Page 11 of Risk It All

I roll my eyes as I kick off my shoes and set my purse down on the dresser.

“I’m exhausted,” Anthony says as he sits down on the bed to untie his shoes.

“Me too.Are we going to leave bright and early again tomorrow?I wanted to make it to Chicago tomorrow and then we can be in New York late Wednesday.”

“Sounds like a plan.How far is it to Chicago?”

“About fifteen hours,” I admit with a wince.

It’s only been two days and I’m already sick of driving around.

“Damn.Alright, better get to bed then.”

I nod, grabbing my pajamas, toothbrush and toothpaste and heading into the bathroom to get changed.Anthony is changed by the time I come back out and we pass by each other as he heads into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

I slip under the covers, my earlier ease dissipating as I wonder what sleeping with Anthony will be like.

Oh god.What if I cuddle him or something?What if I talk in my sleep or snore?

Anthony comes out and hits the lights as I plug my phone in and pull the covers up more.

“Did you set an alarm?”he asks and I nod before I realize that he can’t see me.

“Yeah, another six a.m.morning.”

Anthony groans and my mind can’t help but think about him doing that in bed in a different context.My nipples pebble inside my thin cotton sleep shirt and I try to discreetly scoot away from him.

“‘Night, Emerson,” Anthony whispers in the dark and a shiver runs through me.

“Goodnight, Anthony.”

I close my eyes, begging for sleep to take me.Right before I fall asleep, a thought hits me.

Layla is right.I am into Anthony.

CHAPTER6

Anthony

I spendall day Tuesday in the car with Emerson.

We play I Spy games, debate our favorite bands, books, and movies, before we move onto TV shows.Somewhere after we cross into Colorado, we start to play two truths and a lie and I learn a lot about her.

She hates peanuts but loves peanut butter, couldn’t wait to leave home, always wanted a sibling but since that never happened, so she settled for Layla.She tells me about the embarrassing time that she went to a high school party and fell asleep in a guest room.Her parents had been furious, thinking that she had been fooling around with some boy and had grounded her for two weeks.

I tell her about the time Ames, Alexander and I snuck out when we were teens.We got caught climbing back in the window and grounded for a week.That hadn’t stopped us from sneaking out again the next weekend.

I tell her about school and some of my family trips.She asks me a bunch of questions about when I first started doing stand up and I embellish quite a bit.No comic is great when they first start out but I tell Emerson I was killing it from day one.

I don’t think that she believes me.

We take turns driving, eating snacks that we grabbed at a gas station so that we don’t have to make more stops for food.

Emerson already booked us a hotel room for Chicago and I would never tell her, but I’m hoping that we get another room with only one bed again.I haven’t shared a bed with a woman before but sharing one with Emerson had been nice.

She was a snuggler.

She had fallen asleep and then rolled over almost immediately and curled up against my side.I always thought that I would hate cuddling.Just the idea of someone hanging on me drove me crazy, but with Emerson, I didn’t seem to mind.In fact, I liked having her close.

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