Page 61 of Some Like It Hott

Unsurprisingly, I sleep like shit.

I alternate between replaying the events in the spa and the moment outside my door, between fantasizing about touching Preston and telling myself to chill the fuck out and not get attached.

I get to work exhausted and looking it, which makes me feel even more vulnerable. I brace myself for the possibility that Preston running away last night was the end of the story.

So I’m not surprised at all when he stalks into the meeting room, sits down across from me without making eye contact, and gets straight down to business.

“I did the fifty-things brainstorming list last night,” he says briskly.

Was it before or after you did that thing with your tongue, where you flicked and circled my nipple?

Before or after I said,Preston Hott, are you talking dirty to me?And you smiled and said,I guess I am.

Preston Hott, it turns out, isfun.

There are lots of fun men in the world. A million of them. A billion, maybe. But this one?

He didn’t know he was fun, and that makes it so, so much better.

Because he’s fun just for me.

Heat flares all over my body, remembering.

Except now he’s not. Now he’s all buttoned-up business again.

“I couldn’t sleep?—”

My eyes flick to his face, but he’s said it without any particular emphasis or significance, and he’s not looking at me.

“—and I kept thinking about Bouncy Town?—”

Then he does look at me, for a split second, and I think maybe he’s going to acknowledge the dirty joke, acknowledge what happened…

But he turns away again and goes on: “—and I came up with a lot of good stuff, but my best idea is: I think we should add Nerf blaster tag. I kept thinking about the kids playing laser tag—but Nerf is less expensive. And less messy and less painful than paintball.”

Trust Preston to still be thinking about practical considerations. It makes me smile a little. “I don’t know,” I say slowly. “Both laser tag and paintball track when you make a hit. Nerf blasters would have to work on the honor system.”

“I thought of that,” he says. “We’d have to test if it would work. We could get some of the Hotts and Wilders together again and run a test this weekend. I was thinking we could use flags, like in football, but you’d have three of them, and each time you get hit you pull one, so people can see how many chances you have left.” He lifts his chin. “I was also thinking—the will doesn’t say we can only run each activity in one slot. We could have Nerf tag every night at seven thirty. There are a lot of other things we could run two or three times in a week. We wouldn’t have to come up with that many more ideas, and we could get to work right away on prepping for the festival.”

“Ooh,” I say. “That could work. I like it.”

The corners of his mouth tug up, and he casts me a pleased sideways glance that’s almost shy. This big, competent, powerful guy who wants to get the answer right on the quiz. I want to throw my arms around him.

I want to push him down on the table.

I sigh and do neither.

We spend the rest of the meeting divvying up tasks, placing rush orders for materials online, and talking about the logistics for the festival itself—volunteers, setup and cleanup, and spreading the word. The festival has its own marketing, but we’ll need to advertise our booth through social media to make sure we get enough participants to make the activities fun.

We have to get those five stars.

By the time we’re done, I’m caught up in the excitement, and I’ve almost—but not completely—forgotten how confused I am about the gap between what I want and what I can have from Preston.

“Well,” Preston says. “Thank you. That was extremely productive.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Good work.”

“You, too.” He doesn’t look at me, just stands and gathers his things. It’s like we’ve reset back a week and a half, lost all the progress we made. It’s like we never opened up to each other, played with each other, touched each other.

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