Gold Digger – Story 33 – MORNING

The first thing I saw was my phone.

Face down on the bedside table.

The second thing was the time.

The third thing was the problem.

I picked up the phone.

Adam.

One missed call.

Three messages.

The missed call first.

Then:

Probably asleep.

Then ten minutes later:

Goodnight x

I stared at the screen.

For a long moment.

Because technically I had not fallen asleep.

Technically I had done something significantly worse than falling asleep.

Something moved behind me.

An arm tightened around my waist.

Warm.

Heavy.

Certain.

I froze.

Not because I didn’t know who it was.

Because for one completely disorienting second I’d forgotten I was still there.

I turned my head.

D.

Asleep.

One arm around me like he’d put it there years ago and nobody had told him to move it.

Hair a mess.

Half buried in my pillow.

The specific unfair vulnerability of someone who has no idea what’s on your phone.

I looked at him.

Then at the phone.

Then back at him.

The situation remained stubbornly unchanged.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you.

The dramatic part isn’t the night.

The dramatic part is 8:17 in the morning when reality starts arriving in missed calls.

The dramatic part is lying completely still next to someone who is asleep in your bed while someone else’s goodnight x is glowing on your screen.

The dramatic part is discovering you have absolutely no idea what happens next.

I lay there.

Very still.

Running through the correct sequence of events.

Text Adam.

Obviously.

Eventually.

At some point.

Soon.

Probably.

And then.

And then what.

I had no spreadsheet for this.

No acquisition timeline.

No contingency.

No color coding for catastrophic success of the wrong column.

Just D’s arm around my waist and Adam’s name on my phone and the growing certainty that every version of what happened next was going to be terrible in a different way.

D moved.

Opened one eye.

Looked at me.

Not confused.

Not surprised.

Just – tired.

“Morning.”

My stomach dropped six floors.

“Morning,” I said.

His voice was rough.

Sleep and whiskey and something else I wasn’t going to name.

He closed his eye again.

Like this was normal.

Like waking up here was the most obvious thing in the world.

Then without opening his eyes:

“You okay?”

I almost laughed.

I looked at the ceiling.

Then at the bedroom door.

Then at D.

A new problem occurred to me.

This was my apartment.

Which meant there was nowhere to escape to.

Usually one of us leaves.

D’s arm tightened slightly around my waist.

Apparently not today.

I put the phone face down.

Looked at the ceiling.

Thought about Adam’s goodnight x glowing on the other side of it.

Thought about D’s arm.

Thought about the fact that I had built an entire system specifically to avoid ending up here.

Here being:

No exit.

No plan.

No column for this.

Just the morning.

Coming in anyway.

Spreadsheet status: 

Adam → missed call. three messages. one kiss. did not text back. filed under: I know. 

D → asleep in my bed. arm around my waist. apparently staying. 

New operational issue: this is my apartment. there is nowhere to go. the spreadsheet did not anticipate this scenario. – Mila