Page 34 of Let It Be Me
I finally turn and face him. He’s got Sasha on his shoulder and it’s too cute that I can no longer be horrified by the room that I’m in. “Okay, if this is their room then where do I sleep?”
Riley exaggeratedly sniffs the air and all but sprints outof the room. “Oh no, I need to go check the food and make sure it doesn’t burn.”
“Riley Theodore Jones!” I call after him. “Please tell me I’m not sleeping in your bed.” Sasha joins her sibling on the couch and I do a double take. The eyes of the Maine Coon follow my every move as if I’m about to strike her owner. I turn my focus to the mountain of a man who’s at the stove ignoring me.
“If you were my real girlfriend you’d sleep in my bed anyways,” Riley says like it’s a matter-of-fact thing. Which to be fair, if I was his girlfriend I’d be in his bed.
“Well, I’m not.” I stomp my foot.
Riley turns his head towards me, amusement taking over every inch of his face. “Did you just stomp your foot?”
“I did.”
“Brat.”
I raise a perfectly shaped brow at him.
He sighs and holds his hands out in front of him. Which he tends to do a lot around me. “You can make a pillow barrier if you’re worried about not being able to control yourself in a bed with me.”
“Asshole,” I mutter and zip my suitcase back up and roll it into his room. In my ire, the second I step into his room my shock level keeps growing. Bad reputation or not, Riley has a cozy bedroom. I take a look at his nightstands and choose to set up camp at the empty looking one, deciding this will be the side that I sleep on. Taking my lounge clothes out of my suitcase, which just consists of shorts and an oversized sweatshirt, I head into the bathroom to change.
“It’s so hard to be mad at him with a bathroom like this,” I say aloud.
Riley playing schemer has made the lines blurry. I knowhe knows what he was doing. He has mischief written all over his persona. I’ll show him who’s the one who can’t control themselves. If he wants us to play house, then he just met his match.
14
RILEY
Besides the sound of the Italian sausage sizzling in the pan, it’s too quiet in here. Normally it’s the girls getting into something and me having to clean it up later. But now that Sarah is here, my suspicions are leveled up to a thousand.
Was it a jerk move to cancel her hotel room without any warning? Yes.
Was it a jerk move to want her in my space without consulting her? Also, yes.
In the short time, everything has been better with Sarah around. The voices that have been demanding more from me have quieted. To be better. To push myself. To not let down my loved ones. They all quiet when she’s around. I can breathe a little better knowing she has my back and it shocks me because I didn’t expect to get so comfortable so fast with her.
I sense her before I see her. It’s weird. But what I don’t expect is her to come up behind me and wrap her arms around me. Uh…what happened in the time she chewed my head off to when she changed her clothes? An epiphany doesn’t happen that fast, does it?
“Not that I dislike you wrapped around me like a fanny pack, but whyareyou wrapped around me?”
“I figure we should get used to touching each other in non-bedroom ways since we’ll be around other people this weekend. And you just flinched.” Sarah tells me and points out my body’s reaction to her touch, but I don’t buy the reason.
“Well your hands are colder than the ice baths I take,” I use as an excuse. Which that’s what it is.
“You should feel my feet,” she teases.
“I’ll pass,” I tell her and my body finally unclenches with her wrapped around me. “So how does us in public work? And what’s our story?”
“What do you mean?” Sarah asks and I feel the loss of her body heat as she comes to stand next to me.
I look over at her and my eyes zero in on what she’s wearing: short shorts that show off her toned legs and a Cincinnati football sweatshirt with scrunched gray socks on her feet. My eyes travel up her body and I meet a smirking Sarah who raises her eyebrow at me. If that’s what she wants to play, then let the games begin.
“I know you’ve seenThe Proposal. They needed a story to convince people that they all of a sudden started dating and fell in love. But without the engagement for us. Unless you want to wear a mini ice rink on your finger.” I say teasingly and wink at her.
She crosses her arms and leans back against the counter. “No. I’m not wearing a ring until it matters.”
Huh. She’s hiding something. And maybe right now, it’s not my place to ask. But hopefully one day she’ll let me in.
