Chapter 16
Sadie
There was a thudding sound growing in intensity and frequency that I couldn’t quite place. It nagged at my groggy mind. I closed my eyelids tighter, willing it to go away. When my phone started buzzing on the bedside table, my eyes snapped open as realization came flooding into me.
“Shit,” I hissed pushing myself up from my pillow.
Dashing into my bathroom, I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my naked body.
I’d stirred awake in the middle of the night to Jamison’s arms around my waist and his heavy sleepy breath against my shoulder.
And it was so warm and comfortable to be right there that I almost snuggled in closer and fell right back asleep.
We'd never spent the night together. I hadn't realized how much I liked the weight of his arm across my stomach and the fit of his entire body against my back—my hips tucked into his.
But I was adamant to keep my emotions separate from sex, and cuddling was a gray area.
Trying not to wake him, I edged inch-by-inch away, my skin growing colder with the distance growing between our bodies.
I slithered like a very ungraceful four-too-many-limbed snake to the carpet.
The pads of my feet made little tapping sounds on the floor of his bathroom as I made my way to my dress still lying in a puddle on the shower floor.
It chilled me even further as I pulled it up my legs.
Then I snuck like a thief into the hallway and then into my own room, hung my dress over the shower wall, and burrowed under my covers waiting for my body heat to warm the bed enough to be comfortable.
I wasn’t certain how long I’d been sleeping, but it was absolutely certain that I was late for my nail appointment with my sister and mom and Jamison’s mom.
Or not technically late, yet. But I was supposed to be dressed and ready to walk with June to the spa, and I was not. My sister was going to be so pissed.
With my body tucked behind the door, I peeked around it to see her face turn from slightly impatient to hella annoyed in a millisecond. She was dressed in white boat shorts with a brown belt and a light blue button-up tucked in. She looked so put together and irritated.
“Don’t hate me,” I said.
“You’re not ready? What the hell, Sade?” She took a step into the room.
“I know. I overslept.” She begrudgingly handed me a paper coffee cup. I took it, mumbling a sheepish, “Thank you.”
“You have five minutes.”
I took a sip of the coffee with cream and sugar before setting it down on the sofa’s side table. “I only need three.”
“Obviously, you haven’t looked in the mirror yet. You’re gonna need all five.” Her eyes traveled around the room, overlooking my mess of clothes and taking in the dark walls with contrasting white linens and sofa.
Snatching up a pair of underwear and a bra, I slipped them on and let the towel fall to the blond-colored wood floor. I pulled the first sun dress I laid my hands on out of my suitcase, pulling it over my head. It ended on the upper side of mid-thigh.
June raised an eyebrow. “We’re getting our toes done too. You sure you wanna wear that? The technician will get a crotch shot.”
“I’ll bring a sweater to drape over my lap.”
She nodded. “This room is incredible.”
“Wait until you see the bathroom,” I called to her back as she walked to the sliding glass door and stepped onto the balcony.
“If you angle right, you can see the ocean.”
In front of the bathroom mirror, I cringed at my own reflection.
June was right, I was gonna need the full five minutes.
Mascara was smudged under my eyes, and my hair was a mess of snarls and wild curls dried onto my face.
Dampening a cotton ball with makeup remover, I went in on the leftover makeup from last night.
“Wow, this bathroom,” she exclaimed joining me. It was a replica of Jamison’s bathroom, and even though we hadn’t had sex in this room it kinda felt like June was walking around in my crime scene. If she knew about him and me hooking up, she would have strong opinions.
“Right?” The word came out a little weird with my mouth rounded as I slathered on moisturizing SPF. A reapplication of mascara, and I could move on to my hair situation.
“What happened to your dress?” She jerked her head toward my still damp garment hanging over the shower wall.
For a panicked moment, my brain scratched to a halt. I couldn’t conjure a single reason why my dress would be wet.
Then an explanation hit me with such force, I yelled out, “Stain!”
Her eyebrows shot up, and she jumped a little in surprise. “Okay . . . it must have been a big stain for the whole dress to get wet.”
“It was, and then I realized how messy the hem was and . . . just washed the whole thing.”
“Cool.” There was a beat of silence where it seemed like she might not fully believe me, but then she shrugged one shoulder.
In the other room, my phone buzzed on the bedside table.
She strode out of the bathroom, tossing a, “You have one minute to figure out that hair,” over her shoulder.
“Messy bun, baby.” Two elastics later, my hair looked almost purposefully bumpy. I looked more or less like a person ready to be civilized. “Alright, let’s go.”
I stilled just inside my bedroom where June stared down at my phone, still resting on the tabletop. Between her eyebrows there was a pinch so deep that made my heartrate spike. An expression somewhere between outrage and confusion fit into the tight set of her jaw.
“What’s up?” I asked with hyper-apprehension.
She met my eyes and in the depths of hers was pity. It cut me worse than outrage or confusion ever could. “Why is Fuckboy Lawyer texting you?”
I held my hand out. “I don’t know. Probably something for work.”
“‘Where’d you go?’ You have the screen preview setting on.” She picked up the device like it was infected, touching as little of it as possible.
My gut twisted, as all of last night flashed through my eyes.
But what really knocked the wind out of my chest was the memory of his gently wrapping a towel around me and drying my hair.
That moment blurred the lines between sex and other .
. . feelings. I loved it so much, and it left me unbalanced.
“Oh, yeah”—I took it from her, only slightly concerned with the frequency of my lies since she’d walked through the door about five minutes before—”I didn’t send him an email yesterday. We do still work together.”
Visibly shaking herself free of the emotions from the past few minutes, she hung her head. “I’m sorry. I totally jumped to conclusions there. That wasn’t fair of me. I just . . . I’m really happy to see you not getting hurt by him anymore.”
“You’re fine. I’m okay.” Guilt was a solid rock in the pit of my stomach. “Come on, Mom’s going to kill me for making us late.”
“We did tell you the appointment time was sooner than it actually is. We’ll meet the moms there.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t know what’s more annoying: You doing that or me needing the extra time.”
“Both things can be true.”
We made our way to the elevator, lowering our voices in the hallway to not be obnoxious to the other hotel guests. I couldn’t have repeated what we talked about in the elevator ride to the beach entrance of The Bronte, but we were both laughing like we were the two most funny people in the world.
Unlike the day before, the sun was shining when we stepped outside.
The little cardigan around my shoulders was a bit too warm for the weather.
I raised my face to the sun. Nothing put sunshine into perspective like a Midwestern winter.
It felt like I hadn’t seen it in months, I definitely hadn’t felt it’s warmth seep into my skin.
Something about it reminded me of Jamison.
Maybe it’d been warm the last time we’d hung out in Chicago.
Either way it made my body tingle as if his eyes were on me at that exact moment.
The light reflected off the water of the pool, snagging my attention only to discover that he was there. And his eyes were on me.
He had frozen with his towel in his hand at his side. Water dripped down his abdomen and caught in the hair on his chest. His gaze was locked on to me with the intensity of a starving man, and he licked his lower lip. I felt it through my whole body.
Each step took me further from him; the trail led down blocking him from view in incremental amounts. It was only a few seconds, but they stretched—an infinite loop of longing and desire.
And I understood better than I ever had before, what was between me and Jamison was world-shattering. But it would only be my world shattered.