Page 84 of False Start

Kit fumbled with the room key, swiping it as she dodged a guy with his tie wrapped around his forehead as he stumbled down the hall. The man bounced against a wall, eyes narrowing in concentration at me, then the floor, then me again. “You’re that man!”

Kit groaned as the door flashed red and swiped the key again.

“The Breakers, right? Tred or Ted…no, Trent Vogt.” He clapped a meaty hand on my shoulder and yelled back down the hall. “Hey guys, there’s a football player here! Did you come to the conference?”

I shook my head. Kit pushed open the door. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”

“I don’t. He’s on my fantasy team. He earned me ten points last season. Hey.” His face careened close to mine, and he bracedhimself against the wall. “Should I draft you again? No more Phoenix fiascos, right?”

Kit grabbed my shirt, pulling me into the room. I stumbled inside as Kit slammed the door in the guy’s face, cutting off either a request for an autograph or a picture.

“Thanks for that.”

“We don’t need the printer people outside our door waiting in line for autographs. I’m exhausted.”

I walked past the bathroom and stopped short, surveying the room with wide eyes. “Um, Kit?”

“What?”

“Didn’t you say you got a room with two queen beds?”

“Yeah, why?” Kit’s eyes widened to saucers. She dropped her bag at my feet as she ogled the single king bed at the center of the room. “No. This isn’t right at all.”

Her fingers trembled as she reached for the phone in her pocket, pulling up the reservation. “Two beds. It’s right here.”

She didn’t wait for me to confirm the reservation before scooping up the phone on the bedside table and pressing the button for the reception desk.

“Hi, I just checked in. I had two queen beds on my reservation, but this room has a king-sized bed.” She folded her arms, turning to face the wall. “Yeah, I know. That’s not really an upgr—Is there anything? Nothing at all? Fine. Fine.”

She slammed the phone on the receiver and gave me a tight smile. “They don’t have any double queen rooms.”

I tensed. “They told us that in the lobby.”

“Right, right.” She raked a hand through her hair, loosening her messy bun so tendrils of brown hair fell free around her face, contrasting the tension on her face: her knitted brow, her clenched jaw. “Alright. We can make this work.”

“Kick Mike and Hayden out of their room?” I suggested.

“Are you serious?”

“Of course not. I’ll sleep on the floor if it’s gonna tear you up that much.”

She eyed the floor with a grimace. The matted red carpet didn’tlookclean. Or particularly new.

“Don’t be silly,” she said with absolutely no conviction. “It’s a big bed. We’ll be fine for a night.”

“Yep, just two people with sibling energy sharing one bed who kissed once,” I joked wryly.

She groaned as she shouldered her bag and brushed past me on the way to the bathroom. She slammed the door behind her.

I sat on the end of the bed and scrubbed my face. How the hell would I get through the night? Whatever had happened over the last four days had me off my game. Add in the fact that I hadn’t gotten laid in at least a month, and this was a bigger recipe for disaster than Kit realized.

Thankfully, Kit would keep me in line. She wasn’t interested, and the kiss hadn’t affected her at all. How? No idea. Apparently, my temporary break from women had broken my ability to distinguish a good kiss from a bad kiss. An enthusiastic partner from an ambivalent one.

The door to the bathroom opened, and Kit raced out and around the bed, slipping under the covers so I only glimpsed the oversized band t-shirt she wore. Was she wearing shorts under that? I couldn’t say for sure, and the mental image of Kit in a t-shirt with my name on it and nothing else stirred a wave of lust that pushed me up from the bed.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” I said, not sure why I’d bothered considering Kit had curled herself into a ball, desperate to fall asleep before I climbed back into bed.

Like the rest of the trip, the hotel bathroom was a bare bones affair: white subway tile walls with a clear glass door to the shower that allowed water to spill onto the floor.

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