Page 39 of Always Been You

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"Evening," the doorman greeted Jess as she walked back into the hotel.

She smiled at him and then rushed toward the elevator. Her trip to the store had taken so much longer than she'd expected. What would’ve been a twenty-minute errand in Whisper Lake had turned into a two-hour excursion in Chicago.

She and Ali had never made it to dinner. When they left the bridal shop, Ali started feeling dizzy. Jess insisted that they go back to the hotel and she was glad they did. When they got up to the room, she realized that Ali was really not feeling well. They’d watched a couple movies to see if she’d rally, but when Jess noticed that she had a fever she'd headed out to get supplies.

A mile in downtown traffic was no joke. She probably would’ve been better off walking. She'd bought every single medication for cold and flu symptoms that she could get her hands on. And she'd also stocked up on saltine crackers, 7UP, and Gatorade.

As she rode the elevator up to the tenth floor, she realized how badly it sucked to be the one on this side of illness. All of her life she'd been the one that had to be taken care of. She'd thought she had it bad, but now she was second-guessing that perspective. It sucked feeling both helpless and responsible. And she was taking care of a friend, an adult with probably nothing more than a cold. She couldn't imagine what it would be like if Ali were a child with a serious illness, with her life hanging in the balance.

Her parents truly were saints.

The doors slid open, and she jogged down the hall. When she was at the drugstore, she'd started to call Ali and ask her what flavor of Gatorade she liked and noticed that her phone had died. She hoped that her friend hadn't been trying to call her.

She was fumbling to get the card out of her purse when the door opened. She looked up, expecting to see her friend, "I'm sorry it took so..."

It wasn't Ali.

It was Ethan. And he looked…dangerous. She knew that was an odd descriptor, but seeing him standing in the doorway, wearing a black shirt, dark jeans and at least a few days’ worth of facial hair growth he had a bad boy vibe that was really working for her. So much so that she forgot where she was or what she was doing. It took her a moment to remember she was in the city.

"What are you doing here?"

“I came up—,” Ethan started to answer.

"Wait. Is Ali okay?" Jess pushed past him when she remembered why she’d gone out. When she did, she saw that her friend wasn't in the bed where she'd left her. She spun back. "Where's Ali?"

"With Kade. They're on the way back to Whisper Lake."

"Kade's here?"

"He was. I drove him up here so he could drive Ali back. She didn't want to get you sick or for you to feel responsible for her while you were at your conference tomorrow."

"Convention," Jess corrected as she looked around the room. Ali's bags were gone.

"She tried to call you. I did, too, but your phone was dead. I was about to go out and look for you."

"In Chicago? You were going to look for me in Chicago?" Jess couldn't help but smile.

Ethan ignored her question and walked toward her. Her body responded before she could tell it not to, and she started to heat up.

He stopped a foot away, hooked a finger in her bag, and looked inside. "Wow. You really went all ou-"

"I know." Jess cut him off defensively, but then she softened her tone as she explained, "I didn't know what she might need."

Jess felt out of sorts. She'd been so worried about her friend and now Ali was in good hands, Kade's hands, on her way back home.

Ethan was here. In Chicago. They were alone. In her hotel room.

She looked up at Ethan hoping to get a clue as to what he was feeling, but his expression was completely unreadable. The last time she'd seen him was at their dance lesson. They'd said goodbye in the parking lot and she'd wondered if he was going to kiss her again. He hadn't. She was wondering the same thing now.

Was he going to kiss her again?

Was he ever going to kiss her again?

Did he even want to kiss her again?

He had a question of his own, but it wasn't kiss-related.

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