Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
Ben
When I wake up on Sunday morning, relief courses through my body when I realize that Avril’s still in the bed with me.
After coming back from the Sleepless in Seattle restaurant last night, Avril insisted she needed one of the cookies I’d baked to help her fall asleep.
We didn’t even discuss whether I was going to join her in bed as we watched more Bravo reality shows, I just climbed in next to her and we must have fallen asleep here.
She shifts next to me and then she straightens her arms over her head and groans as she stretches, and my dick hardens. Jesus, maybe I should have slept in my own bed last night. I just want to pull her toward me and wrap my arms around her.
“I feel more tired now than when I went to bed,” she announces.
“Those facts combined with the snoring indicates sleep apnea,” I say. “You should see a doctor.”
She thwacks me on the chest, and I catch her hand and slide my fingers into hers. She doesn’t resist, like it’s just normal for us to wake up in bed, chat and hold hands.
I kind of wish it was.
“Do you have plans for us today or can we enjoy one final day of bed rot before I move out tomorrow morning?” she asks.
“Oh,” I say. We haven’t discussed the logistics of her leaving. I knew she was going tomorrow, but hearing the time she’s going brings things into clarity.
One final day with Avril.
“I only have one thing planned. But I can cancel it.”
“Was it better than bed rotting?” she asks.
“Is anything better than bed rotting?” I ask.
She laughs. “I’ve converted you. You never knew it, but it was my plan all along. I’m on a mission to make all the rich, successful men in New York turn to bed rotters one by one.”
“Well, you exceeded your goal. I’m not sure I’ll be able to do anything at all with my weekends after this time with you.”
She smiles like I just told her I’d managed to have the owner of the Boston hotel sell to her. “And my work here is done.”
“You want to get DoorDash? Order popcorn and stuff?” I pull out my phone. When she doesn’t answer, I look up.
“It’s eight in the morning. What have I done to you?”
I grin. “I told you. You’ve ruined me.” As I’m holding my phone, it starts to ring.
It’s my assistant. Patti. My stomach sinks.
She wouldn’t call me if it wasn’t urgent.
I’m tempted to just ignore it, but there’s no way I’d do that.
I make myself available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. That’s what I do.
“Is that your mom?” Avril asks, her eyebrows raised in question. “Who else would call this early?”
“The office,” I reply.
“If you say so. I’m going to take a shower while you and your office chat.”
She goes into the bathroom and I press accept on the call.
“I have a plane booked for noon,” Patti says. “And I’ve booked a helicopter to get you to the airfield so you don’t have to leave until eleven fifteen.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask her.
“For the dinner. With Abigail Hart.”
“What dinner?”
“She sent you an email overnight. Did you not get it?”
I push my hand through my hair. “I haven’t checked yet. I just woke up.”
She doesn’t say it, but I know what she’s thinking. I’m usually up by now. Because, I am usually I’m up by now. Going through my emails and organizing my week. But this morning’s different because I woke up in Avril’s bed, with Avril next to me.
I pull up my email and open the message from Abigail. I’ve had a hard time getting in to see her for weeks now.
“Wait, why am I flying? Abigail lives in New York.”
“She’s in Colorado.”
“At the Club?”
“Yes.”
Fuck, just my luck. “And why has she given me zero notice?”
Patti pauses and I scan the email. She’s not demanding to see me, just wonders if I’m around because she has a free evening and knows I’ve been trying to get in to see her.
I have two clients who currently have business interests that might cross with Hart Enterprises.
Abigail Hart is a big deal. She has a tight circle and doesn’t socialize much.
I’m one of the few people who she has any direct contact with.
If she says she has dinner open, then I have to move heaven and earth to be there.
Patti knows that, which is why she has me on a private jet to Colorado.
“What time will I get in?”
“Five,” she says. “It doesn’t leave you much turnaround time, but it was the best I could do.”
“Thank you. Am I booked into the Club?”
“Yes. I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but your membership for the Colorado Club got approved this week.”
That’s a coincidence. Or maybe it isn’t.
I hadn’t expected to be eating dinner with the best friends of the owner of the Colorado Club.
I wonder if Byron had heard that I was breaking bread with his buddies.
Maybe I’ve gained more from Avril being my roommate than she will from me helping her with the Boston hotel.
It could have also been Abigail. Or maybe I’m overthinking and it’s coincidental.
“That’s great,” I say, although my heart’s just not in it. Today was my last day with Avril. We had until six to rot in bed, hang out, poke fun at each other and relax. Now we’ve got a couple of hours.
“I’ll email you what you need for the flight over.”
We hang up and I lie back, flat on the bed and stare at the ceiling.
The Abigail meeting is a good thing, I try to convince myself.
I’ve been trying to get to speak to her for months.
I know how busy she is, so a Sunday evening dinner is as good as it gets.
I just wish it didn’t have to be this Sunday.
If I called my housekeeper, she’d come over and pack for me. But I’m only going overnight and I’d rather have a couple of uninterrupted hours with Avril before I go.
As I’m thinking about everything I have to do before I leave, Avril comes out of the bathroom with wet hair, wearing a fresh pajama short set. She looks perfect.
“You showered for bed rotting,” I say.
“I take my preparation seriously.” She flips up the duvet next to me and slides into bed, grabbing the remote. “Did you get us coffee?”
My heart clunks in my chest. “I was on a call,” I say. “I have to go to Colorado for a dinner.”
She snaps her gaze to mine. “Today?”
I nod. “I have to leave here just after eleven.”
She points the remote at the TV screen but doesn’t look at me. “Looks like I’m bed rotting alone.”
“You get half a day off,” I say, trying to figure out what she’s thinking.
“Lucky me,” she says, still not looking at me, as she scrolls through the channels on the TV.
I feel stupid, but I want to suggest that maybe we catch up when I’m back.
But I don’t. She’s here because she wants me to help her out with Boston—not because she wants to be.
This week has just been the result of a stupid, drunken bet that I thought I could turn to my advantage and figure this woman out.
Get her out of my system. But Avril’s not out of my system.
I’ve learned a little more about what makes her tick, but it has only made me want to know more about her, to spend more time with her.
She’s way deeper in my system than she was when we started out. And I’m not ready for it to end.
“I’ve had a good time this week,” I say, as if dipping my toe into the water.
“Yeah,” she says. “It hasn’t been as terrible as I expected.”
I chuckle and bring up my DoorDash. Maybe the woman just needs her coffee before we discuss anything serious.
She turns to me, a vulnerable expression in her eyes. “Will you help me with Boston?”
I just nod. There’s no way I couldn’t help her, even if I didn’t want to. But I’m going to. Not because it’s not messy—it definitely is—but because I want to help her. I want her to be happy.
“You’ve got a friend for life in me, Avril,” I say.
She looks forward at the TV as she keeps endlessly scrolling through the channels. She just nods. “Same.”
I order the coffee, and popcorn and various other unhealthy snacks, and I toss my phone onto the bed.
“Maybe I should start to pack,” she says, throwing back the duvet, still avoiding my gaze. “I should leave at the same time you go.”
I grab her wrist, stopping her from getting out of bed, and she stiffens. “Let’s rot together a little while longer.”
Her body relaxes and she pulls the duvet back over her. “I need some coffee.”
“It’s on the way.”
“And something to eat with no nutrients but dense in calorific value.”
I chuckle. “On its way too.”
We lie side by side, our arms almost touching. She picks up the remote and finds The Real Housewives of New York immediately. She presses play and tosses the remote back onto the bed.
I catch her hand and slide my fingers through hers.
And we both lie there not saying anything.
I don’t know what she’s thinking, but all I can focus on is how much I like the woman next to me.
How much I’m going to miss her trying to bake me cookies and snoring beside me.
The problem is, I’ve been building walls so long, I don’t know if there’s room inside this fortress I live in.