Page 62 of Trip Me Up

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NIALL

For the secondtime in as many days, I knocked on Sam’s door, worry curling in my belly. She’d been ecstatic over her newborn niece this morning, but everything had turned at Happy Troll. Why hadn’t she been as thrilled as I was about the prize nomination?

I clutched the bottle of champagne Qiana had slipped me from the celebration. A pair of the hotel’s wineglasses clinked in my other hand.

Even though it was only five, Sam answered the door again in a tank top and sleep pants. The curtains of her room were pulled shut.

“Were you asleep?”

“No, working.” She glanced back at her laptop, open on the desk, and leaped back into the room to slap it shut.

“Can I come in? I brought this.” I waved the bottle at her.

She wrinkled her nose. “Champagne’s not my thing.”

“It’s not?” When I stepped into the room, the door banged shut. I winced.

“It reminds me of too many stuffy parties. Like the one where I met you.”

“You think I’m stuffy?” I set the glasses on the edge of the desk, far away from her delicate computer equipment.

One side of her mouth turned up. “I thought you were one of them when Gabi’s photographer showed up. I’m glad I was wrong.”

“I—ah.” It was confession time. I couldn’t keep going with Sam unless I told her the truth. “I also formed an impression. About you. Actually, it wasn’t about you at all. Just your”—I waved a hand at her rumpled plaid pants and her camisole—“appearance.”

“My appearance?” She crossed her arms over her chest, and one strap slipped off her shoulder.

I averted my eyes. Why was her shoulder so much sexier without that length of elastic? “How about a beer from the minibar?”

She snorted. “I checked the prices. Ten bucks for a Coors Lite? No, thanks.”

“I’m buying. I think this’ll go better with a little alcohol.” I opened the mini fridge and pulled out a pair of bottles. I offered them to her, and she picked the pilsner. I twisted off the cap of the lager, raised it toward her in a half-toast, and took a long pull.

She found the opener on top of the fridge, popped off the top, and sipped her beer. “A dollar. That’s how much that sip cost.”

I frowned. “Why are you worried about money?Magicianis selling well, according to Heidi. Plus, you’re an heiress.”

This time, she glugged back the beer. Her lips popped off the neck, shiny, pink, and wet. “Not anymore. I gave away my trust fund. I didn’t want to be a target. A victim. Not again.”

“A victim?” My heart stalled in my chest. “Were you kidnapped? Blackmailed?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.” She sat on the bed next to where Bilbo was curled up. “What’ll go easier with alcohol?”

I raised my eyebrows at the desk chair. After a glance at her closed laptop, she nodded. I rotated the chair to face the bed and sat in it.

“I was struggling when I met you. With my writing. I was stuck. And meeting you shook something loose in my brain.”

Her lips curled up into the first smile I’d seen since she’d shown me the photos of baby Valentine this morning. “You called me your violet-eyed muse.”

Warmth spread from my neck up my cheeks. “But there’s more. I—I created a character. Based on you. On your appearance. And things I imagined about you.”

Her eyes widened. “Things you imagined about me? Like fantasies?”

The heat spread up over my forehead. “Not sex fantasies. Just regular fantasy stuff. I imagined a wood sprite with your features. Your eyes. Your”—I swallowed—“skin. She saved Nieven from the trap he’d fallen into. And then she joined him on his adventures.”

“What’s her name?”

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