Page 65 of Love in Tandem
“Sorry.”
His chest vibrated with soft laughter. “That we survived?”
“No. That I fell asleep right away. We were supposed to take turns.”
“Sweetheart, if you think I was going to catch a wink of sleep last night a dozen feet in the air with wild animals roaming beneath us, you don’t know me at all.”
She shifted against him, trying not to revel too much in the warmth of his body heat wrapped around her. Or the fact that he called her sweetheart. But yeah. She smiled. They were definitely a real couple.
“And I suppose the fact you knew I wouldn’t be able to stay awake after biking all day, no matter the situation, proves you know me all too well.” Charlotte tilted her face, pressing her nose, her lips, against the angle beneath his stubbled jaw. “Sometimes I wonder if you might not know me better than anyone.”
Zach sat up, gently but swiftly breaking their contact. He flashed a quick smile and dropped a kiss to her cheek. “We need to get moving. We’ve got a lot of miles to cover again today.”
Or maybe they weren’t a couple. Because the same feeling she’d had several times over the past twenty-four hours washed over her like the early-morning mist, pebbling her skin with goose bumps. That feeling Zach was keeping her at arm’s length. Just like Ben had during the weeks leading up to the wedding.
“Why do you keep doing that?”
“Doing what?” Zach scooted to the edge of the roof and looked down.
“Pulling away from me.”
“We can’t stay up here forever.”
“I’m not talking about the roof.”
Zach glanced over his shoulder at her and scrubbed a palm over his unshaven face. “We’ve been riding a tandem bicycle together for hundreds of miles. I can’t pull away from you. It’s physically impossible.”
“Why won’t you let me get close?”
“You want to get close? Come here. We can get real close as we figure out how to climb down from this roof together.”
“Just tell me what it is. There’s obviously some sort of wall between us. What is it? My looks? My personality? My morning breath?”
“Charlotte, it’s way too early for this type of conversation. I’m going to need some sort of energy drink before we start playing your therapy games.”
“Well, maybe I’m tired of playing your games. Did you ever think of that?” Charlotte folded her arms, refusing to budge until he gave her some sort of explanation. Before the trip he was all but begging to kiss her. Now that they’d kissed, he acted as if he found the wild hogs more appealing than her. “Am I a bad kisser? Is that it?”
Zach lifted his hands in surrender. “I’m done.” He disappeared over the edge. She heard a soft grunt as he landed on the ground. Part of her wished he had weak ankles. Would serve him right to sprain both.
“Are you coming or am I leaving you behind for the hogs?” he called up to her.
Her stomach growled worse than any hog.
“I take that to mean you’re coming,” Zach said.
Charlotte scooted to the edge of the roof. “We’re not finished with this conversation. If there’s anything I regret from my broken engagement to your brother, it’s that I didn’t push harder for answers.” She rolled onto her stomach and lowered her legs down until Zach could grab them and guide them to his shoulders.
“If you’re so bound and determined to talk, why don’t you tell me why you were crying last night?”
She held on to the edge of the roof, her feet on his shoulders like a cheerleader. “I was about to be mauled to death by a pack of wild animals. Forgive me for getting a little emotional.”
He shifted his weight, his voice straining a bit from the load on his shoulders. “Nice try, but you were sobbing before the boars even made an appearance.”
“No, I wasn’t.” She grabbed onto his head and clutched a handful of hair for leverage.
“Can you please refrain from scalping me, and yes, you were. I could hear you.”
Charlotte remembered clearly why she failed her cheerleading tryouts in high school as she latched one leg beneath his armpit and wrapped the other around his neck.
