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Jake’s favourite sleeping position involves being on Amy.
He likes to curl around her with an arm around her middle and the other under her pillow and a leg hooked over one of hers. She’s soft and cuddly. His favourite pillows are her boobs—they’re extra soft.
That’s his all time favourite because it’s comfortable, and the steady rhythm of the inner workings of her body under his ear lulls him to sleep.
But on tough days… when it seems like nothing could go right or he’s reminded of how much the world can hurt you, he prefers Amy wrapped around him.
Which is how he finds himself tonight: Jake on his side and Amy pushed up against him from behind with her cheek pressed against the back of his left shoulder, her arms squeezing his middle and her thighs cradling his sore butt. He can feel the steady pressure in the middle of his back as she breathes against him, tickling the back of his neck.
It’s a simple thing, if you think about it. The innocent physical human reassurances. A hug, a smile, a kiss. Being wrapped around warm arms distracts him from scary thoughts and scarier realities. It’s a simple thing, but it means the world, reassuring him that in this moment right here, he’s safe; he’s loved. It’s nice to feel like he’s wanted.
He likes her a little more that he didn’t have to ask this time. As soon as they crawled into bed and got under the covers, Amy shifted over and pulled him back into her. It’s no secret he likes to be the little spoon. It calms him, like a nice heavy blanket against his nerves. Makes him feel safe, grounded and protected—if only for a night—from whatever it is that has him stressed out. Jake knows she like her personal space, especially when she’s sleeping, so it feels extra good when she makes the first move and reaches for him.
(Sometimes he pretends Amy’s holding onto him because she needs him the way he needs her. Pretends she’s clinging to him because he’s her anchor and she’s afraid he’d drift away when she’s asleep.)
(He made a joke once while she was spooning him one Monday night, about how the way she was clinging to him reminded him of a Koala and asked her to make the sound Koalas do. “What the heck does a Koala sound like?” she asked.
He shrugged, but then let out a strained, “Greowrr!”
She laughed so hard right into his ear, and it was almost worth the could-have-been-permanent loss of hearing because she held onto him so tight while her whole body jerked with the force of her laughter.)
Amy’s hand smoothes across his right pec and he wishes he could feel her touch without the barrier of his t-shirt.
“You scared me today,” she murmurs, peppering light kisses along the length of his shoulders.
He shuts his eyes, wincing in embarrassment. Today was not his finest hour. Her punk nephew was baiting him and Jake knew it, but he couldn’t take it lying down, especially since Amy was standing right there. “Yeah.”
“When you fell off the skateboard and into the pool. There was a crack and I thought… I’m just glad you’re okay.”
(Jake walked away with a scraped elbow and a bruised butt. Charlie’s skateboard, however, was broken in two when Jake landed on it. Boy, was he maaaad.)
“The biggest idiot alive,” she ripostes without bite. “But you’re—”
“But I’m your biggest idiot?” he interjects cheekily, and he doesn’t have to see her face to know that she’s doing that side-eye, pursed lip why-do-I-put-up-with-you look, and… cue the moving-on sigh.
“Alive,” she finishes dully, curling herself around him more.
He grins and dips his chin to press a smiling kiss to the closest part of her he can reach, which is the bone of her wrist.
“You need to promise me.”
“Promise what?”
“I know you’re not going to stop doing dumb things, but I need you to promise you’ll at least try.”
He squirms around in her embrace, careful of his bandaged elbow, and shoves his face into the space between her neck and the pillow they’re sharing. “Promise.”
“I mean it,” she says, her voice deep and loud, and he can feel her chest vibrate against his collarbone with every word.
He tilts his head back to look up at her frowning face and bumps his nose against her chin to get her to quit that. When she only deepens the crease between her brows, he sighs. “Ames, I promise.”
“I worry about you,” she murmurs, dropping forward to rest her forehead against his.
“I know you do,” he replies just as quietly, eyes sliding shut. “That’s why I only tell you about half of the things I do.”
A hand slides from his back to pinch his cheek before it hides in the hair at the back of his head.
“Kidding,” he grins. “I like that you worry about me, but you don’t have to.”
Jake knows how reckless he can be sometimes, and being in his line of work, he’s privy to the dangers of how quickly everything you know and love can change in the blink of an eye. So much of his life is caught up in a storm that the idea of an epic love—of a passion that angers the gods and great obstacles like fighting dragons to get to your love… It sounds cool, but doesn’t appeal to him; he doesn’t want that.
No, Jake wants to feel safe and stable—he needs the calm in the centre of all the craziness. He thinks that’s how and why he fell in love with Amy—she’s sharing inside jokes, warm nights fighting over the TV controller and hand holding down the street. Amy’s arguing about stupid things like dirty laundry on the floor, Harry Potter theories and the smell of bacon and coffee in the morning.
She may be soft and cuddly in all the right places, but he knows—can feel—the strength she carries beneath. In the way her arms hold him, the firm length of her torso along his back, and, if he’s still and concentrates enough, the beat of her heart.
But Jake can be the little spoon with anyone and feel safe. With Amy, he doesn’t have to cuddle with her to feel that way. Around Amy, he just does.