Page 30 of One-Star Romance

Her head had fallen into the crook of his neck. His pulse beat against her cheek, quick and hot. A low moan of pleasure rose up from behind the door of Dante and Melinda’s room, and Natalie startled.

Rob extricated himself, looking in the direction of the noises.

“I worry that we may be hearing a lot of that this weekend,” Gabby said.

Outside, the sun was slipping beneath the horizon, the day’s warmth fading away with it. So much for that relaxing swim.

“Where should I put my things?” Rob asked.

“Well, I believe Melinda and Dante have already…claimed this one.” Gabby led them all down the hallway and opened another door, right off the living room. “So if you and Natalie don’t mind sharing, this is the room that’s left.”

Rob looked into the room, which featured a double bed crammed against the wall, then back at Natalie, then at the couch. “Natalie can have the bedroom,” he said. “I’ll sleep out here.”

•••

The next morning, Natalie woke to the steady plink of rain.

She tiptoed into the hallway to use the bathroom. The couples were still cocooned in their bedrooms. Rob sat up on the couch, rubbing his neck with a grimace, his face creased from sleep.

They locked eyes and froze, as if maybe the other person wouldn’t notice them if they stayed stock-still. Outside, a birdcall cut through the rain.

“I never told Gabby or Angus about what happened at the wedding,” Natalie said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I didn’t either.” His voice was rough in that just-woke-up, pre-coffee way.

“So it’s best if we’re…civil to each other this weekend.”

“Yes.”

“And we can try to stay out of each other’s way.”

“Agreed.” He rubbed his neck again.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“It’s nothing.” She stared him down until he threw his hands in the air, scowling. “This couch is a torture device.”

“Poor Rob,” she said. “You require a bed of down?”

“No.”

“Twenty mattresses, but you can still feel one pea underneath. This couch is just too tough on your weary, ancient bones—”

“I am one year older than you are.”

“I’ll sleep on it tonight and you can take the bed.”

“No.”

“It’s no big deal. I’m not fussy.”

“I’m not fussy either!” He glared, thrusting his head up high, but the effect was ruined by the wince of pain he gave.

“I know you think I’m a selfish asshole, but I’m taking the couch. It’s settled. Now I’ll get out of your way.”

But the rain didn’t let up. Not through the pancakes Gabby made for them all or through playing an old game of Trivial Pursuit they found in a dresser, with its questions from the eighties and its outdated answers about the Soviet Union. Not through the hour after lunch when they retreated into their reading material—fluffy magazines for Gabby and Natalie, a self-help business manual for Angus, Rob tearing through a Kazuo Ishiguro book. “Since when did you start reading so much again?” Angus asked him, and Rob shrugged. On the other side of the sliding doors, the awning groaned in the wind and the rain fell in steady sheets. Natalie tried not to be too grumpy about Rob enjoying a novel.

Avoiding him when she couldn’t go outside and also wanted to stay as far away as possible from Dante and Melinda’s bedroom (they’d only emerged to grab some pancakes and water, then returned to their bed) proved too challenging. Natalie gave up sometime around early afternoon, when Gabby declared that they should all watch a movie. Her choice was either to share a small love seat with Rob or sit on the floor, which did not seem to have been vacuumed in the last decade. She settled for the love seat, looking out the wall of windows at the dreary scene outside.

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