Twenty-Four
I wake up feeling better than I have in forever.
I notice it before the light hits my eyes. It’s a bone-deep sense of rest I haven’t experienced in so long that my brain takes a moment to recognize the sensation.
This is what sleep is supposed to be. I’ve been missing this.
Then I register the warmth along my entire left side.
Something comfortable. Something soft. Something that smells like—
Wait. Why is there hair in my mouth?
I open my eyes to find Piper in my arms.
She’s fully out. Her face is pressed against my chest, one leg thrown across my body.
And I am rock fucking hard.
I’m experiencing an undeniable morning situation directly under the thigh she has draped across me.
My left arm is hooked around her shoulders. My right hand is resting on her bare thigh. Her sleep shorts have ridden up, so I can see the lower curve of her left ass cheek, and my brain is currently giving it an involuntary review that I need to shut down immediately.
I look at the ceiling.
Do not look down. Think about something else.
Bridge cables. Seismic activity. The profoundly unsettling eye placement of Gerald the Penguin.
Dom’s face. Noah’s face. Noah is actually very helpful here.
There is nothing less arousing than the mental image of Noah Callahan, who would murder me if he saw his best friend in this specific situation with his sister.
The thought should be doing more work than it is, but Piper is still very close to my dick.
Move, I tell myself.
I can’t. If I move, she wakes up. If she wakes up, she becomes aware of the situation.
I’m not going to be another man who makes her feel like she has to apologize for existing.
Don’t be the asshole, Griffin. She’s had enough assholes. Don’t be the next one.
She shifts.
Toward me.
I’m dying.
She makes a small, sleepy sound and tucks herself closer into my side. Her leg moves, so the thigh that was near my crotch is now on my crotch.
I carefully reopen negotiations with the ceiling. If she gets any closer, she’s going to be climbing me like a tree.
Then, in what I swear is slow motion, I watch her hand move from where it’s resting on my chest.
It’s a sleepy stroke of the palm against whatever surface it’s lying on. The unconscious motion of someone hovering between dreams.
It drifts lower.
Her fingers trail across my stomach.
Her hand pauses.
Don’t.
Lower.
Piper, I am begging you, don’t.
Her hand slides south with the inevitability of gravity and the focus of a heat-seeking missile. She is approximately three inches from introducing herself to the full situation.
The speed at which I jump out of bed definitely sets a record.
The covers go sideways. Piper makes a startled noise and lunges for the sheets I’ve just launched into orbit.
“Morning!” My voice comes out about four notes higher than where it usually lives.
Piper blinks at me, hair everywhere, half-tangled in the bedding, with the expression of someone who was in a deep coma ten seconds ago and is now trying to locate reality.
“Rise and shine,” I tell her. “Road trip. Time to go. Big day.”
She stares at me. “Griffin—”
“I’m going for a shower.” I’m already walking. “Early start. A lot of miles to cover.”
She turns her head and squints at the window. “It’s barely light.”
“Great day for driving,” I say, reaching for the bathroom door. “The weather looks good. I saw the forecast.”
I shut the door and stand with my back against it.
I look down.
Still there. Still very much present and aware of what almost happened. Enthusiastic about it, even. Which is deeply unhelpful.
I turn the shower on cold, stand under the sprays, and think about how Piper is five days out of the relationship she almost married into.
She is completely off-limits to every part of me, including my treacherous dick.
I have nine days left on this road trip with her, and a return to real life at the end of it. I’m going to be the friend she needs.
That’s the deal. That’s what I signed up for when I said, “Get in, runaway.”
The cold water is doing its level best, but then there’s a knock on the door.
“Griffin?”
I swear I almost groan. “In the shower!”
“I know! I can hear it.”
“Yep.”
“Are you—” A pause. “Are you okay?”
“Fine!” I call. “Completely fine! Great, even!”
Silence from the other side.
“You’re doing the voice,” she calls.
“I don’t have a voice.”
“You have several voices. That’s the something-is-wrong voice.”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m having a shower. I’ll be out in five minutes.”
“Okay,” she says slowly. “I’ll get Gerald up.”
I blow out a breath when I hear her move away.
I need three things right now, in this specific order: this shower, a priest, and approximately five minutes alone to work this situation out of my system so I can look her in the eye across a diner table without my entire body giving me away.
I make two out of three work. It’s the best I can do.
When I finally come out, Piper is dressed and sitting on the end of the bed, Gerald in her lap, eating a granola bar she’s procured from somewhere.
She looks at me. I look at her.
“Ready?” I ask.
She chews the granola bar. “Ready.”
She looks very carefully at my face and nowhere else. Which means she’s thought about it. Which means I’m going to be spending the first hour of today’s drive thinking about the fact that she’s thought about it.
I pick up my keys and watch the keychain catch the light.
I clear my throat. “Let’s go.”
Gerald watches me from under Piper’s arm with his far-apart, all-knowing eyes. I’m almost certain he saw everything.
Say nothing, I tell him silently.
He says nothing.
Good penguin.