Page 94 of Nothing to Do

FEET ON THE FLOOR, she tried to balance and slowly lifted her fingertips from the mattress. She wobbled and grabbed for it again.

“Hey!” Zane came rushing in. “What are you doing?”

“It’s a little weird. I can’t work out if it’s the boot making me unsteady or the alcohol.” Catching his arm, she surrendered the bed to use him as her stabilizing force. “How is everyone?”

“I don’t know why they…” With a slight head shake, he exhaled. “I’m sorry, Wanderer.”

“For what?” she asked, again testing her balance.

Apologies were becoming the theme of their relationship.

“All the bullshit.”

“It’s not your fault.” Another chorus they’d sung before. “This is your family. You can’t change them. Do you need to stay here?”

“Stay? No, I’m wherever you need to be.”

“Is Sway okay?” Hop, shimmy, she bounced back to sit on the edge of the bed. No need to keep squeezing the guy if they weren’t going anywhere. “Roxie said she had a black eye.”

One by one people had left her room. Struan first, no shock there. Tripp went after, to keep him in check, then Logan jumped to when shouting from the other end of the hall alerted them to Deacon’s presence.

Zairn trooped out to back him up, while Roxie followed to “keep the pin in the Zairn grenade” as her friend put it. At her urging, when the nurse came in, Zane went to check what was going on. Roxie had returned to hear the spiel and only justmanaged to tell her about Sway before more shouting stole her away.

“There was some pushing and shoving, she got knocked over in the fray.”

Or that was the story. Whether it was true? It was anyone’s guess.

“That won’t look good. The press will know both Roman and Deacon were here. Sway’s hospital visit… It doesn’t take a genius to make the connections.” True or not, that wouldn’t get in the way of a good story. “What does it mean for his show?”

“Alessia’s back at the hotel.” He swept her hair from her shoulder, ignoring the question, which would be no accident. “She and her friends, all the contest winners were brought back to the hotel.”

“For their safety or to keep them quiet?”

“As long as they’re safe,” he said and then there was that frown again. “You don’t think I care about covering up—”

“You do that too much here.” She laced their fingers together. “The frowning thing. You haven’t had enough sex today.”

That tweaked the corner of his lips. God, she loved to see him relax. “That your sound medical judgment?”

“Definitely.” Guiding his arm around her, she sank against him, closing her eyes. “I’m so glad you were here tonight.”

“Ready to go back to the hotel?”

“If Roman’s here with Deacon and Sway, the danger isn’t over yet.”

“I’m here for what you want, not for them.”

“What I want is to fall asleep in your bed, in your arms, just us. Can’t the whole world be just us for a little while?”

“A long while. As long as you want.”

“Were you planning to spend the night with me?”

“I didn’t plan on crashing your fun, but if Roxie told me you’d gone to bed alone…”

She looked up. “You thought I’d go to bed with someone else?”

On a snicker, he touched her brow. “Wouldn’t be the first time Roxie’s woken up with one of her girls, with or without clothes.

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