Chapter 2 #2
“While I’m sure that wouldn’t be a hardship for you, Emma really doesn’t need you to get thrown out of the resort for public indecency, so I’ll carry my own bag. Thank you though. That’s a kind offer.”
Emma would be so disappointed if you fuck up again .
Fucking guilt.
I hate the guilt. Worked really hard the last decade or so to get over it and live my life in the sunshine, but here she is, tossing it around like confetti for Emma’s wedding week.
I keep smiling as I approach my bungalow, ignoring the twitch under my skin that I tell myself is an allergic reaction to being near a wet blanket.
I stop and face her at my doorway. “Good to see you, Princess Plainy. Maybe next time you shove me in a pool, you can be in a bikini.” I wink again.
She winks right back.
Delaney Kingston .
Winking right back.
This is High School Theo wet dream material, and yeah, I’ve worked really hard to forget that too.
What the fuck is going on?
“Wouldn’t that be fun?” she says. “Oh, good. We’re here. Thank you so much for showing me to my bungalow.”
I look around.
Then look around again.
Nearest other bungalow is a whole building’s length away, and Laney’s trying to step around me to my porch. “If you’ll just excuse me?—”
“You lost?”
“No, this is my bungalow.”
“Don’t think so.”
“The Plumeria Bungalow. Says so right here on my key card envelope.”
She flashes the little paper envelope holding her key card, and no.
That’s what it says.
But no .
I cross my arms, letting my dripping, half-melted flamingo costume fall off my hips and leaving me standing there in nothing but my black briefs, which is a dangerous place to be.
My brain is slowly catching up to the fact that Laney’s hot as fuck right now in ways that she shouldn’t be. And not just because the strength she put into shoving me into the pool would’ve been a turn-on had any other woman done it.
But now she’s strong-hot and wet-hot at the same time.
Brown mousy hair all messed up. Expensive shirt sticking to her skin.
Nipples puckered under the performance fabric, the clean outline of her plain-Jane bra visible too.
Linen pants clinging to her hips and showing off her panty line.
Dark lashes clumped together over bright blue eyes. And her sneakers still squeaking.
“While I don’t mind sharing my room with a pretty lady,” I drawl, ordering my dick to not have a reaction to this wet woman standing in front of me, “I also don’t think I’m the kind of roommate you’d be into.”
“Guess you’re wrong,” she chirps in response as she sidesteps me and bounces up the three stairs to the porch. “Because this is my bungalow too.”
I blink.
Then blink again.
Then I get pissed, and getting pissed makes me more pissed since I hate being pissed.
Hate being pissed.
Make it a life rule to avoid it, in fact.
But Delaney Kingston is an annoying, insufferable, rule-following, Prudy McSnooterson who would never lower herself to sharing a room with a guy whose favorite Saturday night activity is pulling harmless pranks with friends that sometimes end with all of us a little too happy to make good decisions .
Trust me.
I’d know.
Spent too many years wishing she would lower herself. Wanting to see what she looked like with her hair down and her inhibitions gone.
And she just said my bungalow too .
Like she knows this is my bungalow.
And if she knows this is my bungalow— fuck .
Happy Theo has left the whole damn Pacific Ocean. Everything is suddenly clicking into place.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I grit out, tripping up the steps myself to block her and sounding more like the fuckup I was in high school than the man I am today.
“I’m not a babysitter . Think of me more like a buffer. You don’t really want Chandler accidentally setting more of your clothes on fire, do you? Wait. No. Don’t answer that.”
I reach the doorframe and slide in front of her to block her. This is the worst possible thing Emma could’ve done.
I love my sister. I adore my sister. The two of us have been through some shit and come out on the other side, and I would do anything for her.
Doing way more for her this week than she even knows, and I legit don’t care if she never finds out. Just want her to be happy, even if I don’t understand what makes her happy all the time.
But sending Laney to babysit me ?
This is cruel.
And it’s not happening. It’s a step too far. “You ever have fun, Princess Plainy-Laney?”
“Yes, sometimes I stay up late at night doing puzzles while adding a little dollop of brandy to my chamomile. But just a dollop. Much more than that, and it might give me dirty dreams.”
I’m momentarily speechless.
Mostly because I can’t decide if she’s serious or if she’s fucking with me.
She smiles brighter, blue eyes almost dancing. And while I’m unscrambling my brains after having Delaney Kingston mock herself to my face, she ducks around me and presses her keycard to the lock mechanism on my hotel door.
There’s a click, and she strolls into my bungalow.
And then she lets the door slam in my face.
Fuck.
Fuck .
Do I care where I sleep? No.
But am I letting this woman loose all on her own inside my hotel room when I know what’s in the spare bedroom and she doesn’t?
Fuck fuck fuck .
Rule-following Delaney Kingston cannot be in my bungalow unsupervised.
She absolutely cannot.
I reach for my pocket, remember I’m in nothing but my briefs, and then dive for the sopping, mutilated costume on the bungalow porch. It takes too long to find my keycard in the interior pocket, and when I do, I half hope it doesn’t work.
Let me be lost. Let me be lost. Let me be lost .
But it clicks open just like it did for her a moment ago.
And when I walk inside—yes, after tripping over my costume and kicking it off—Delaney’s there.
I rub my eyes.
Blink a few times.
Hope a whole lot.
Doesn’t work.
She’s still here, halfway across the tropical-patterned rug in the living room on her way to the first bedroom, pulling along a god-awful floral-print suitcase.
“That’s my room,” I say.
She redirects as only Ms. Know-it-all can, heading instead to the closed bedroom door on the other side of the spacious sitting area with a kitchenette along the wall nearest me.
“That’s mine too,” I say.
“You’re using both bedrooms.” Not a question. A statement like she’s pointing out that I’m ridiculous.
I’m an easygoing guy. Love having fun. Love helping the people around me have fun. I can handle a lot.
I cause a lot.
Almost always a harmless lot these days, but a lot.
But sharing a room with Princess Plainy-Laney so that she can babysit me ?
No.
One of us has to go.
Any other day, any other place, with anything else hiding in that second bedroom, I’d volunteer to be the one to go.
But that’s not an option.
“Yes,” I say like she’s the one being dumb, even though I know she isn’t, “I’m using both rooms.”
Her face twitches just like you’d expect. “Emma’s working with management to find me my own bungalow or an open room in the overflow hotel, but really, this won’t be so bad until she does. I know you’re not using both bedrooms.”
She’s annoying as hell when she knows things.
And why didn’t Emma tell me herself? “You can have the pullout bed. The bedrooms are mine.”
“Theo. You cannot sleep in two beds at once .”
“Maybe I just don’t want you here.”
It’s been a long while since we spent any significant time together. Most of our adult lives, in fact, and I have zero doubt she’s expecting high school turd-waffle Theo instead of grown-up has-his-shit-together Theo.
Her expectations are making me fall back into old habits that I got over a long time ago and don’t like.
“I’m an easy roommate,” she says flatly with a giant fake smile plastered on her face. She’s probably unhappy with this arrangement too. “Promise. Very quiet. You won’t even know I’m here.”
In all of my school years, she was the only classmate I was never able to win over. Finally swore to myself I’d quit trying, no matter how much it killed me on the inside to know how very, very much I wanted to win her over. So Emma asking her to babysit me?
This is insult to fucking injury. “You haven’t stopped talking since you walked in the door.”
“Just getting out all of the words so that I can be quiet later. Unless you want me to talk more?”
“No.” Shit . I don’t know if I’m supposed to reverse psychology her or be honest.
“Works for me. I don’t know that I want to talk to you a whole lot more either.”
“Not mincing words, are you, Princess Plainy?”
She shrugs like she’s deflecting the nickname out the balcony doors and off into the darkness over the Pacific as she heads once more for the closed door.
“Not much of a point when we both know we’ll never be close friends.
At least we know where we stand with each other, right?
This is for Emma. I would do anything for Emma. ”
I wiggle my brows at her. Can’t help myself. Easiest path to annoying her. “What if Emma wanted you to strip down with me too?”
She crosses her arms and stares me dead in the eye. “ Anything she asks me to.”
Alarm bells go off in my head.
To be fair, that’s only like, two of them, because that’s all the alarm bells I have, but both at once is cause for concern.
“Are you fucking with me?” I ask her.
She doesn’t answer.
But a very loud yowl does from behind that closed bedroom door.
I imitate it while I yawn. “Tired. Go away. I need my beauty nap before I go party all night.”
She stares at me.
Then at the door, where four tiny mews carry through the wood.
“ Out ,” I repeat, pointing to the exit while I stalk across the decorative rug to keep her from opening that door.
She’s no longer smiling. “Tell me you’re not collecting animals for your dad.”
My temper, which generally exists about as much as alarm bells, roars to life like someone stuck it with a hot poker. “Get. The fuck. Out. Of my room.”
She ignores me and marches to the door of my spare bedroom.