Chapter 21
21
OLIVIA
“ I call the bed closest to the window!” Tuck exclaims as we walk down the narrow hallway on our floor.
“Fine,” I grumble.
“Unless it’s smaller. If the beds are different sizes, I call the bigger bed.”
“You got it.”
“Unless the bigger bed is harder. If one mattress is more comfortable than the other, I?—”
“Tuck!” I snap at him.
He stops in his tracks, turning his crooked grin on me. “Yes, roomie?”
“Please stop.”
He chuckles, and there’s just a hint of sympathy in the tone. “Relax, Olivia. You can have whatever bed you want. I know this is unexpected, but it won’t be so bad. We were able to share a tutoring room together, and that went just fine, didn’t it?”
My core clenches as I remember another enclosed space we shared: that dark hallway at Starlite. Pinpricks of arousal buzz all over me. It feels like someone just cranked the heat up to the max setting.
Tuck inserts the keycard into our door and pushes it open.
We step inside. Take a couple steps down the brief entryway, past the bathroom.
My breath catches in my chest.
I blink my eyes tight. Once. Twice. Several more times. Each time hoping that when I open them, I see something other than what’s in front of me.
Each time, I hope I see two beds.
But each time, I only see one .
Tuck and I stand there, luggage by our sides, looking at the one, single, solitary bed.
Time ticks by.
Then, Tuck laughs.
Tuck cracks up . Deep, booming guffaws trumpeting from his open mouth.
“This isn’t funny,” I say.
“Oh, come on,” he manages through bursts of laughter. “Yes, it is. It’s hilarious.”
I have half a mind to head back to my car and go home. This isn’t what I signed up for. I signed up for a relaxing weekend in a nice hotel room, alone and far away from all the stress in my life.
Instead, I’m sharing a one-bed hotel room with the number one source of that stress.
With a guy whose rugged, masculine scent is already lacing into my nose, diffusing through me and winding me tight, tempting my brain to go down dark, treacherous paths it has no business treading …
With a guy who knows what I feel like pressed against him, who felt me shudder as he made me come, who knows how the juices of my arousal taste …
A hot, tight feeling hums low in my center as my heartbeat leaps into my throat.
“I’ll just sleep on the floor,” Tuck says. “It’s no big deal.”
“You can’t sleep on the floor,” I counter. “Your back hurts, doesn’t it?”
Tuck’s eyebrows draw together, surprise curling on his face. “How do you know that?” Then, the surprise softens, and that signature grin of his breaks out. “Were you watching my game on Wednesday?”
I may have watched highlights.
“I heard Summer mention it,” I fib. “I guess she and Hudson talked about it.”
“Mhm,” Tuck hums, skeptically.
He took a really bad bodycheck against the dasher boards in the Black Bears’ last game on Wednesday. To add insult to injury, it was the first game they lost in a while. He looked like he was in a lot of pain. He had to sit out the rest of the game, which, given Tuck’s dedication to hockey, says a lot.
“Well, I’m fine,” he says. “The floor’s good enough for me. You take the bed. We’ll make it work.”
There’s a reassuring quality to his voice now, after he’s gotten all his laughs out. It’s like he genuinely doesn’t want to make me feel uncomfortable.
“If you need space to get changed or whatever, let me know, and I’ll go chill in the lobby or grab a drink at the hotel bar,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say. Tuck may love needling me, but he can be considerate when it counts. Can be. “I may take you up on that.” It would suck having to get changed into my dress in the confines of a hotel bathroom.
“In the meantime,” he says, a hint of gravel creeping into his voice, “why don’t you try out that bed? Let me know what I’m missing out on.”
After the last hour I’ve had, I wouldn’t mind lying flat on something soft right now …
So, I do. I turn around and fall back onto the mattress.
When I lift my head and meet Tuck’s gaze, his jaw muscles are flexing, nostrils flaring at the sight of me lying here.
“How is it?” he asks, the gravelly sound thicker now.
“Soft.” I scoot back until I can lay my head on the pillow. “Really nice, actually.”
“Hm,” Tuck hums. I notice the indentation of his tongue as he traces it slowly around his inner lips.
“Much better than the floor, I bet,” I quip, dipping my toe into joking around like we did before the car incident.
Tuck’s expression grows cloudy, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing on a swallow. “Guess I’ll never know.”
There’s something about the way he says that …
Tuck looks way too good in a tuxedo.
Way too good.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Tuck’s tall frame with his wide shoulders, trim waist, and lean muscles is a tailor’s wet dream. He was sure to look good dressed up.
But this good?
Women have been ogling him all night. Students from the other colleges, professors, administrators, donors, they’re all shamelessly getting an eyeful of Tuck McCoy. His cocky smile, wide and toothy and glimmering, makes it clear he notices, and doesn’t mind one bit.
He’s so at ease here. I guess growing up rich, he feels comfortable mingling at a glitzy affair where everyone’s dressed up with a flute of expensive champagne in their hands.
Me? I feel out of my element. I grew up in a much more bohemian atmosphere with my parents and their actor-slash-artist friends.
After a little while, though, I slide into the mingling groove. I talk with some students from a college in Maine, and they’re cool. I meet an art professor from a college in Massachusetts who spent time working in stage production on Broadway, and we have an interesting conversation.
Then comes the disaster of the evening: the dinner.
I assumed that an event like this would have great catering. I was wrong. The meat is chewy. The vegetables bland. The potatoes hard and undercooked.
Not only that, but there’s no dessert .
Who caters a fancy event and doesn’t even offer dessert!? Maybe I shouldn’t complain. Judging by the rest of the food, it’s not likely the dessert would be good, either. Hard to screw up dessert, but I suspect they’d find a way.
I hardly eat anything on my plate. Afterward, I have to sit through over an hour of monotonous post-dinner speeches by university administrators with a growling stomach.
There’s more mingling after the speeches. I have a couple more conversations, but quickly I’m starting to feel all mingled out.
I also notice that I haven’t seen Tuck around for a little while. I wonder if he ditched and went back to our room.
Our room .
My pulse stutters, chills dancing up and down my back.
Then a pang of guilt tugs at my chest. I’ve seen Tuck wince in pain a couple times tonight. He’s tried to hide it, but I’ve noticed. Especially when he lowered himself to sit down at his table for dinner. His hand has shot to the small of his back more than once this evening.
I can’t let him sleep on the floor. I’ll take the floor myself. He might put up a fight. He probably has some stupid idea of chivalry in that macho brain of his that says he can’t let a woman sleep on the floor.
Not that the antics he’s known for on campus have chivalry written all over them.
Still, I think he’s hurting bad enough that I’ll be able to force him to accept it.
Then, I spot him. Through the window panes of the closed French doors on the other side of the room, I see Tuck standing on the balcony. He’s got his forearms propped against a railing with his back turned.
When I step outside, I expect to be wrapped in the harsh cold of a New England night, barely able to stand it long enough to ask Tuck what he’s doing freezing himself to death out here.
But, instead, I’m greeted by the warmth of bronze-coated patio heaters. It makes this balcony comfortable even in my sleeveless dress, though I can still feel the crisp chill in the air. It’s nice.
I sidle next to him, mimicking his position as I lean forward and rest my arms against the stone railing.
“Needed a break?” I ask.
Tuck turns to me, and the smile that carves across his face makes my stomach flutter. His blue eyes light up, like he’s glad to see me.
It hits me that his eyes always light up like that. Every time his gaze settles on me. Like he’s truly, genuinely happy every time he sees me.
“Actually,” he drawls, “I just got back from a mission.”
I hitch an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“A very important, secret mission.”
“I’m afraid to ask.” I try to deadpan, but I can’t stop from grinning.
“I need a drum roll for this.”
I purse my lips, staring at him bemused.
He points to my hands resting on the stone railing. “Drum roll, Lockley,” he commands.
I huff a laugh, but I oblige. I pat the flats of my palms against the cold stone, gradually picking up my pace, until …
“Ta-dah!” Tuck exclaims, pulling two packets of Pretzel M&M’s from his pockets.
I gasp, greedily snatching one for myself.
He laughs. “That food really sucked, didn’t it?”
“I’ll say,” I agree. “Where’d you find these?”
“I wandered around the hotel checking vending machines. No luck there. Then I crossed the street and found a convenience store that sold them.”
My chest squeezes. He went wandering around in the cold just to buy a snack he knows I like?
“Oh, wait,” Tuck suddenly says, as if realizing something. “We have to do this right.”
He glances inside through the windows. He holds up his index finger as if to say he’ll be right back before dashing in. Then, about twenty seconds later, he returns with two champagne flutes.
He hands me one. We clink them together, and I don’t even fight the smile as I stand here on this heated balcony on a crisp winter night, drinking fancy champagne and eating Pretzel M&M’s with Tuck McCoy.
“The flavor of the champagne really complements the pretzel, doesn’t it?” Tuck says, holding his glass in front of him and swishing it around like a sommelier.
“Oh, yeah,” I laugh. “It’s a very complex and sophisticated flavor profile.”
It’s then that I realize something that should worry me—but it doesn’t.
I’m glad Tuck is here.