CHAPTER 12
SHERIDAN
“Do you mind if I stay with Gem tonight?”
I’ve just got out of the shower, hair wrapped in a T-shirt to keep the curls bouncing, and only a towel covering me. The day’s heat finally got to me, and while I managed to keep from getting sunburn—a first, I will admit—I felt disgusting after sweating and baking all day.
“Sure, I don’t mind.” She’s a better friend than I am. I love having a room to myself.
We’ve not long been back at the cabin. We went out for dinner rather than staying in for the first time since we got here, which was a welcome reprieve from cooking. As much as I enjoy it, cooking for ten people as opposed to just myself has started to become exhausting.
Having to share a bed every night when I usually get one to myself is also strange. My sister’s desire to swap rooms for the night means I get to starfish in the middle again. If she told me she was staying in Gemma’s room for the rest of the holiday, I still wouldn’t be mad.
I change into the pyjamas I’ve been wearing—a thin vest and shorts combo that keeps the heat off me. I’ve always really struggled to sleep in the heat.
“What were you and Myles drawing earlier?” Brin asks when I perch next to her on the edge of the bed. “You were with each other for ages.”
I try not to blush at the memory of sitting with Myles next to the lake. Fidgety as I might have been while he was drawing me—no one has ever chosen to draw my portrait before—I was still surprised to find myself so content. Plus, Myles is an incredible artist—all sharp lines and shading. I could tell by the way he held his pencil and twitched his fingers that he’s probably better with charcoal, but his pencil skills were not lacking. I’d love to see what he could do with a bit of flint. I can just imagine him with dirty fingers and black smudges on his face and arms. The mental image alone turns me on something fierce. I think I need help.
“We did portraits.”
“Of each other?”
“Yeah.”
Brinsley visibly fights a smile and fails. “That’s so fucking cute.”
I give her a disgruntled nose wrinkle. “Whatever.”
“It is! God, I so love this. Can you get together please?”
My retort comes out spluttered, “I barely know the guy!”
“So? You’re on holiday together! That’s one awkward milestone out of the way.”
I shake my head at her and unwrap my hair. Brinsley, ever the mother hen, takes out my detangling brush and starts teasing it through my curls.
“I’m rooting for this, by the way. Myles is lovely. Smart. Handsome. And your type to a T.”
“You keep saying that,” I grumble. “What even is my type? I didn’t know I had one.”
“Sure, you do! He’s got a tennis player’s body. Tall, lithe but with a bit of muscle yet not too much. I think you favour fairer hair, too.”
I can’t help but frown as I think her words through, because fuck, she might be right.
“And his tattoos?” Brin continues to gush. “Not my thing entirely, but the fact that you don’t know they’re there unless he takes his top off? Whew! Tell me you don’t fancy the pants off him.”
I want to rebuke, I really do. I hate people knowing when I’ve got a crush, because the recipient of said crush finding out and rejecting me is one of my greatest fears. Even in adulthood. But denying that I ‘fancy the pants off him’, as my twin so eloquently put it, is difficult, because I really do. And it’s not just because he’s attractive, but because he’s a nice person as well. Nice is such a shit word sometimes, but being known as a nice person is one of the best attributes someone can have.
“He’s not ugly,” I finally admit.
“A ringing endorsement there, Shez.” Brin snorts.
I shrug. “I try.”
My sister sighs, finishing with my hair and wraps her arms around my chest. “I know you, Sheridan Bennett, we shared a womb and a freaking sack of water for nine months before we even saw daylight. I know when you like a boy, and you like Myles. But I know what you’re like, so I’m gonna shut up. That being said, if you ever feel like talking shop, you know where to find me.”
“Noted. Thanks Brin.”
She unlatches from me with a kiss on my cheek and leaves me be, with only Hector for company.
I’m not overly tired yet, so I tuck myself under the covers and turn on the TV on a low volume. Apart from shitty morning television, I haven’t properly put it on yet. According to the facilities booklet in the bedside table drawer, there’s Netflix available to all guests, so I navigate my way to it and pick something easy to watch: QI.
Now that Brin is sleeping elsewhere, Hector decides it’s okay to sleep with me again on the bed. He curls up at the bottom by my feet and starts snoring away.
I fiddle with my phone while only half paying attention to the facts Stephen Fry provides on screen. Did you know that right up until 1912, pottery and sculpting were actual Olympic events? Also, Olympic medals are not made of gold, silver and bronze, but mostly silver.
I get through three episodes before I realise that I’m showing no signs of fatigue. I’m wide awake even though my body is exhausted.
Admittedly, I keep thinking back to earlier when I was drawing Myles. He’d just sat there, patient as a saint while I revelled in sketching his perfect face. I remember my mouth watering as I built on the lines of his stubble, and the shadow of his cheek bones, the hazel of his eyes. That was one aspect I wasn’t happy with. Trying to capture the lushness of his eye colour with a monochrome pencil had been difficult, but when I’d turned the pad around to show him, he seemed thrilled with it.
Then he asked me if I was going to give that one to my mother as well, and I’d cracked up.
I love that he can make me laugh.
Some men didn’t have a solid sense of humour, and others—like Brin’s boyfriend Andy—didn’t have one at all. My ex-boyfriend carried all of his humour in his little finger, and that had nothing to do with why we broke up.
I realise now that I’m smiling thinking about my afternoon on the beach.
Something had clearly been bothering Myles in the morning, because he disappeared after what looked to be a short but heated discussion with Beau. No, I couldn’t help but look for him the whole time while pretending to be invested in a word search. When he’d come back an hour later and headed straight for the lake, I was relieved, and then at once horrified when he dunked his head in the water and re-emerged looking like the version of him that had existed in my dreams each night this week. That had been my cue to look away, and so I made Nash keep me topped up with suncream while I worked on my freckle tan and kept my eyes firmly off the blond Adonis.
I roll onto my back, QI forgotten, and spread my arms and legs wide while staring at the ceiling, but I’m thinking about Myles and what he looked like coming out of the water. A sigh escapes me, because those water droplets glistening down his torso and dripping off the tips of his hair and hem of his board shorts were practically pornographic.
If I was brave, I’d slip my hand into my shorts and get myself off to the image of him that way. But I’m not brave, and the thought of Brin deciding to come back, or one of my brothers barging in here for something makes the feat seem futile.
When the credits roll on yet another episode, I realise I won’t be getting any sleep at all tonight without help.
I need a nightcap.
I didn’t realise that turning twenty-five meant receiving the mantle of ‘pensioner’ at the same time. I’ve never needed a nightcap in my Goddamn life.
Hector is sound asleep when I sit up again, which makes it much easier to sneak out of the room without getting waylaid. I slip out the door and into the hall, and then walk on practical tiptoes to the kitchen. Knowing Myles is still having to sleep on the sofa, I’m conscious of waking him if he’s asleep.
When I round the corner into the main cabin space, I halt.
In only his boxers and nothing else, Myles stands in front of the open fridge eating what looks to be a Babybel. I hope they’re not from Brin’s stash, because if she finds out she’ll skin him alive.
He hasn’t noticed me yet and I don’t know what to do. Ideally, I should move, because if he catches me gawking at him in the dark, he’s going to think I’m a complete freak. That is of course, if like most other people who meet me, he doesn’t already think that.
But I’m enraptured by his damn body again. That broad chest decorated in tattoos that look sinister in the dim fridge light. His hairy calves and muscular thighs. My mouth waters. Again. I find myself wondering what his fitness regime is. He must have one if he looks this good, and yet I don’t think I’ve seen him exercise all week, and he’s here helping himself to a little midnight snack. Cheese, no less. The man must enjoy having nightmares.
No, wait…
QItaught me once that cheese before bed giving you nightmares is a myth.
Huh.
Alright, so he just really likes cheese in general. A man after my own heart.
He tosses the wax into the bin and turns back to study the contents of the fridge, all the while scratching his chest.
“You gonna stand there all night, Shez, or are you gonna do what you came out here to do?”
Bollocks.
Light on my feet, I may be, but I’d make a shit spy.
“Sorry,” I mutter, finally stepping into the room.
He smiles over his shoulder at me, his gaze trailing down my body.
Maybe I should have put a T-shirt on, though it would have done nothing to hide how tight my nipples have become. Traitors. My face is on fire.
“And here I thought I was the only one who got midnight munchies.” He jokes as he takes out a chocolate mousse—again, from Brinsley’s collection—and knocks the fridge door shut.
“Technically you are.” I slide my way around the counter. “I’m not hungry.”
It’s probably my overactive imagination, but I swear his eyes flare. “No?”
I shake my head. “Nope. I couldn’t sleep.”
“And…” He rips the foil lid off the plastic pot and discards it, “you thought I’d be better company?”
His tone is more curious than arrogant, if a little hopeful. Like he wants to believe it but doesn’t.
“Yes, that was it, Myles.” I give a patronising pat to his chest, and then instantly regret it, because wow this man is as solid as a brick fucking wall. “Not the two fingers of whisky that can get me to sleep.”
“Are you an eighty-year-old man?”
I snort, because that had basically been my earlier thought. “Apparently.”
I can feel his gaze on me as I reach up into a high cupboard for a tumbler, set it on the counter and pour out a rough measure.
“How come you’re still up?” Myles asks when I turn to face him. He eats his mousse with a teaspoon.
“Just couldn’t sleep. I don’t know why, just don’t feel very tired.”
“Well, you’re on holiday. You don’t have to get up in the morning.”
“I know. But I’ll hate myself tomorrow when I’m knackered because I let my body do whatever it wants. Watching the telly hasn’t done anything for me so I thought a nightcap would work better.”
Myles’s gaze travels south again when I mention my body—a poor choice of words on my part—and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. Knowing that there is a possibility the attraction is mutual, I feel a hell of a lot better about myself.
“You could try turning the telly off.” He suggests, voice somewhat coarser than it was not fifteen seconds before.
Definitelymutual, I think.
I stick my tongue out at him regardless, and he chuckles. I take a sip of whisky, if only to calm the sudden rapid beating of my heart. It doesn’t help.
“Why are you awake?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep either. Then I got hungry.
“What a pair we make.” I raise my glass, and he clinks his mousse pot against it, which just makes me giggle.
God, I am pathetic.
“So, what riveting TV were you watching to keep you up so late?”
“QI.”
Myles studies me for a moment. “Why does that make complete sense?”
I scoff. “I’m actually missing the next episode, so can we wrap it up, please?”
He taps the end of his teaspoon to his lips. “Only if I can join you.”
My stomach does an Olympic gymnast-worthy somersault, and I gawk at him a bit. “You want to watch QI with me?”
“Sure, why not? I’m about to become a teacher, and I won’t be a very good one if I’m not a font of mostly useless knowledge, will I?”
Fuck, I want this man.
That desire strikes me across the face like a well-placed slap.
If he’s not careful, I might end up falling in love with him.
Because I don’t want to look like a besotted moron, I pretend to think it over, even if I only manage a second. “Fine, but I don’t do snacks in bed, so eat up.”
“You don’t do snacks in bed?” He asks, as if I just confessed to a cardinal sin.
“No, ew.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want crumbs in my sheets! I’m sleeping there.” I finally neck my glass of whisky and leave the glass in the sink.
His gaze narrows in on me. “You’re weird.”
“Dur.”
Myles drags a hand down his face. “That was insulting, I’m sorry.”
I make a washy noise. “I’m not insulted.”
We head for the bedroom, Myles close behind me. I can feel his warmth at my back, even though we’re not touching. I realise he doesn’t bother to put a T-shirt, or even jogging bottoms on. Just follows me into the room in his pants and nothing else.
Fuck.
He doesn’t speak again until we’re in the bedroom with the door closed. “I do actually like your weird, you know.”
“Good to know. I like your weird, too.”
“And what about me is weird?”
I get comfortable under the quilt again, being careful not to disturb Hector who hasn’t moved an inch since I left the room.
“I don’t know yet,” I admit. “But when I figure it out, I know I’ll like it.”
Myles settles down beside me on Brinsley’s usual side, except he sticks to the top of the covers like a freaking gent. I’m not ashamed to say I wish he’d get under the covers with me, but this is nice all the same. He tucks his hands behind his head, stretching out his body, and the urge to nestle against him is instantaneous and overwhelming. All that lean muscle on his chest and arms and thighs on display for me like a sexy-limbed buffet. A real feast for the eyes.
“You put an awful lot of faith in me, Birdie.”
I blink up at him, tearing my gaze away from his assets. “Birdie?”
He seems surprised at his own remark, then recovers. “Yeah, Birdie. ‘Cause of your tattoos.”
I am not swooning. I’m not. “Sure she’s not an ex of yours?”
He meets my gaze, expression soft yet confident. “I’d never get you mixed up with anyone, Sheridan.”
Welp. “Not even my own twin?”
Myles grins. “Nope.”
“What if we dressed up exactly the same and I covered all my tattoos up with makeup?”
“I’d still know.”
“How?”I demand, scowling now. “We’re identical.”
“That,” he leans forward and boops me on the nose, “is for me to know.”
I make a disbelieving sound. “Such confidence from a man who barely knows me.”
“I’ve been looking at you and your sister for five days. Physically, I’ve learnt your differences.”
“Sure, Jan.”
“Look, I’m missing out on important facts because of you.” He points at the TV.
With a huff, I turn my gaze back to the telly.
We watch in content silence for a while, only occasionally laughing at something one of the panellists says or answering a question and getting the answer completely wrong.
Once again, I’m struck by how easy it is to spend time with Myles, even when he’s wearing so little. I realise this evening involved more flirting than I would usually partake in, which probably explains the giddy feeling in my chest. I don’t think I’ve felt like this since I was a teenager.
I don’t know how many episodes we get through before I fall asleep, but I know that I do so with my dog and my feet, a sexy, practically naked man by my side, and a smile on my face.