he was back.
"What did you have to get?" I asked.
"My PJ's, my clothes for tomorrow. My pillow."
"Good."
"And Shelldon, of course."
"Who's Shelldon?"
He tossed me something soft and yellowish. I took a good look at it. It was a plush crab, sort of goldish, with big cartoon eyes. "Hey, he kind of looks like your Advent Beast. In Candy Land."
"Yeah, I know."
"Where'd you get him?"
"I won him. At the carnival, playing Skee-Ball. Once I saw him, I had to have him. I must have played for five hours to get enough tickets."
"Those games are such a rip-off. You could buy something like this in a store for five bucks, and how much did you spend trying to win him? Probably twenty, thirty dollars, right?"
He just shrugged. "I don't buy a lot of stuff. I wanted him. So I played till I got him."
"Fine with me. Just keep Shelldon on your side of the bed." I grabbed my pajamas and went into the bathroom to change.
"Where are you going?" Ian already had his shirt off, and his pants unzipped.
"I don't wanna see you naked," I said, making this about him. "I'll be right out. You get in first."
"Why?"
"If you're on the outside, you'll fall out of bed. Just don't hog all the covers, okay?"
Whatever he said was lost in the slam of the bathroom door. I hadn't meant to; I was just in a hurry.
The truth was, I didn't want Ian to see me naked (again) until I was ready for him to see me naked. I was trying to ease into this whole relationship thing one step at a time. It wasn't that I didn't want to . . . you know, but it would happen when it happened. Not yet.
I pulled an old pair of socks on, cause there's nothing worse than having someone's cold feet on you. I knew Ian wore socks even in the middle of the summer. He'd grown up in a warm climate, and anything below eighty degrees was freezing to him. He didn't do well in the winter at all.
I came out of the bathroom to find Ian already in the bed, perched on the edge, covers pulled up to his chest. "You know you're wearing one blue sock and one brown sock?"
"So what?" I looked down at the offending footwear. "No one's gonna see 'em."
"Yeah, but I know they're there."
"You'll have your eyes closed!"
"But I'll know they're there," he insisted.
"Fine." I hunted through the sock basket till I found the other blue sock, and stripped off the offending brown. "There," I said, as I stood there in matching socks. "Happy?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Good. Now move over."
"Your sheets are cold."
"I know. That's cause they haven't been slept in for sixteen hours. Move already!"
He slid over against the wall, and I climbed in.
"You need a bigger bed."
"There's no room in here for a bigger bed. The one I've got takes up all the space as it is."
"Move some things."
"What things?"
"The stand over there, for one."
"What? But that's where all my mechas are! They need a flat surface to stand up!"
"Put them on the dresser."
"There isn't room on the dresser."
"Move stuff off it."
"Can we just go to sleep already?" I knew we could go on like this all night, and I didn't want to miss any sleep over it.
"Okay. Night, Channy."
"And don't call me Channy!" But he was already rolled over on his side, facing the wall. Good. Plenty of room for me, then. I rearranged my limbs into the most comfortable position that took up the least amount of room, and closed my eyes.
I woke up in a panic as something tried to choke the life out of me. I gasped for breath and fought what turned out to be . . . an arm. Ian had rolled over in his sleep, and his arm had fallen across my neck in such a way that it cut off my oxygen supply. I lifted it up as gently as I could and moved it somewhere a little less life-threatening. He never so much as twitched.
Okay, fine. We were good now. I went back to sleep.
Only to wake up again two hours later when the same thing happened again. So much for him staying on his side of the bed. I realized as I moved his arm off me that I needed to pee, so I disentangled myself and got up to go to the bathroom.
When I came back, Ian had flopped over onto my side of the bed.
I wanted to kill him.
There was no way to move him without waking him. He was sprawled out completely over the bed, so I couldn't just crawl under him again. I'd have to shove him over somehow.
Which proved easier said than done.
I could have done it when he was twelve. He was a scrawny little kid then, who barely weighed more than eighty pounds or so. As you might guess, he was a lot bigger and stronger now.
I'd have to wake him up.
"Ian?" I prodded the closest part of him hanging out of the sheets. "Ian, wake up."
No response. I mean nothing.
"Ian! Come on, you have to move!" I tried shoving him over. No good.
In frustration, I smacked him in the head. Not hard, mind you. Just (hopefully) enough to get his attention.
He began to stir and mumble a little, and now I was worried that he'd wake up and be mad at me. But he just rolled over towards the wall again.
Phew. Finally.
I climbed into bed as carefully as I could, scrunched into the available space, and went back to sleep.
I haven't needed an alarm clock in years. I woke up at five twenty-nine, to find that not only was there an arm around my shoulders, but there was also a leg thrown over mine. Ian's other arm was tucked around my waist, and his head was pressing into my back.
It was like sharing a bed with an octopus.
I didn't bother being delicate about it now. I nudged him till he opened his eyes and smiled at me.
"Morning, sweetie."
"Yeah, whatever. Get off me."
"I told you, you need a bigger bed."
"I don't need a bigger bed, because you're not sleeping in here again!"
He looked at me like he was about to cry. "What did I do?"
"I told you to stay on your side of the bed!"
"I did!"
"No, you didn't! You were practically on top of me when I woke up!"
"I can't help it if I move in my sleep! It's not like I mean to do it!"
He was right, of course. Didn't make it any less annoying, but still . . . short of putting up an actual wall in the middle of the bed, there wasn't anything I could do about it.
And then I realized that I was thinking about this becoming a regular thing. What happened to "just for one night?"
"You know what we should do?" he was saying, looking around the room. "Knock down the wall."
"What?"
"Since we have adjoining rooms, all we have to do is knock down the wall. Then we have the same amount of space, we're just . . . sharing it. And we can move in a bigger bed."
"Don't go knocking down any walls yet," I said. "Let's wait a while and see how it works out. We don't want to find out we don't get along after we've taken the wall down, do we?"
He shrugged. "I guess not. I'm gonna go get dressed." He grabbed the bag with his clothes and headed into the bathroom.
I decided to follow suit. I lifted my pajama top up over my head . . .
And Shelldon fell out.
I picked it up and looked at it. Something about the way it was staring at me with that cheesy grin made me laugh. He couldn't stay on his side of the bed either.
But it would be a while before I let Ian get that close to me. One step at a time.
