Page 53 of Romancing the Grump
“I know you said you had a good feeling, but be real with me,” I say. “Am I making a mistake?”
It takes her a minute to answer, and I get the sense that she’s weighing her words carefully. She’s a straight shooter—I like this about her—but I also know she cares about my feelings.
Finally, she shrugs. “Maybe, yeah. But that’s a risk with all relationships, isn’t it? Even the real ones. Just think about what you might gain if itisn’ta mistake.”
My eyes find Nathan on the ice, and I watch him as he talks to Van. He points at something, Van nods, then Nathan skates off in the opposite direction with a serious look on his face.
I could watch him do this all day.
Itisa risk. Possibly a monumentally stupid one.
And I just can’t bring myself to care.
CHAPTER 12
NATHAN
Considering my track record,it’s highly unusual for me to jolt awake in the middle of the night.
So why am I awake now?
I blink into the darkness of my hotel room, heart pounding.
And then I hear it again.
A soft knock on the door. But not the door into the hallway. The door that connects my hotel room to Summer’s.
Summer.
Maybe that’s why I woke up so easily. Clearly, my brain has some sort of default wiring that means I will always wake up for her.
“Nathan?” she whisper-yells, her voice muffled by the door.
I stand up and shuffle over, swinging the door open to find her standing there, eyes wide, a nervous expression on her face.
“I can’t believe that worked,” she says. “I didn’t think I’d be able to wake you up.”
“Is everything okay?” I practically cringe at the sound of my scratchy voice. “What time is it?”
There’s a lamp on in the room behind her, and I blink against the light, but once my eyes adjust, I don’t see anything wrong with her room.
“Just past three,” she says. “And I’m totally fine, but my bed is not. There’s water leaking out of my ceiling.”
“What?”
“Did you see the episode ofSchitt’s Creekwhere John and Moira’s ceiling dripped on them? Basically just like that.”
I follow her gaze as she turns, and sure enough, there’s a steadydrip drip dripfalling from the ceiling directly into the center of her mattress.
“Did you call the front desk?”
“No one answered. But also, if theydoanswer, they’re going to want to come up and check things out and then they’ll want to move me to a new room, and by the time all of that happens, it’ll be time to wake up.”
My brain is still moving slowly. Does she wantmeto fix it? Or is there some other solution my sleep-addled brain hasn’t grasped yet?
“Can I just sleep in your room?” she says.
Nope. Definitely hadn’t thought of that.
