Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
WEST
It never even occurred to me that I’d be sharing a room with Blue on this overnight trip. You’d think a man with multiple businesses, hundreds of employees, and a penthouse view of the Atlanta skyline would’ve put that together.
But no. Apparently I left my intelligence back in Harmony Haven. Of course Easton wouldn’t book two rooms for a married couple. Why would he? I wasn’t mad. I was just quietly panicking, like a gentleman.
Somehow I’d gone from the space of my penthouse, to the thin walls of the lake house, down to no walls and a thin sheet. I wasn’t childish enough to think two grown adults couldn’t share a bed. Normal, emotionally adjusted adults probably did it all the time. But I wasn’t normal.
Nighttime was when the darkness hit the loudest. When the mask came off. When the ghosts showed up and sat on my chest until I couldn’t breathe.
I didn’t sleep easily. And when I did, I didn’t do it well.
“Are you freaking out right now?” Blue’s voice snapped me out of my spiral.
I schooled my expression and pasted on what I hoped passed for a casual smile. “Not at all.”
Lie. Giant, neon-lit lie. “We’re adults. I doubt you have cooties.”
Did I just say the word cooties out loud?
She raised an eyebrow wanting to laugh at me, but somehow stopped herself.
“I probably won’t even sleep, though,” I shrugged like it was no big deal. “We will get back and I’ll need to work.”
“Work? After a concert, and a full day of pretending to be married? You’re really going to have the energy to work?” she asked, unconvinced.
“It’s what I do.” I shrugged, as if that explained everything.
Blue set her bag down by the bathroom door and wiped a hand across her brow. “Well, while you do whatever it is you do, I’m going to do what I do.” She held up the plush white robe like she’d just won a prize. “And that’s soaking in that giant bathtub until I feel like a new woman.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Go enjoy yourself.”
She gave me a tiny wave and disappeared into the bathroom, the door clicking shut behind her with an obnoxiously final sound.
Idiotically, I turned in a slow circle. There was nowhere to pace. The room was nice, but not exactly large. There was a dinette with two chairs that were probably more expensive than they were comfortable. But there was no couch, no big soft chair to sink into and pretend I wasn’t unraveling.
Loosening the top button of my shirt, I walked to the balcony, the cool ocean breeze hitting me like a reset button. I braced my hands on the railing and tried to focus on anything but the fact that Blue was ten feet away, naked in a clawfoot tub.
I didn’t know how the hell I was going to survive the night. The whole trip was more complicated than I thought it would be.
Nights were supposed to be my time. My hours. When the world quieted down and I could slip into that part of myself no one ever saw. The part that didn’t have to speak, or smile, or perform. The part that let the guilt in. The grief. The rage. All of it.
I needed the silence and the space to sit in it, let it bleed out of me inch by inch. And now I was supposed to lie next to her? Pretend to sleep while she breathed beside me? As though we were just two normal people doing something normal: sharing a bed on vacation.
She was already distracting me in ways I couldn’t afford. And not just because she was magnetic and chaotic in all the ways I wasn’t. But because she seemed to see right through me. She asked questions I didn’t want to answer. Looked at me like she wanted to solve all the puzzles inside my chest.
I couldn’t hide. Not in this tiny room.
Not with the sound of her laughter echoing from the bathroom. Not with the scent of her shampoo drifting through the air like temptation.
I clenched the railing and closed my eyes. It’s just one night. I could survive one night.
Right?