Page 5 of The Cowboy's Friendly Wake-Up Call

Holding up the key ring, I tell her, "Hotel screwed up our reservation, we have one suite, not two rooms."

Apparently my accusation doesn't sit well with the desk clerk though.

"The reservation was originally booked for two rooms back in March of this year when the event block opened up. However, I see it was modified last month by a Kimberly O'Leary to the one suite."

The clerk looks up at us with an expression of smug victory.

My brain spins. Mom changed the reservation to one room right before my brothers forced this trip on me.

"Your mom probably knew she wasn't going to be up for the trip this year," Mercy explains this fiasco away easily. Thanking the woman for her help and leading me by the elbow out of the way so other people can get checked in.

"She probably changed the reservation before she knew your brothers were going to send us. She probably expected one of the couples to go-- no need to keep both rooms in that case."

What Mercy says does track, I guess.

"You said it's a suite, right?" Mercy keeps talking as we ride the elevator up to the top floor. She's acting like this is no big deal. Like it's not awkward as fuck at all to have to share a room together.

Proving that she doesn't think of me as anything more than a buddy, one of her girlfriends, or maybe a brother.

I grumble an answer as we make our way down the hallway to our room, while Mercy makes fun of me for not wanting her to see me in my "tidy whities."

"A suite should have two bedrooms, right?" Mercy asks as I double check the number on the door to the one on the keychain.

"Guess so."

The door swings open.

"Or not." Mercy giggles as she pushed past me into the space that the hotel optimistically calls a "suite."

It's worse than I thought.

Chapter Three

Mercy

Lance acts like having to share a room with me is going to be painful.

To be fair, it probably is.

It's not often that I travel with a second suitcase filled entirely with makeup and hair products, but we'll be going to the fancy, dress-up dinner tomorrow night and I wouldn't know where to have booked an appointment in Waterford to have someone else do that stuff for me, even if I'd had enough notice.

Lance is used to plain Jane Mercy, who never takes more than five minutes to get ready for anything.

Brushing past him at the door, I take the thirty second tour of our "suite." It's a small sitting area with a kitchenette and a table and chairs with the bedroom off to one side.

One bedroom. One bed. One bathroom.

Lance mutters about me probably wanting my privacy, but I don't understand what the big deal is.

"It's a king size bed," I point out. "Not like there's not room for the both of us."

I'm curvy and Lance is tall, but there's still enough real estate in that bed that we could share and not even touch each other.

I guess that's his plan-- just like it always has been-- so I start putting my things away in the closet without letting the disappointment register.

"What are you fussing about, O'Leary?" I chide. "It's not like we've never seen each other naked."

He answers me with cold silence from out in the little sitting room where he went back to grab more of our things.

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