Page 58 of Romancing the Grump
“Me?” he says, nervously looking from me to Nathan. “Nothing. I’m good. Everything is good.”
“Then why are you being so weird?” Nathan says.
“Thank you,” I say, feeling justified now that Nathan has noticed too.
“I’m not being weird, you’re being weird,” Alec shoots back.
Okay. He’s definitely being weird.
“I haven’t said more than four words since we left the hotel,” Nathan says.
“Which is perfectly normal for him,” I say. “You, on theother hand, can’t even make eye contact with me. What gives?”
Alec’s jaw clenches, and he looks at the ceiling before he lifts his hands and says, “I saw you two in bed together!”
Before either of us can respond, the elevator doors ding open on the second floor to reveal an elderly woman holding an enormous stack of file folders. She steps onto the elevator, and the three of us move to the back to give her room.
Unfortunately, the presence of a woman old enough to be our grandmother does nothing to deter Alec’s confessional. “I still had your room key from yesterday morning, so I let myself into your room, thinking you’d need someone to wake you up, and there you were. All snuggled up and looking like whatever you’d been doing all night had definitely worn you out.”
I freeze, my eyes shifting to Nathan as heat floods my cheeks.
The woman in front of us clears her throat, casting a horrified glance over her shoulder.
True to form, Alec stares her down, offering her his most charming smile. “How are you?” he asks, his tone perfectly polite but somehow still conveying amind-your-own-businessmessage.
When I woke up this morning with my arm draped over Nathan’s chest, my head resting on his shoulder, he was still sound asleep. I managed to extricate myself and relocate to my side of the bed before yawning loudly and making enough noise to wake him up. Which he immediately did—I really do have superpowers when it comes to waking Nathan—none the wiser that seconds before, he’d had his hand resting on my hip.
Does he remember the snuggling? Is it imprinted on his brain the same way it is on mine?
Nathan’s face is unreadable, so I finally shift my gaze back to Alec. “It isn’t what you think.”
The elevator doors open on the third floor, and our unwitting companion steps off, casting one final judgmental scowl over her shoulder.
“There was a leak in the ceiling over my bed in my hotel room,” I say, “so I knocked on Nathan’s door and asked him if I could crash for the last few hours of the night. We just slept. That’s it.”
Alec frowns as the elevator deposits us on the fourth floor. “So, the relationship is still fake,” he says. “That wasn’t actually…you weren’t, um…?”
“It’s fake,” Nathan says so quickly that it stings, and I barely keep myself from wincing. He steps off the elevator, holding up his phone, which is vibrating in his hand. “Sorry. I gotta get this.” He moves over to the window to the left of the elevators, where there is a grouping of those funky egg chairs sitting on either side of an enormous ficus tree. In front of us, a giant glass wall emblazoned with Flex’s logo tells us we’re in the right place.
I use Nathan’s absence to take a few intentional deep breaths and mentally pull myself together. I have a very important meeting I’m supposed to run in less than half an hour. I don’t have time to get caught up in my feelings.
“Fake, huh?” Alec says as we move toward Flex’s main door. “You sure about that? You guys looked awfully comfortable this morning. Plus, the look on your face when he said it was fake was pretty telling.”
I force a smile. “Does it matter what I think ifhe’ssure?”
Alec gives me a knowing look, his eyes filling with compassion. Or is that pity? “It always matters what you think.”
I look at Nathan across the lobby, phone pressed to his ear. He’s wearing dress pants and a light blue chambray shirt, and his hair is up, knotted at the back of his head in the perfectly messy bun he always wears. “Any clue why he’s so cynical?”
“Not really,” Alec answers. “I mean, a lot of guys just want to focus on hockey, you know? And all that crap he said at dinner the other night, about the schedule? He’s right about that. It’s tough.” He opens the door for me, holding it as I pass into the very chic Flex lobby. “Listen,” Alec continues. “You’re a good sport doing this, faking this whole thing to take the pressure off Nathan. But you know you don’thaveto do it, right? Parker would understand.”
I don’t love that it feels like Alec is trying to warn me off. Like he can already sense that this might end up with me getting hurt. But I do love that he cares enough to be looking out for me.
“I know,” I say. “Thanks, Alec.”
As Nathan puts his phone away and moves toward us, I remind myself that I’m going to be okay. Even if thingsarefake, I can handle this. I can follow the rules.
When Nathan finally reaches us, I force myself to smile at him. “Everything okay?”
