Chapter 17
Autumn
I wish more than anything that I could go back to my own hotel room, by myself, and die of embarrassment.
But of course, that’s not possible. Not only do I have to stay for the entirety of the welcome party, greeting all my sister’s friends and guests and meeting all of Jane’s, but when it’s finally time to go back to the room, it’s our shared room.
With our shared bed.
In the fluster of the evening, I almost forgot that detail.
In the elevator, on the way upstairs, I remember it suddenly, with a jolt to my stomach that echoes the elevator’s sudden ascent.
I close my eyes and try to pretend I’m not there and we’re not going to back to a room together.
Except as soon as my eyes are closed, I remember the kiss again and flush with shame.
It’s my whimper, in memory, that delivers the humiliation because it revealed that even though he was just doing his job, I was all in.
“You okay?” he asks.
My eyes fly open. He’s staring at me. I hope it’s not obvious I’m thinking about his mouth or my out-of-proportion enjoyment of it.
“Fine. Totally fine,” I lie.
He tilts his head slightly, like he doesn’t believe me.
“It was a lot,” I say. “And I’m sorry about the kiss thing. I think Summer was hoping if she roped everyone in, people would quit the clinking bullshit.”
“I think that backfired,” he says dryly.
“I think so, too.” I slump in distress as I realize that we’re going to face a lot more clinking before the week’s up.
He’s still watching me quietly.
“You’re off the hook on the kissing thing,” I say. “If that happens again. I realize—” I stop. “There are loads of reasons you might not want to. You might not be straight, or you might have a boyfriend—or girlfriend—or nonbinary partner—”
The corners of his mouth tick up. “All those things could be true,” he says, and my heart hiccups. “But none of them actually are.”
“Oh,” I say, relieved and confused and trying to reset my impressions again.
I wait for him to say something more, to address the larger question—whether he did or didn’t want to kiss me—but the elevator dings to a stop and disgorges us, and he doesn’t seem inclined to continue. And I’m not going to ask.
Was that little sound you made…the rough one that I could feel in every inch of my nerve endings…was that for me?
Pain sprouts behind my forehead, a headache brought on by a cocktail of confusion and champagne.
We reach the room, and he says, “You take the bathroom first, and then we’ll swap.”
I grab my stuff and shut myself in the relative safety of the bathroom, do what I have to do, and emerge.
He does the same—except it takes him a fraction of the time.
As he comes out—in a pair of thin, soft sweatpants and a well-worn T-shirt—my headache, which had abated a fraction, surges back.
I dig into my dopp kit, then my purse, looking for Advil… but no dice.
“Shit,” I say.
“What?”
“I’m out of ibuprofen. Gotta go downstairs to get some from the little hotel market.”
His eyes rake over me. “Dressed like that?” His gesture encompasses my cropped tank and shorty-shorts.
“What’s wrong with this?”
“You’ll freeze your ass off if you go downstairs in those.”
He’s got a point. I remember thinking earlier that both the elevator and the lobby were refrigerator-esque. I start to dig for clothes to pull on over these, but he says, “Let me go.”
“You’re in PJs, too.”
“Yeah, but what I’m wearing is warmer.”
I start to protest, then realize that he’s already shoving his wallet into his pocket and his feet into his shoes.
“You need regular ibuprofen?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“No snacks or anything?”
I am a little hungry…but I shake my head, not wanting to make more work for him.
Five minutes later he’s back. He drops a plastic pouch of ibuprofen into my palm, and then—
“Oh my God, Oreos? You’re my hero!”
One corner of his mouth ticks up. “You like ’em?”
“I love ’em.”
“I had to guess.”
“I’m so hungry,” I say, ripping into the six-pack and shoving two into my mouth immediately.
That makes the corner of his mouth tilt even higher.
I’m not sure you could call it a smile, but it does crease a dimple into his cheek, and I decide that I need to learn how to call forth that dimple at will.
When I’ve destroyed the Oreos—two-point-six seconds later—I brush my teeth again and come back into the main room to find Tucker building a wall in the middle of the bed.
“There aren’t a lot of pillows,” he says. “I used the two extras, but it’s kind of feeble.”
“We’ll be okay,” I say.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
“I won’t,” I assure him. “You’re the one who should be scared anyway. I’m a heat-seeking missile in bed, and no matter how big a wall we build, I’ll end up crawling across the bed and spooning you.”
His face goes blank again, and I instantly regret my words.
“Not like in a—”
I cannot say the word sexual aloud right now.
“Not in a romantic way. In a you’re-a-warm-body-and-I’m-cold-a-hundred-percent-of-the-time way. I mean, I’ll try not to. I’ll try to stay on my side. I just thought I should warn you.”
Something twitches at the corner of his mouth. “I think I’ll be okay,” he says.
He peels back the covers on his side of the bed and climbs in. I do the same on my side. The bed feels enormous, but I know myself. No one is safe.