Page 20 of Inked Devotion

Ipressed the key against the lock, the door clicked, and I turned the handle to walk in. I could feel Benjamin behind me and did my best not to think about it too hard, because this was Benjamin. My friend. We had just spent how many hours together in the car? We could figure this out.

“I can take the floor,” Benjamin said as we walked in and looked at the giant king bed in the very tiny room. I looked at the floor and cringed. “You’re not sleeping on the floor. Who knows what’s happened on these carpets, what little there is of it.”

He sighed and looked out. “I’m sure it’s not that bad,” he paused. “Okay, maybe it is exactly that bad.” He looked at me, cringed. “I can sleep in the car.”

I laughed. “You’re not sleeping in the damn car. It’s cold, and it’s rainy, and we’re not going to waste gas to keep you warm.”

“Brenna, we’re both adults. We can do this.” He gave the bed a tight nod as if he were a drill sergeant getting ready to train his soldiers.

“Yes, we are adults.” I sighed. “Let’s go find something to eat, and maybe just spend the evening stuffing our faces with nachos or something.”

He snorted and shook his head as he set his duffle near the side of the bed closest to the door. I nearly rolled my eyes because I knew he had done that to protect me. Beckett, Benjamin, Lee, and I had always joked that the person that slept by the door would get murdered first, and then Lee had mentioned that the person by the window would get hit by a sniper, so there wasn’t any safe space. The fact that we cared about these things just told us how tired we had been when we had had these conversations.

“I guess you want to get murdered first?” I teased.

He slid his hand through his hair. “If I have to be. Did you think I was going to let you get murdered first?”

“What if they see me first even though you’re closer? You’ll never know. There’s no safe place.”

“At least we’re in a hotel with a hallway and not one against the outside world. That’s more murder central.”

“We need to stop watching murder shows together.”

“You’re the one that adds additional podcasts to the situation.”

“Annabelle and Paige are far worse than me. They went to a convention about those podcasts.”

“You didn’t go because you had a wedding cake to bake. I remember,” Benjamin teased, and I blushed before I pulled my tablet, sketch pad, and purse towards me. “Let’s go get food.”

“There’s a Tex-Mex place across the street. We can get you those nachos.”

“Tex-Mex in rural America? It’s not going to berealTex-Mex.”

“Picky picky. We don’t live in Texas. Colorado barely has real Tex-Mex.”

“Shut your mouth. Colorado does just fine.”

“True. I think I just got spoiled when I had those carnitas down in San Antonio.”

“Of course you were spoiled, but now I want carnitas, or nachos, or just anything with salsa.”

“The spicier, the better,” he added.

I shook my head as we made our way out and towards the restaurant. People were still milling about in the lobby, and I felt terrible about it, but as it was, we hadn’t taken two rooms, just one, and now we were going to have to deal with sleeping in the same bed together. The family with those children had a safe space for the night, and that is all I could do for now. Hopefully, the roads would be clear by the following day, and the storm would go away, and we’d be fine.

“There’s a walkway over here that’s partially covered, so we shouldn’t get too drenched.”

“Good, I’m not in the mood to be a sopping mess on my way to get those nachos.”

“Now I’m craving nachos.”

“Want to share a plate and then get something else and just gorge ourselves?” I asked.

“That sounds like the best idea.”

That’s when I noticed he also had his tablet and sketchbook with him, and I raised a brow. “You’ll be working too then?”

“We have a couple of hours to kill, nowhere to go, so yes, I’ll be working on a few projects, and my tablet has my book on it, so I’ll figure out something. As long as we don’t steal a table from everybody for too long, I’m fine with it.”

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