There is something to be said for someone who dances half naked to The Police, Cranberries, and REM in the middle of the night on the back porch, looking in at me through the screen slider, without saying anything, just looking at me in his bed. And I sure looked back.
The first time we stayed together overnight, I was drifting off around midnight and he was moving around the room for what seemed like hours. He’d climb in with me and wrap his arms around me and breathe into my neck and sing lyrics of songs, under his breath, that were playing softly over the speakers.
And then he would be gone again. Standing out on the porch off his bedroom, I could see him looking up and murmuring on about Mackerel Sky and saying something through the screen about not being able to sleep because he wanted to just keep seeing me there.
And then later, he turned off the stereo and he climbed into bed and suddenly, his hand came up to my ear with his small bud earphones to his mp3 player and he held them there. In a half sleep, I listen to The Cranberries sing Never Grow Old for the first time. It was the night after a lovely perfect day together. And there were more before that. There have been more since.
His shoulder had been bothering him from an injury last year and he’d mentioned it hurt when he slept a certain way.
So, after some time, I’d been sleeping on a particular side of the bed and one night, he gently moved me over to his side and then moved to where I had been.
He put his other arm around me and grabbed my hand and pushed his legs into the backs of mine and went back to sleep, breathing on the side of my face.
He whispered, “if I move to this side, I can sleep with my arm around you without it hurting.”
I love that he did it ... with purpose. And that he told me why. He didn’t just move away from me. Or push me away. He made it work.
