Kidding. Wes is great. He’s an only child and I’ve decided that he just never had to share things like bedcovers. When you grow up with two sisters and you have to share a queen size motel bed with both of them when you go family vacations, you learn how to share blankets pretty quick. Or at least learn to loosen your grip on the blankets and let your bedmates have a bit of covers when your dad yells at you to stop fighting and go to sleep.

There’s no point fighting him for the covers. Once he’s in a really deep sleep, I’ll weasel them away from him. Until then there’s no point laying here and getting frustrated.

I swing my feet onto the ground, the floor creaking when I put my weight on it. Wes lives in this great Victorian house that’s old and romantic but it sucks when you’re trying to move around in the middle of the night and be quiet. Wes can sleep through anything but the people living in the suite below him are probably staring up at their ceiling and cursing me as I move through the apartment.

I grab a glass of water from the kitchen before moving into the living room. I go to the large windows that overlook the street and pull back the curtains so I can stare out them. It may be almost two in the morning, but there’s still some life on the residential street and I’m kept entertained as I watch two teenager boys sneaking a cigarette across the street. They soon finish and move inside and I’m left staring outside, only the occasional car driving by every few minutes.

I always get some insomnia when I sleep over at Wes’. It’s probably because the house is always so quiet and I’m used to the sound of sirens on the street and people arguing in the apartment above mine. I don’t even realize how comforting those sounds are until I’m away from them. Here, everything is just too quiet. Even Wes. He doesn’t snore or even breathe heavy when he sleeps and it’s just this silence surrounding me and I can’t take it. When it’s that quiet my mind won’t rest and most of my night will be spent staring at the ceiling and thinking.

I don’t even know why I agreed to sleep here tonight. I have to be at work in five hours and my apartment is so much closer to the prison than Wes’ suite. There almost isn’t any point to sleeping now.

The creaking of the floors gives away that I’m no longer alone and I turn my head to see Wes shuffling into the room, running a hand over his slightly unruly hair. I meet his eyes as he comes towards me.

“What are you doing out here?” he asks quietly.

I turn back to look out the window. “Couldn’t sleep.”

He comes up to stand behind me and his hands run up and down my arms. “Why?”

I smile a bit. “Cause you’re a blanket hog.”

He breathes out a laugh and squeezes my upper arms. “I told you to just kick me if I take them from you.”

“I know. I’m just too nice to do that though.”

His hands leave me and then his arms wrap around my stomach. “Anything interesting happening out there?” he asks.

“Nope. Pretty boring.”

He rests his chin on the top of my head and I can hear him sigh.

“Why did you wake up?” I ask, leaning back against him slightly. “You usually sleep through anything.”

“I just woke up,” he says. “Probably would have gone back to sleep but then I saw that you weren’t there and I was wondering where you had gone. Are you going to come back to bed?”

He’s dropped his arms from around me and is now tugging on my hand. I’m still not tired but I know that he’ll be bothered if I stay out here. He gets too concerned about me sometimes. “Yeah.”

I let him pull me back towards his bedroom. I crawl back into the still warm bed and curl up on my side as he goes to the other side and gets in. He arranges the blankets so they’re evenly spread across the bed again.

“There. If I pull them off you again seriously just kick me and take them back,” he says.

I nod. “Okay.”

He kisses me and then lays down on his side. Only ten minutes pass before he’s back asleep and has pulled the covers off me for the second time. I briefly consider giving his leg a kick like he told me to do but it really won’t help matters. Wes is a blanket hog and will always be one I’m sure.

I wait for twenty minutes to go by before getting out of bed again. Wes seemed exhausted and I’m sure he won’t wake up again if I leave. Laying in bed when you’ve got insomnia is only frustrating and I’d much rather go back to looking out the window.

* * *

“Laina, pumpkin, pick up your phone.”

It’s like de ja vu as I sit on my couch and listen to the message playing over my machine. The phone’s in my hand but when I saw Trace’s cell number on the caller display, I immediately knew he was going to try and get me to go out somewhere and it would be easier to not pick up than to refuse the invitation.

“Laina, it’s six and I know you’re home. You’re probably sitting on your couch and screening your calls like you always do and I must say I’m hurt that you don’t want to talk to me.”

A small smile comes to my lips and I turn the phone over in my hands.

“Pick up…come on, Laina. We’re going to get something to eat.” He pauses for one moment before, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…”

Trace is smart. He knows that I can’t handle listening to his off key warbled voice attempting to ruin one of my favorite songs. I quickly pick up the phone.

“Stop.”

The song is quickly replaced by his laughter. “I knew you were sitting there listening. So what are your plans for tonight?”

“Having a bath and going to bed,” I reply, sinking further in the couch.

“Don’t be such a loser. Come out with us instead.”

I sigh and shut my eyes. “I’ve had a really long day, Trace.”

“All your days are long. That’s why you need to come out with us and relax. Take a load off.”

“Trace…” I trail off and there’s the sound of muffled male voices and then Justin comes over the line.

“Lainey, we’re almost at your place. Come out with us.”

“I won’t be good company. I’m tired.”

“We haven’t hung out with you for a while and we miss you. We’ll pick you up a coffee before we get there and you’ll be good to go. You don’t even have to work tomorrow.”

I sigh again and rub my eyes. “How far away are you?”

He knows he has me when I say those words and I can hear the smile in his voice as he responds. “Five minutes but we’ll be ten cause we’re gonna get you a big cup of coffee.”

I smile a bit at that. I guess I could use some coffee. “Okay. I just have to change.”

Justin relays the message and there’s a mumbled reply from Trace. “Trace says to wear something sexy,” Justin says.

I laugh and shake my head. “I’ll try to look my sexiest.”

“We’ll see you in a few.”

I hang up the phone and then proceed to sit there for another couple minutes before dragging myself up and to my room. I change out of my work clothes and into a pair of jeans and t shirt, immediately feeling a little better to be in comfortable clothes. Spending all day in black dress pants and a button up shirt kills me.

I pull the hair elastic from the bun I had twisted my wet hair into this morning and let it fall in waves around my shoulders. It’s a bit unruly and I consider pulling it back into a ponytail but it feels so good to have it down after having it pulled back all day that I quickly disregard that idea.

Justin’s black Escalade is sitting outside my apartment building when I walk out the main door. As soon as I open the back door and climb in, a cup of coffee is passed in my direction. I take it from Trace and raise it to my lips. Once I’ve taken a large sip, I utter a, “Thanks.”

“That’s the sexiest you could muster?” Trace asks, his eyes running over my body.

I do up my seatbelt and give him a small smirk. “You haven’t seen what I have on underneath this.”

Justin looks back at me from the driver’s seat and smiles. “You’re so coquettish, Lainey.”

I’m convinced he uses bigger words than necessary to make himself seem smarter than he actually is. I don’t humor him. “Uh huh. Where are we going?”

“Chi.”

“We go there all the time,” I whine, slumping into the seat. “We just go there cause you don’t have to pay.”

Justin’s eyes look at me from the rearview mirror. “Are you saying Chi isn’t good?”

He doesn’t sound offended probably because he knows that I’m tired and in a bit of a bad mood so I’m just bitching for the hell of it. “We never go get Mexican.”

Justin laughs. “Whenever you eat Mexican you’re sick for hours after. Why do you torture yourself just for a bit of food?”

“Because Mexican food is amazing,” I say with a smile and then move my eyes to stare out the window at the passing scenery. I have my coffee finished by time we pull up to the front of the restaurant and the caffeine is serving its purpose to perk me up slightly. As we walk into the restaurant, Trace hangs back with me a bit.

“You’re so quiet,” he comments. “You actually did have a long day. I thought you were just saying that.”

I shake my head. “Long day.”

“What happened?”

“I’m counseling this kid, Tyler, and he’s just really tough to deal with.”

“What’s he in there for?”

“Assault. He’s got major anger issues and it feels like there’s nothing I can say to him that he wants to hear. He’s just such an angry kid.”

Trace puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me against his side. “You’ll get through to him, I’m sure. You always do.”

I sigh and nod. “I hope so.”

“And you’ve got the weekend off so you need to just forget about work and concentrate on having fun.”

It’s easy for Trace to say that but I can’t always just shut my brain off that easily. I’m probably going to end up laying awake in bed all night going over the events of the day. “I’ll try.”

“I’m so glad you came out,” he says as we follow Justin through the restaurant. “Justin hasn’t hung out with you for over a week and you know how he gets.”

I can’t help but smile at that. Justin has this tendency to let his ego get out of control and Trace always says that I need to be around cause I deflate it for him. I don’t know, I just treat him like I treat everyone else, which I guess works. Trace says it’s been worse ever since Janice has been around because she apparently strokes his ego to monstrous sizes. Like he needs the help.

We stop at a table in the back of the restaurant and I slip into my seat and half listen to Justin and Trace as they talk. I don’t involve myself until I realize that Justin’s ordering for me. I stop him mid sentence.

“I’ll actually have this,” I say, pointing to some random item on the menu.

Justin shuts his mouth until the waitress is gone. Then, “You always get the almond chicken,” he says.

“And I was planning to until you decided you had the right to order for me,” I reply, raising my eyebrows at him.

Justin rolls his eyes but Trace laughs and gives my arm a squeeze.

“So glad you came, Laina,” he says.