Page 52 of Letting it Ride

All those years of pining away finally amounted to something.

But then my grin fades a little.

I slept with Camden Allen. How am I going to tell my brother about this?ShouldI tell my brother? It’s not like he knows about everyone I’ve slept with. If anything, he thinks I’m still a sweet, innocent virgin.

But if Cam and I are dating, it’s going to come up.

Holy shit.Arewe dating? Where do we go from here? He’s in the bed wearing nothing but boxers and sporting a hard-on that I’ll chalk up to morning wood, and I’m naked in the bathroom with nothing to wear.

This is the kind of situation where, if this were a one-time thing, I’d just hide out in here until he left.

I flush and wash my hands, staring at myself in the mirror. The bruises from my fall are more pronounced now along my arm and side, and I glance down to find more along my leg. They’re deep purple. I’m lucky I didn’t get more hurt than I did.

I pull a towel from the pile and wrap it around myself as I study my reflection. I’m a hot mess. Red lines and superficial scrapes from my fall crisscross my legs and my arm below the bandage. My hair isn’t that nicely mussed post-sex hair. It looks like I stuck my finger in a light socket.

There’s a smudge of dirt on one shoulder. My lipstwist into a grimace. God, I can’t believe I fell asleep like this last night.

I need a shower. But that brings up a whole host of other issues. What do I do with the stitches? I think they said to keep them dry for twenty-four hours.

I guess I can lean my head back into the water, but it’s going to be hard to wash with one hand while keeping the opposite shoulder dry. And how am I going to get the tangles out of my mass of hair? What do I put on afterwards, since all I have are yesterday’s clothes, covered in dirt from my fall?

And unrelated but still critical: where’s the coffee?

I poke my head into the bedroom. Cam is still sprawled across the bed, and since I moved, he’s flopped over onto his stomach. Is that uncomfortable with morning wood? Does that mean it went away, or is it squished into the mattress?

So many questions.

There’s a coffee maker on a little tray next to the TV screen. I zero in on it and do my best to be quiet while I tiptoe over and make coffee from a pod provided by the hotel. It’s bitter, but it’s caffeinated, so we’ll take it.

I sit with my coffee by the window. It looks out over the hotel pool, which is empty right now. Thereare lounge chairs dotting the deck and a bar that I can see from here.

It occurs to me that I don’t have a bathing suit, either. I tug on my hair while I swallow another mouthful of the bitter morning brew. We might need to go shopping when Cam wakes up. I start to make a list in my head.

“Hmph.” A noise comes from the direction of the bed. As I look over, Cam lifts his head from the pillow and looks around, bleary-eyed. “Is it morning?” he mumbles.

I hide my grin. “It’s like nine-thirty. It’s been morning for a while.”

“Coffee,” he says, head falling back to the pillow with a dullthump.

I stick another pod into the coffee maker and wait for it to brew. “Are you awake enough to talk?” I ask.

No answer, which I suppose is an answer in itself.

I bring the hot coffee to the bed and sit on the edge with it in my hands. Cam rolls toward me and sits up enough to take a sip, then another before he finally looks up at me.

“What did you want to talk about?”

Ah. So, he’s capable of hearing, just not responding before coffee. “We have the day in Nassau. And…” I look at the clothing on the ground. “Ineed some clothes. And a bathing suit if we want to go to the beach or the pool.”

Cam drains the last of his coffee. How does he drink it so fast without burning his throat? “There was a gift shop on the first floor. Can you wear your dirty clothes just to go down there?”

I nod. “But I need, um… underwear.” My cheeks heat. I can’t believethisis what I’m embarrassed about. I had sex with Cam last night. I told him I had to pee. We’ve been sharing a bathroom for days, and he’s had to help me change my shirt. But talking about underwear is apparently where the line is for me.

“You don’t need to wear underwear.” Cam winks.

I hit him with my good arm.

He winces. “Ow! I’m just saying. I’m in favor of you going commando.”

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