He hated how nonchalant she was about her history of sleeping on the floor. Everyone deserved a bed.
She was right. His uncle’s voice wasn’t the only voice in his head telling him to take the floor. “While I believe you, I’m not some spoiled rich kid who doesn’t know how to rough it. Not that sleeping on this plush carpeted floor is a hardship.” He stood, threw a pillow on the floor, and began pulling the duvet cover from the bed. She got off the bed to allow him to continue, and he dropped the large blanket below the pillow. “See? I’ll wrap myself like a burrito and it will be as good as if I were in a bed.” He’d prefer to be in bed with her, but he didn’t want to start their cohabitation on the wrong foot. “Besides, didn’t you mention you slept on the bus last night? Come on. Take the bed.”
The moon shone through a crescent-shaped window over the draped sliding glass door. He slipped past her and moved around the bed to pull back the curtains and expose the natural light.
“Wow. This bedroom is huge.” Her lithe body twirled around as she took in her first view of where they’d sleep. He couldn’t make out everything on her face, but he caught her widened eyes, no doubt awed by the extravagance. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Her hand rested on her chest. She gave him a shy smile. “I’m going to get changed for bed. Where’s the bathroom?”
He crossed the room, took the flashlight from her hand, and pointed to the area behind the wall of dressers. “If you go behind there, you’ll find his and hers closets and then the bathroom. There’s plenty of room to change in the closet. It’s more of a dressing room.”
She chuckled and retrieved the light. “Of course it is.” She lit the way and sauntered toward the closets, grabbing her suitcase along the way.
With her out of the room, he took the opportunity to ready for bed. After removing his pants and shirt, he laid his head on the pillow and wrapped the blanket around him. Not bad. He flipped over, closing his eyes and relaxing. Chirps and whistles of the animals living in the wetlands behind the house soothed him and began to lull him to sleep.
“Thanks again for taking the floor,” Portia said, startling him out of relaxation. The bed squeaked as she got under the covers. “Ah. This is heaven.” She sighed and he heard the sounds of the sheets rubbing against her skin. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me.”
“The floor’s fine. Not exactly heaven, but I’m too tired to care.” He waited a beat and not hearing a response said, “Goodnight.”
Strange to sleep in a room with a woman and not consider having sex. Not that he’d turn her down if she offered, although he agreed it would complicate their living situation. Unlike a woman, he could have sex and keep his heart to himself. Love and sex were two different animals, and only once had he experienced both with the same woman. But he’d smartened up since then. The female gender tended to confuse the two making it somewhat difficult to have sex with someone and not have it mean something. He was careful about who he chose to take to bed, and even then, he’d only have sex a couple of times with them before he broke it off. Usually, they didn’t care.
But as he’d observed from the moment he’d seen her, Portia wasn’t one of those kind of girls. He’d bet she never had sex with someone she didn’t love. If they had sex, she’d consider them in a—God forbid—relationship. No way, no how.
Portia’s breathing slowed and he found himself drifting off.
“What’s that?” she suddenly asked. He opened his eyes to see her sitting up in bed.
“What’s what?” This was why he preferred sleeping alone. No one to wake him. He could sleep in the middle of the bed. Snore. Fart. Scratch his balls. The usual guy things which stayed hidden until well into the relationship.
“That scratching noise.”
For someone who’d lived in New York, she seemed awfully on edge about noise. Wasn’t it the ‘City that never sleeps’ with its traffic and bars open ’til five in the morning? Guess she wasn’t used to nature. “Probably something in the wetlands. Go to sleep.” He closed his eyes and prayed she’d stay quiet.
“No. It was inside.”
No such luck. “I’m sure—”
A scratching followed by a quiet squeak and the scurrying of something alive sounded from somewhere in the room. His gut clenched. Only one thing creeped him out.
“Rats.” He jumped up and shook off his blanket, leaping onto the bed.
Portia laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of mice?”