Page 61 of Ace

Cora

"Cora?"

I smile as my shoulder is touched. My body aches in the best ways, and for a second upon being woken, I forget how bad things are in my world right now. For a second, I smile as I squint my eyes open, seeing Eddie standing over the bed.

Seconds.

That's all I get before reality slams back into me because it's nearly impossible to open my eyes all the way from how swollen they feel from crying so much yesterday.

"We'll miss our plane if you stay in bed much longer," he says, his voice somehow distant despite the fact that his face is less than a handful of feet from mine.

I blink up at him, the pain in my heart sitting right on the surface and threatening to once again take over.

I do my best to shove it down, but the way he allowed me to be vulnerable with him yesterday makes it even harder than I imagined it would be.

"Sorry," I murmur as I sit up on the bed, using the backs of my hands to try and get the grittiness out of my eyes.

I spare a look in his direction, but he's no longer facing me.

"Here," he says, holding my robe out with his back to me as if he's incapable of looking toward me.

He's fully dressed, and I'm still naked from our shower last night.

Things are weird. He's making them weird, and I guess I should only be glad it waited until now rather than right after we had sex yesterday.

We showered together and I reveled in the way his soapy hands soothed every inch of my skin. We had a pizza delivered because we were both starving, and we went to sleep not long after, the events over the last two days exhausting us both. He held me in his arms as sleep took over, and when I woke a few hours later, I took comfort in the fact that he was still there beside me, but I guess everything is different now that light is creeping in around the curtains.

"Thank you," I say, pulling the robe from his fingers.

"Half an hour before we have to leave," he says as he walks out of the room.

I swallow down the pain, nearly choking on it as I watch his back.

I can't get upset. I vowed yesterday before things went as far as they did that I was taking what I needed from him, and the aftermath couldn't hurt me. It's not fair to him that my first instinct is anger. It isn't his fault I'm left in this bed feeling a little used and betrayed. I took from him as much as he took from me, and I only wish I could turn off all emotions and just take pleasure in the physical comfort he offered.

I've got no business feeling any sort of way about it other than grateful it was on offer last night.

I stand from the bed, leaving the robe behind on the messy tangle of sheets before heading to the bathroom for a quick shower.

The warm water helps to ease some of the tightness in my face, but I know it'll take more than that to make it all go away.

I wonder as I towel off just how I'm going to hold myself together long enough to let this ICE shit play out. How can I possibly keep my brothersin the dark? They'll walk into the house and see it on my face in seconds.

I swipe a hand over the mirror, shoving away the condensation there so I can stare at myself.

I feel miserable, but even under my own scrutiny, I can see that I simply look tired, and that's something I can explain away by lying about working a lot of late hours. Neither one of my brothers are so involved in my daily life to know what I've been up to, so I imagine the lie will go over easily if they even bother to ask.

Rather than picking apart my appearance, I sweep my hair up into a bun and leave the bathroom, spending the next few minutes getting dressed before double-checking the room to make sure I don't leave anything behind. I give that damn bed one last look before swiping the robe from it and shoving it into my bag.

Eddie is waiting in the common area of the suite, and I don't miss the way he manages to look in my direction while also not looking at me, and I can already tell this is going to be incredibly awkward. I don't have the time or the patience for weird right now.

"About last night—"

I lift my hand to silence him. I can't take the way I predict he's going to attempt to let me down easy as if I'm some young girl who falls in love after one night with a man. I'm a single woman in my late thirties. My entire adult life has been a string of one-night mistakes because I've never had any interest in settling down with anyone. I saw how devastating it was for my dad to lose the love of his life. I'd rather be single than deal with something like that.

"Forget about it," I tell him, somehow managing to hold my head high when I speak. "It was a moment of weakness. Nothing more."

I don't know if the way his jaw clenches is because he agrees or disagrees, but I'm facing too much other shit in my life to worry myself with his reactions.

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