Love in the Time of Conversation Hearts (Holidays in Heartsong #1)

TEACHRZ PET

For how notoriously uncomfortable hotel beds typically are, I sleep like a rock. Blame it on the alcohol or my frayed nerves, but I have to force myself into consciousness at the summoning of my alarm clock.

I groan, snuggling deeper into my pillow. Only it’s not a pillow. It’s hard and prickly, and it smells like winter spices. My forehead crumples. I crack an eye open, and gray cotton greets me. Weird, I could’ve sworn these sheets were white.

I stretch each limb awake, pointing my toes and flexing my fingers. My left hand meets a warm, rigid expanse. When I sink my nails into it, I hear a yelp.

“Oh my God!” Jolting backward, I clutch the nearest thing I can find to my chest. A throw pillow, the one that was meant to be our divide, which was instead resting at the edge of my side of the bed.

Adam gazes up at me blearily. “Can you please turn off your alarm?”

Right. The foghorn blares along with my pulse, filling my head with whatever the heavy metal version of white noise is. I scramble for my phone, slamming the screen with my index finger several times until silence finally settles over the room.

My chest heaves like I’ve run a marathon. I glance back at Adam, eyes wide, to find a lazy smirk plastered on his face.

“So what part am I not meant to mention at work? The fact that we shared a bed, or that you tore down our barrier to get to me?” he asks.

“Oh. My. GOD,” I repeat, this time with a voice so shrill it could wake the guests in the neighboring rooms. I jam a finger in his direction. “Don’t tell a soul. Adam Sullivan, I swear, you will take this to your grave. Do you hear me?”

He holds up both hands, palms out. A picture of innocence, if he didn’t have smartass written plainly on his face. “Relax, Cora. I get it. I’m irresistible. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

The comforter pools at his hips, and the hem of his shirt hits just above his navel, thanks to my speedy escape. I swallow hard as I drag my eyes from the trail of dark hair that disappears beneath his waistband, back to his stubbled jaw and sleepy gaze, which notes my path with self-satisfaction.

I press my eyes closed for a moment while I take a deep breath. Calmer, I blink them open again. Big mistake, because he’s still there looking like that .

“I’m taking a shower.”

He rests his interlocked fingers over that exposed expanse of abdomen. “You showered last night.”

I slip out of bed, righting my bottoms that have gone askew. “Right. Two-showers-a-day Cora, that’s what they call me.”

“Who calls you that?”

I gather my clothes for the day and a makeup bag that I hope contains something strong enough to disguise my embarrassment. “Everyone. My friends. You don’t know them.”

He quirks a brow. “You mean Lauren, Dorothy, Charlotte, and Aubrey? Did I miss anyone?”

“Why do you have my friends’ names memorized?” I ask, pausing halfway to the bathroom door.

“So I can fact check when you say ridiculous things like that.”

A groan rumbles my throat. I’m not continuing this discussion, not with him. Not while he looks like sex warmed up and topped with ice cream. “Be dressed when I get out,” I say through gritted teeth.

He scratches his jaw again, the scrape of his stubble sending a chill down my spine. “Or what?”

I bite down on the inside of my cheek. How did the dynamic between us flip so quickly? A little over a week ago, we were verbally sparring on the floor of the elementary school gymnasium, fighting for what we believed was best for our city. The picture of professionalism, albeit with a sprinkle of animosity.

Now he’s lying in the bed we shared, a dare in his gaze. Heat settles at the base of my spine where I can still feel his touch from last night. My thighs clench tight. Whatever Adam is doing to me, I don’t like it one bit.

I don’t trust my voice not to convey the thoughts I’d much rather keep sequestered to my brain, so I simply turn my head and charge into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me as I go. It takes the blast of the shower turned all the way up to drown out his smug chuckle.

Booking us into entirely different seminars almost gets Bianca back in my good graces.

Almost. She did make me sleep next to my coworker, after all.

I shudder at that thought as I settle into yet another hard plastic seat in a ballroom-turned-classroom for my last session of the day, a presentation on the pitfalls of tourism in a community and how to avoid them. I should be excited. Or, at the very least, intrigued. But I’m at the end of my attention-span’s rope. My feet ache, my head is pounding, and I’m already dreading another night next to Adam. The last thing I care about are Heartsong’s pits.

Just as the presenter is taking the stage, the empty chair to my right grinds against the floor. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Well, it was empty before Adam’s cocky self took it over. A quick sidelong glance tells me that, much like the armchair in our room, he has to fold himself awkwardly to fit into the thing. Serves him right. I hope his back hurts tonight from all the hunching.

“Don’t you have another leadership summit to attend?” I mutter. While I’ve spent my day learning about the most impactful approaches to beautification and the top ten ways to bring new blood to your downtown, Adam’s been completely booked with seminars centered around being the face of a small town. I snort to myself. Glad one of us is working on the important stuff.

“I snuck in. If I had to listen to one more smarmy guy chat about how to better your golf game, my brain was going to melt.”

I turn to face him fully, brows furrowed. “Are we even attending the same conference?”

A woman my grandmother’s age shushes us from over her shoulder. The presenter, a city planner from upstate, is only just getting into the ice breakers, but okay, Granny.

Adam obliges her by leaning closer to me and lowering his voice to a spine-tingling octave. “Can I borrow some paper?”

I thumb the corner of my notebook, sparing a look at his empty lap. “You don’t even have a pen.”

“Can I borrow one of those, too?” His smile is disarming when I glance at him. It’s the grin of a grown man who was once a little boy who got everything he wanted and then some.

I scowl, and it steels some of my insides that had turned to jelly. Much as I wish I were immune, my newfound awareness of Adam leaves me especially susceptible to his charms. Being angry at him gives me some of that power back—power I desperately need to face the next twenty-four hours with him.

“You were that kid in class, huh?” I say as I rip a sheet from my notebook and pass it to him along with my pen. I note that it’s glittery and pink with a pleased hmph.

He doesn’t even flinch, propping the sheet on his knee and writing the name of the seminar at the top in perfect script. Of course he has beautiful handwriting. The universe is truly unfair.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he whispers, his breath trickling through my curls and trailing down my throat.

I shiver and send up a silent thanks to the universe that my suit jacket covers the goosebumps suddenly pricking my arms. “You lacked preparedness.”

He snorts softly. “Preparedness is literally what I do for a living.”

“What does preparedness have to do with being a mayor?” I snipe.

“All the problems with that question notwithstanding,” he says, offering me a withering look, “I was referring to my real job. Risk analysis, remember? Preparedness is the cornerstone of what I do.”

When I don’t respond immediately, he adds, “Also can we please agree to stop using the word ‘preparedness’? I’m pretty sure we’ve met our lifetime quota in this one conversation.”

I roll my eyes, more annoyed that he’s got a legitimate point than anything. “So what’s your excuse then? For not being prepared today?”

He shudders, like even getting that close was enough to irk him. Good. At least I’ve found my safe word. Adam gets too close? Say preparedness. Adam looks too sexy in his form-fitting slacks and rolled up shirt sleeves? Preparedness. Puffs himself up like a pigeon? Preparedness, preparedness, preparedness.

“Would you two please pipe down?” Granny says, turning to glare in our direction. “Some of us are actually trying to learn.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” Adam says, flashing her a smile so wide his pretty, white teeth are on display. “Won’t happen again.”

The woman practically melts into her knickers. By the time she turns to face forward, her cheeks are lit up red.

I think the matter is resolved, and I can finally get back to paying attention. Perhaps actually learn a thing or two. But as I bend to retrieve a new pen for myself from my purse, Adam pins my forearm with his large, warm hand and leans close, lips brushing my ear as he says, “My day started off a little differently. Not quite a rude awakening, but an awakening nonetheless. That’s why I’m not prepared. ”

He releases my arm and leans back in his tiny chair, relaxed and self-assured as always. His jaw is set, gaze focused on the speaker at the front of the room. None of the turmoil I feel twisting my stomach is reflected in his expression.

My mind latches onto the word “awakening.” I turn it over and over until it neither looks nor sounds like anything I’ve heard before. And yet, it makes perfect sense, because awake is exactly how I feel right now. Every nerve ending is so finely attuned to Adam. His movements. His breathy laughs. His polite nods. For the entire seminar, I don’t write a single thing down. I’m too busy taking mental notes on everything that Adam Sullivan does.

In the blink of an eye, the overhead lights are buzzing to life. Everyone stands, chairs scrubbing the floor and voices rising to a dull roar. Adam shakes the hand of the old lady in front of us, who introduces herself as a councilwoman from a small town bordering the Bay Area. I nod politely when cued, but don’t dare speak. I’m so sure that if I do, I’ll confess my newfound secret and doom us all.

Instead, the moment another mayor grabs Adam’s attention, I make my escape, shooting a gap in the crowd that blocks the exit. I bypass the line at the nearby restrooms and instead take quick, aching strides to the other end of the event hall, where a single stall restroom sits empty in a lonely alcove.

I lock the door and take a seat on the closed toilet lid. My phone lights up with notifications as I power it on and fire off a text to Lauren.

Cora: I think I'm into Mayor Skinny Jeans.

In a matter of seconds, my phone vibrates with her response. But when I glance at the message, my heart seizes.

I texted the damn book club group chat.