Page 79 of Just Friends
“However”—the receptionist continued to play her role flawlessly, and I wondered how much money Jax was bribing her—“wedohave two separate royal king deluxe rooms available. Would that be okay?”
Wait, what?
Two separate rooms?
Jax turned to me to confer. The relief in his eyes suggested we’d narrowly dodged a disaster. I could see him thinking,We each get our own room? With a king bed? Of course that’d be okay.
I stared back at him blankly, my head still spinning
Hey, wait! No! This isn’t how things were supposed to go! You’re supposed to try to trick me into sharing the same bed with you!
But I didn’t speak up, and Jax wasn’t a mind reader. With a shrug, he turned back to the receptionist.
“Yeah, sure, that’d be fine,” he said. “Is there an extra charge?” He pulled out his wallet, ready to pay.
“No charge, Mr. Cameron,” she said, her fingers flying on the keyboard to correct the mistake. “We apologize for the inconvenience.”
“All good,” he said. “Thanks for making it right.”
Right? No, Jax—this wasn’t right at all!
She pulled out two separate keycards and went to work scanning and preparing them. I stared and watched her in stunned disbelief, a disappointment bubbling in my stomach.
Yeah, okay, maybe I’m nuts. Because a couple minutes ago, I wasconvincedJax had arranged this mishap, and it seemed like the corniest thing ever. But a minute later, I realized he hadn’t, and suddenly I found myself wishing he had. I didn’twantthe room to myself, I wanted to share a room with him. We were supposed to be spending time together this weekend! Putting us in separate rooms would only putmoredistance between us; distance we did not need.
Oh, who am I kidding? What Ireallywanted was for us to be forced together. Because I wanted one last shot at Jax—to tell him how I really felt. If he wanted to reject me after that,fine,no hard feelings, I’d go back to Montana like I planned.
On cue, little sis’ words of wisdom went through my mind:
You have to make the first move! Shoot your shot!
I gulped.
Oh God, am I really going to do this?
My heart pounded so hard in my chest, I felt a little woozy and started to think I might pass out—or maybe more realistically, have an embarrassing cataplexy attack right here in the hotel lobby, get the ambulance called on me by some freaked-out good Samaritan, and ruin everyone’s day. Yep, it’s safe to say I was scared. But I stayed on my feet long enough to muster the courage to tap Jax on the arm and get his attention.
He slowly turned around to meet my gaze, his eyebrow lifting. “What’s up, Pipes?”
I cleared my throat and tried to speak, but no words came out. “Uhhh—” was all I could manage. My heart sped faster and faster.
Oh no, I’m blowing it.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes narrowing with concern. He took hold of my arm, a gentle force lurking in his big hand, ready to catch me just in case I fell.
Oh God, this is the opposite of sexy. I’m scaring him!
If I was going to do it? I had to do itnow.I took a deep breath and started talking, with no idea what was about to come out of my mouth.
“Oh, um, I just wanted to say that I’d actually be cool with just one room,” I quietly managed. “If you’d be cool with it, too, of course.”
I DID IT!!!
“Sorry, what?” he asked as if he earnestly didn’t believe he’d heard me correctly.
Oh no, don’t make me say it again!I thought, my cheeks blazing like a blast furnace.
“It’s just that I thought we were going to get to hang out a lot this weekend,” I muttered. “I dunno, I think maybe I’d feel a little lonely if I had my own room? And hey, it’s a king sized bed. There’s plenty of room for the two of us.” I gave a shrug. “But I totally understand if you want your own room.”
