Page 54 of Romancing the Grump
“I just…really want to sleep for a few more hours, and this feels like the easiest way.”
Last night, the rest of the Appies left immediately after the game to drive over to Cleveland, leaving Alec, Summer, and me at the hotel alone. After our Flex meeting in the morning, Summer will fly back to Harvest Hollow, and Alec and I will fly to Cleveland to catch the team.
That means Summer doesn’t really have anywhere else togo. If the front desk isn’t helping, it’s either my room or Alec’s, and…yeah,it has to be my room.
I don’t actually worry about Alec. We may call the guy Ego, but there are lines he won’t cross, and another man’s girlfriend is one of those lines. Even if, in this case, the relationship isn’t technically real.
Still, I don’t like the idea of Summer spending time alone with any of the guys on the team. Or any guy,period.
It’s stupid. And probably a little overkill to feel so protective of her. So concerned for her wellbeing. But there it is.
“Please, Nathan?” Summer says. “I know how much sleep I need to be at my best, and the longer I’m awake, the harder that’s going to be.”
This is a bad idea.
How can Summer Callahanin my bedbe anything but a bad idea? But I can’t argue with her. I’m not sure I could tell her no even if I wanted to.
And dammit, I really don’t want to.
“Okay, come on,” I say, stepping back and motioning her through the door.
“Thank you,” she says as she breezes in. It’s still winter-dark outside, but with the light pouring in from her room, and a streetlight in the parking lot outside that’s filtering in through the heavy curtains, there’s more than enough light for me to see Summer’s outline as she moves toward the bed.
I swallow, my throat suddenly dry. She’s wearing a tank top and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, and her hair is up, giving me a perfect view of her shoulders, the stretch of skin below her collarbones, the curves of her body. She looks…perfect. Completely casual, a little rumpled from sleep, but…perfect.
And she’s about to crawl into my bed.
This doesn’t have to be awkward. Does it? We’re both adults—adults in extenuating circumstances. And there’s, what—three more hours until I’m supposed to wake up? That’s basically nothing.Thisis nothing.
I close the door, blocking the light from her room and flooding us with darkness.
“Do you care which side I’m on?” Summer asks. “I promise I’ll make myself as small as possible.”
“You’re fine where you are,” I say, moving to the bed and pulling down the covers. “And don’t make yourself small. It’s a big bed.”
“Got it,” Summer says, her voice coy. “So you’re saying Icanwarm my ice-cube feet underneath your butt. So glad we cleared that up.”
I settle onto the mattress and pull up the covers. I’m not unaware that I’m a foot or so closer to the middle than I could be, but it’s hard to resist the pull of her. It’s hard enough keeping her off my mind when sheisn’tin the same room.
But this? Talk about futility.
“Are your feet really cold?” I ask.
“Always,” she answers.
“Why not sleep in socks?”
“Because socks don’t work. If my feet are cold when I put on socks, they just hold the cold in. They don’t warm me up.”
“That is very bad science,” I say, and Summer chuckles.
“You sound like Lucy. She’s a nurse, and she’s always telling me I’m wrong about this. But I swear it’s true. Socks don’t help. My feet are perpetually, permanently blocks of Arctic ice.”
“They can’t be that bad.”
Summer shifts, and cold snakes its way up my calf as she presses her feet against my leg.
I yelp and all but jump out of the bed to get away from her. “Geez. You weren’t kidding.”
