Big Shot | ✓

33 | the hollow knight

We encountered a problem pretty quickly.

Well, at least I considered it a problem. A moral predicament, really.

When I brought my bags up to Reid's room, there was an unfilled air mattress laid out on the rug, taking up almost all the floor space between Reid's bed and the window. Even though Reid lived at Clemson almost full-time, his home bedroom still felt so lived in, and I knew from the minute I walked in that it was his. His bed was perfectly made as always, and rows of gleaming trophies from pop warner to high school lined the shelf underneath a small TV.

On the weathered wooden night stand beside his bed was a silver picture frame. I picked it up to take a closer look, smiling to myself at what looked like middle school Reid, crooked smile and muddy face in an equally muddy football uniform, holding up a trophy the size of his head. His parents stood on either side of him, coats slick with rain, smiling just as big as he was.

"You can sleep in my bed." His voice ripped me away from the imagery I'd immersed myself in. He gestured down to the air mattress.

"Uh, no." I dropped my bag beside the door and shook my head. "You're the one who has to play on Saturday, and the level of guilt I would feel if you showed up with a sore back from sleeping on an air mattress for two nights would be...immeasurable."

He chuckled as he switched on the air compressor to fill the mattress. "And the level of guilt I would feel for letting the person I invited here sleep on the floor is...even more immeasurable."

I scoffed. "You and your manners."

"I mean, you could fight me for it, I guess," he chuckled, rubbing his chin.

"I know you don't mean that, because you know I'd win," I shot back with a coy smirk.

Reid switched the air compressor off and lowered himself onto the side of his bed, absentmindedly running his hand over his well-worn comforter, hesitation in his eyes. "Well...we could always share the bed."

As I made a move to protest, he continued. "We've slept together in a smaller bed before. We'd both be comfortable, and it seems like a fair compromise to avoid immeasurable guilt for either of us."

I refused to reduce us to the one-bed trope, but I hated how much it made sense. I knew it, and I think he knew it too, his eyes bright as they moved up and down my body, waiting for my response.

"Fine," I sighed out, flopping down onto my back beside him on the bed. He let out a similar sigh before easing himself down beside me. Our shoulders just brushed as he moved to fold his hands on his chest, and I wished the feeling of him, even clothed and gentle, didn't set my insides on fire.

I wasn't sure how long we sat there, but when I managed to steal a glance at him, he was already looking at me. As if he was waiting for me to say or do something that would validate whatever was going on between us.

The sound of the doorbell rang throughout the house, and I'd never been more relieved for a distraction in my life. Reid sat up like he was shot out of a cannon, and fire was promptly extinguished.

"I...I think my cousins are here," he said with the slightest hesitation.

"We should go downstairs then," I blurted out with as little hesitation as possible. Anything to get out of Reid's room and out of his direct line of sight.

━━━━━━

After I'd gotten reacquainted with Reid's cousin Anna and his aunt Eva, along with an awkward introduction to Anna's boyfriend Frank (who did in fact assume I was Reid's girlfriend, yikes), I took the very necessary opportunity to be Missy's sous chef for dinner that night. Breakfast for dinner, as she gleefully informed me. Her sister and her family would be coming tomorrow, so we were only making biscuits and gravy for eight tonight.