Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
I stand outside the nondescript building known as the Sleep Lab, my phone pressed against my ear. “I can’t believe I’m prostituting my sleep for money,” I say to Emily.
In the week since Em signed me up, I’ve swung between actively ignoring the fact I’m desperate enough to enroll myself into a sleep study—or at least apply—to secretly wishing and hoping a teaching job will materialize in front of me, to thinking and praying my rent will magically get paid.
But nope. Here I am, about to peddle my sleep for money. Oh, how the teacher has fallen.
“Money, money, money,” Em sings through the phone.
“Yeah, yeah. Must be funny in a rich man’s world.”
We hang up and I push through the doors, blinking at the sudden change in light.
The walls of the room are blindingly white, and I momentarily wish I hadn’t left my sunglasses in the car.
When my eyes have finally adjusted, I notice two things—one, the limp indoor plant in the corner of the room is trying—and failing—to bring life to the place, and two, there are a surprising number of people in the room.
And even though only minutes ago I was bitching to Em about being here, now faced with the prospect of losing out on getting paid to sleep, I realize I want this gig. Bad.
I straighten my shoulders and stand tall as I approach the reception desk. It’s staffed by two people who are handing out clipboards and pens. Besides the noise they’re making, the rest of the room is silent.
After I whisper my name to one of the receptionists, he hands me a name tag, points to the only empty chair along the corridor, and asks me to sit, fill out the form, and wait for my name to be called.
I take my seat and scan the room. There are about twenty people in the waiting room, and another ten crammed with me in the corridor. Turns out I’m not the only desperate soul in the San Fernando Valley.
I start answering the standard questions on my clipboard when the unmistakable sound of Cardi B singing about her wet-ass pussy blasts out of my phone, through the entire corridor and into the waiting room.
Shit. Why did I have a drunk female empowerment moment last night and change my standard ring tone to an actual song like some geriatric millennial?
All eyes turn to me.
I try not to make eye contact, but there is nowhere to look except at the people looking at me.
That’s when I see him. I try to convince myself that I’m wrong. That it’s a hallucination caused by extreme embarrassment. But just when I think I’m imagining him, he runs his hand through his hair. His curls can’t be tamed. They flop back in place.
Oh, yeah. It’s him.
Xander Miller.
I feel like a freight train is barreling me back in time to Junior year at UCLA, where a chance meeting outside a frat party led to a friendship that ended in one night of pleasure. One night of extreme pleasure.
From his chair, Xander Miller’s lips tip up at the ends. Fuck. That can only mean one thing—he’s back in the memory with me.
Him, on top of me. His arms, caging me in. My teeth, scraping the skin of the small tattoo on his bicep. Later that night, I studied that tattoo in detail. A swallow.
Cute. Hot. Off the charts chemistry.
And now he’s sitting in the same room as me, an eyewitness to my mortification.
Fuck my life.
“Please make it stop,” says the woman sitting next to me, breaking into my trip down memory lane and reminding me that Cardi B is a certified freak and she isn’t afraid of letting the entire sleep study know.
“I’m trying.” Not hard enough, though, because I can’t resist another glance at Xander Miller.
There’s a huff from my seat neighbor before she gets up and leaves. As if sitting next to me is like admitting she’s an accomplice in disturbing the peace.
I pull out my keys, my wallet, my tampons—creating a pile of all my personal things for the world to see. I scoop my phone up and shut it off, but not before seeing MOM flash on the screen. I drop everything on my lap onto the floor with a loud clang.
With my phone finally off and the room returning to its uncomfortable silence, I bend over and start picking up my belongings.
My tampons have rolled underneath the plastic white seat next to me, which is now vacant.
I’ve got my head between my legs when I see a pair of men’s black Chelsea boots step into my vision and turn on their heel, before taking the empty seat next to me.
The space between us crackles, and I don’t need to look up to know who’s sitting next to me.
The butterflies start to rally my entire body like a cheer squad shouting S!
E! X! and unable to tell the difference between a memory from eleven years ago and reality. Get it together, Ash.
Without trying to draw any more attention to myself, I inch my body closer to Xander and his good taste in footwear, stretching my hand out in some geek attempt at trying to make inanimate objects move. The force is not with me.
“Here,” Xander says, his hand coming into view. I can’t help but notice how his actions have closed the distance between us. I can feel him all over me.
“Thanks,” I breathe out as I take my tampons out of his hand. Our fingertips brush and my cells are vibrating at the direct contact. It sets off an unwanted chain reaction of wanting.
I look up and finally get to take him in. Up close and personal.
His well-controlled mop of naturally thick brown hair hasn’t changed. There’s a new half-moon scar underneath the bottom left corner of his lip. Lips that were dragged all over my body at one point in time.
Stop doing that, Ash.
I finally look him in his eyes. They’re a sunburst hazel that glints with mischief. My whole body feels like shoddy electrical wiring. Him? Cool as a cucumber scent radiates from him.
“You’re drooling,” he says. Instinctively, my hand reaches for my lip like I’ve been caught giving my horny away. Of course my lips. There is no drool. Fucker. I walked right into that one.
We hold eye contact for a moment. Now that I’m not ogling quite as much, I notice bags under his red-rimmed eyes.
I’m betting Xander isn’t here as a control.
He looks like he hasn’t slept well in weeks.
A small part of me acknowledges that observation could warrant some kindness on my part.
But a larger part of me doesn’t care. That’s the rule. No dating. And definitely no feelings.
Then, he leans forward, lips so close to my ear, I reflexively shiver.
“We’re at a sleep clinic, not a sleep ‘with’ clinic, Hutchinson,” he whispers. Then, he pulls back and looks me directly in the eye, destroying my confidence in a three-word rejection: “Read the room.”
Wow. Okay. I thought he’d been nice back then. Clearly, I was wrong.
Before I can conjure up a comeback, a woman in a lab coat comes out to the corridor. I sit up straight.
“Thank you all for your patience. At this point, we’re only looking for couples to make up the remainder of the study,” she says.
A quiet groan echoes throughout the room as people start getting up to leave. I look over to Xander, who hasn’t moved. He’s looking directly at me, as if trying to send a telepathic message. I’m not picking up on it.
Then, he gives me a blink-and-you-miss-it nod just as the woman in the lab coat comes up to us and says, “Are you two together?”
I’m about to shake my head and boldly announce, “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt,” when Xander says, “Yes.”
It’s my turn to stare at him. He stares back, and I suddenly get it. He needs this.
And then I remember. I need this, too. I mean, I really fucking need this.
Maybe for a different reason from whatever is going on with Xander, but it’s a big one and if it means playing fake boyfriend/girlfriend for a month while we sleep together but actually don’t sleep together, I can suck it up.
I think. Even if he was just a royal asshat a minute ago.
“We are,” I say, cementing my fate.
“Great. Please follow me, then,” she says.
And just like that, we’re in.
She turns on her heel and heads for the door beyond the waiting room. Xander does one of those “after you” hand gestures. I grab my bag and start to follow.
“Thank you,” he says. I barely hear the whispered words over the whoosh of the door as we head to who knows where in this lab.
What? Now you’re nice? As if.
The woman in the white lab coat introduces herself as Dr. Waitley. She’s the director of the sleep study, and she’ll be processing our admission into the sleep clinic today.
Okay, so this is happening. There’s no job interview where they ask you to tell them about a time where something went wrong and required “teamwork” to fix, which is good since I’d have to tell her about when the copper sulfate went missing during the fall semester and how we all “banded together” to “save the day” when really it was Emily and me who’d “borrowed” the stock to make green fire for our Wicked-themed Halloween party. So at least that crisis is averted.
Now I just need to deal with the Xander-shaped one.
The man of the hour and I take a seat opposite Dr. Waitley.
Her office is small and crammed with reams of research papers.
It reminds me of my desk at school—just replace the papers with tests to grade.
Most teachers grumble about grading papers, but I love seeing my students showcase their newly minted knowledge.
The dull pang behind my ribcage surfaces, reminding me that I’m no longer a teacher.
Currently, my status is ex-chemistry teacher turned fake girlfriend who’s thisclose to begging to get paid to sleep.
I catch the heavy sigh in my chest and remember that my landlord is going to resort to calling me soon. Let’s do this.