Page 71 of The Ruse

I made my breathing match his, and soon my eyelids felt heavy. I drifted off to sleep.

19

ELYSE

The soundof a door closing jarred me awake.

When I opened my eyes, I was face to face with Asher.

He woke up a second later, and after looking at each other with surprised expressions, we both looked down and saw that we had somehow held each other’s hands while we’d slept.

I quickly pulled my hand away at the same time that he said, “Sorry.”

Then there was a knock on the door, and we heard the reason why we’d both woken up at the same time.

“Elyse? Asher? Are you in there?” Miss Crawley’s voice sounded muffled on the other side of the door. “Owen—er, Mr. Park and I are here to pick you up.”

Crap!

What should we do? Were we going to get in trouble for sleeping in the same bed?

Nothing happened of course, but from the way we’d both sunk into the middle of the bed, anyone who found us would assume we’d shared a bed in a non-platonic way.

Asher must have been better than I was at thinking fast this early in the morning because he quickly grabbed a pillow and one of the blankets off the dresser and called, “We’re in here.”

He hurried and threw the pillow on the floor at the foot of the bed. And as he plopped himself down on the floor to lie down with the blanket like he’d been there all night, I whispered, “Oh, so you don’t actually want to be a gentleman. You just want tolooklike you are one.”

He made a face. But then he nodded toward the door, signaling that I should hurry up and open it and prove that no monkey business had been going on.

So I climbed out of the warm bed and padded toward the door. When I opened it, I found our drama teacher wearing a maroon parka with Asher’s brother standing right behind her.

“Is Asher in there with you?” Miss Crawley stepped forward and peeked her head into the room suspiciously.

“Yeah, he’s just there on the floor.” I swung the door wider so she could see him. And right on cue, Asher made a show of stretching like he was just waking up and muttered something about how his back was sore from sleeping on the hard floor all night.

He was such a liar!

Our gazes caught briefly, and he shot me a wink when Miss Crawley and Mr. Park weren’t looking.

Dang, this boy. He was trouble!

And yeah, he also looked super cute with his bedhead and rumpled T-shirt right now.

“Why were you sleeping on the floor, Asher?” Miss Crawley asked as he stood. “We have plenty of beds.”

“Oh, that’s my fault,” I said, trying to keep my voice as non-guilty-sounding as possible. “I got scared last night. Asher was such a gentleman and offered to sleep on the floor, so I’d feel safe.”

“Sounds like Asher.” She beamed at him like he was the drama teacher’s pet. “He’s always been that way.”

As Miss Crawley pulled me into her arms for a hug, I caught Mr. Park’s face briefly, and his expression told me he wasn’t quite buying our story but wasn’t going to say anything because he found it entertaining that Miss Crawley was.

“I’m so sorry that we left you two up here.” Miss Crawley squeezed me in a tight embrace. “I feel so bad that this happened.” She stepped away and turned to Asher who was just hugging his brother. “I hope you two were okay and weren’t too scared.”

“We were fine,” I said. Then, remembering I had a ruse to keep up, I added. “Once Asher offered to sleep on the floor, it actually wasn’t so bad.”

And it really hadn’t been. Despite being scared for my life at a few points, it had overall been a positive experience.

Even if I was curious how Asher and I had ended up holding hands while we’d slept.

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