Page 30 of Power Play

So focused, in fact, that I don’t even hear the guy behind the desk asking me if I’m checking in.

She turns around and gives me a look, and I snap back to reality.

“Oh, yes, sorry. Three rooms under Buck.”

The guy types away at his keyboard, his electric-yellow nail polish moving so quickly that my eyes can’t keep up.

“Here you are, sir,” he says, sliding three room keys across the desk. “Continental breakfast is at eight.”

Tyson scoffs behind us, wobbling on his feet.

“Eight,”he says. “Like we’re gonna be up byeight.”

Lo and I turn back to the desk, and I thank the man as we take our keys and head for the elevators.

Tyson is leaning back against the wall of the elevator as it moves, and for a minute, I think he’s actually asleep. We finally get off on the fourteenth floor, and I lead us down the hall in the direction of the rooms. The first one we get to is Tyson’s—or, at least, the one I mentally assigned to him. I use the keycard to scan us in, and he walks through with much-needed assistance from Lo. She leads him to the giant king bed in the middle of the floor, and he flops down on top of it. She takes off his shoes and sets them on the floor, and before she can ask him if he wants water, he’s snoring.

She looks at me, and we both bust out laughing.

Tyson has his moments where he drinks too much, but to be fair, they are few and far between—at least, that I’ve seen. We have only seen each other once or twice a year for the last ten years, but Tyson is just one of those friends that you can go weeks or, admittedly, months without talking and pick up where you left off. When we were teenagers, he would usually be the one to DD. He’d keep an eye on the rest of us at parties.

Every once in a while, he’d trust me to handle it so he could cut loose.

I’m glad he still trusts me.

Especially around his fucking smoke-show of a baby sister who has blossomed into the most beautiful fucking woman on the planet.

And as we are slowly backing out of his room, I’m becoming more and more aware of the fact that I’m now alone with her. Again.

And that her brother—my truest friend on the damn planet—is going to be just a few doors down. Even if he wasn’t, she’s still hissister.

Is that weird?

Maybe it’s not. It certainly wasn’t weird the first time.

Or…

Fuck, I don’t know.

I’m an only child. I don’t know the rules.

“Uh, we’re a few more doors down,” I tell her. She nods and follows my lead down the hall toward rooms sixty-eight and sixty-nine.

Sixty-nine. Seriously?

When we get to the rooms, I pause for a moment, staring down at the keys in my hands. She pauses and looks at them, too, then looks back up to me.

Hand her the key, Buck. Hand her the goddamn key.

I lift my eyes to hers, big and brown and full of wonder. And maybe a little…fear?Oh, God.The fear. I can’t. I can’t.

“Are you…are you really gonna let me go into this room by myself?” she says, her voice shaky. But slowly, she lifts her eyes to me.

I inhale sharply.

God,I don’t want to.

I freeze. I don’t know what to say. And I feel like a fucking idiot.

---