“I’ll make it work,” I said with a sigh, dropping my duffel on the floor. “Sat on my ass all day and I’m still beat.”

“You can have the bathroom first,” she said with a small smile of thanks when I set her bag down in front of her.

“I’ll be quick,” I replied. Normally, I’d insist that Sarai go first, but I wanted to check it out before Sarai got in there. I’d seen some nasty hotel bathrooms.

Thankfully they really had just remodeled our room, and that included the bathroom—everything was clean and bright. As I looked around, I grimaced at myself in the mirror. I was still growing my beard because I finally could, but I looked like a damn hobo.

After taking care of business and a quick shower, I wrapped a towel around my waist and went back into the room to find Sarai sitting on the bed. She wasn’t watching TV or playing on her phone. She was just staring at nothing as she ran one finger back and forth over the edge of her cast.

“You okay?” I asked, trying not to let her hear the worry in my voice. I knew that just because we’d left our apartment behind, she wasn’t going to suddenly turn into the woman I’d married, but I’d hoped for some change, no matter how little it was.

“I’m fine,” she said, turning to look at me. “Are you all done in there?”

I nodded.

As she walked into the bathroom, I realized something. Sarai was wearing makeup for the first time in weeks. I smiled a little to myself as I pulled the sheets to the foot of the bed, checking for critters. Maybe leaving the apartment had helped.

I was rethinking that an hour later as Sarai and I tried to get comfortable on the bed. I hadn’t touched my wife, really touched her, in more weeks than I cared to think about, and trying to keep my body away from hers on that bed was nearly impossible. When I tried to roll onto my side, my ass pressed against her hip. If I rolled onto my back, our elbows bumped into each other and my shoulder pressed against hers. When she rolled onto her side, it was even worse. There was no way in hell that I’d be able to sleep with her ass pressed against me.

There was nowhere to go. The clerk had said they were buying a second new mattress for the room, but they clearly hadn’t replaced the one we were sleeping on. It sank down so far in the center that unless we held on to the edges, we naturally slid toward each other. Sarai was doing her damnedest to keep some space between us, but it wasn’t working, and her anxiety was feeding my own.