Chapter 29 #2
Ever since we closed ourselves in our room—a clean but generic hotel room with a white comforter covered queen sized bed that drew my eyes like a magnet—every glance and movement has felt so loaded with something, so strained, that I feel like I’m losing my damn mind.
We’ve barely said two words to each other.
I could chalk it up to both of us being tired. It’s not that late, but the drive with Janice was exhausting, and the check-in fiasco was…a fiasco.
Maybe sharing a bed feels awkward to Myles.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
There’s a never-ending list of things I could attribute the tension I’m feeling to, but at some point, what if it really is…tension?
Maybe he misses Rachel.
We’re each lying at pretty much the edge of our sides of the bed, but, especially with how broad Myles’s shoulders are, this doesn’t leave all that much space between us.
He’s wearing a pair of flannel—of course they’re flannel—pajama pants that perfectly hug his thick thighs and ass, paired with a deliciously skintight white undershirt that leaves nothing to the imagination when it comes to his gorgeous chest, cut abs, and narrow waist.
And ohhmigod, do not even get me started on the way the sleevelessness of that undershirt shows off the bulging swell of his arms and toned bulk of those shoulders of his. All that firm, golden-tan skin and hard muscle on display…
I’d had to look away from the moment he’d walked out of the bathroom to keep from drooling. Drooling, and springing a boner that would have been waaayy too obvious in the thin satin pj pants and cropped tee I’m now seriously regretting having chosen to bring as my only sleepwear.
Neither of us have said a word since we got into bed, but from the way Myles is breathing, I’m sure he’s as awake as I am.
Cautiously, I roll to the side, scooting back toward the edge of the bed so my movements don’t bring me any closer to him.
My pulse is doing crazy, erratic things that make my head swim, but I need to squash the ridiculous hopes that just won’t give up overshadowing the reality I know I need to face. “I have something I want to ask you.”
Through the darkness, I can hear the click of Myles’s hard swallow, and, even though it’s dumb because I can’t actually see him anyway, I close my eyes against the mental image of the way his Adam’s apple must have moved in his throat.
How badly I want to run my fingers down the column of his neck and feel that movement for myself—
“Yeah?”
It’s got to just be my mind playing tricks on me that makes that single word exactly the same as I’d thought it had sounded down in the lobby, when I’d told him the clerk wasn’t my type.
“I—” Ohmigod, there’s no way to put this that doesn’t make me sound like some sort of crazy stalker.
“I took a walk on the trails in the park. Across the street from the school? On Sunday, the weekend before last. I saw you and Rachel Beck there, and I—” Ugghh, this is horrible.
So much worse than clinging to irrational hope, because now I sound like a jealous lover, making an accusation and that is so totally not how I mean this.
“You don’t have to tell me stuff you don’t want to, obviously, but you’re my friend, Myles, and I’m happy for you if there’s something going on between the two of you. ”
There, that didn’t sound too bad, did it?
But ugh, what if that’s just wishful thinking and it did…
Across the empty space of bed, Myles lets out a strange little bark of a laugh as he pushes up on one elbow, totally ignoring the way that it’s him closing the distance between us.
He smells like mint toothpaste and that foresty, piney smell that I’m guessing is his deodorant since he literally always smells like it.
“There’s nothing going on between Rach and me, Charlie. She’s seeing some guy who lives in Tacoma, and before I knew that, I’d been avoiding her because I’d thought she was trying to start something up again, and that was the last thing I wanted. Turns out she wasn’t though. Not at all.
“I had some—” he hesitates, and I swear I can hear his breathing pick up, or maybe that’s my own because ohmigod, if what I saw wasn’t what I’d thought, then what does that mean about everything else I’ve been picking up on?
Everything between us? Ohmigod— “I had something on my mind that day, and Rach texted and wanted to hang out, and I ended up unloading it all on her.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” Another hard swallow through the darkness. “Yeah, I think it is.”
“You know you can always talk to me about anything, right?” Crap, did that sound whiny? Jealous?
“I know, Charlie.” The softness in his voice as he lies back down sends a warm shiver down my spine. “I’ve always known that.” A pause, so long I start wondering if I should say something, and then, “I’ll be ready to talk about it soon. But I promise, everything’s okay.”
Ohmigod, the places my mind is going. Catastrophic places with medical issues and illnesses. Plans to leave Riverside sooner than he’d originally intended. Plans never to leave at all. Secrets and bad news and good news.
Me.
No matter how many times I surreptitiously wipe my palms on the sheet, I can’t get the clamminess to stop. My brain and my body are buzzing frantically with nerves and fear and hope, and it’s all I can do to whisper, “You promise it’s nothing bad?”
I can hear the movement as he shakes his head against his pillow. “Promise.”
Some of the fear and worry calms, leaving room for more and more blazing, incandescent hope to build in my chest until I can barely breathe.
It takes every ounce of my willpower to keep from prying. To keep from asking the question that won’t stop hijacking every attempt I make to turn my thoughts in any other direction.
Neither of us say another word, but unless I’m totally wrong, he lies awake at my side every bit as long as it takes for me to finally drift off.