Page 37 of Most Likely to Score
I nod, completely understanding the drive to help, to support. “I get it. I feel the same way about my dad. That’s why I try to see him as much as possible. Just to be there.”
“The least we can do is take care of the ones who took care of us. Hell, that’s part of why I’m so glad my brother moved back to San Francisco from New York. He’s the sibling I’m closest to, and helping him with his beer show is my way of repaying that smart bastard for the way he helped me in high school.”
“He did?”
Jones nods. “He’s the creative one in the family, and since eleventh-grade essays on Huck Finn are the foundation of hell, Trevor made sure I didn’t burn in the fiery depths.” He pauses, then winks. “I bet you loved high school essays.”
I narrow my eyes. “Confession: even though I wasan English major, I think essays ought to be abolished. They are the devil’s work.”
His hand rises for another high-five. Once more I smack back, and foolishly I wait for him to link hands with mine.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he gathers the plates on the tray, carries it to the door, sets it outside, then dials room service for a pickup. He brushes one hand against the other, and my heart free-falls. This is when he leaves. This is when our evening ends.
He raises a hand. “Question.”
“Answer.”
“How do you feel about movies?”
“Love them. The good ones, that is.”
“Mission: Impossible? Is that a good one?”
I laugh. “Duh. More like a great one.”
He gestures to the big-screen TV facing the bed. “Want to watch? When we checked in, I saw it was on pay-per-view. Unless you want to stream something from our phones.”
The free-falling heart screeches to a stop. “Yes.Mission: Impossible.” My answer comes out more breathlessly than I intend.
I know this is a bad idea. I know this is flirting with danger. But if we managed to eat dinner and chat in this hotel room, we can certainly manage to watch a movie.
He eyes my bed then hops on it, stretching out his long legs and parking his hands behind his head. He looks over at me, and I’m officially frozen. He’ll need topluck me from the ground like an ice sculpture because I can’t move.
Where am I supposed to watch? The floor? The table?
The answer comes when he pats the spot next to him on the mattress.
My insides go up in flames, and a million dangerous thoughts speed through my head. Do I actually lie down next to him? Do I put my body near his? Horizontal and inches apart?
I’m fully clothed. He is, too. But still . . . that’s a bed.
“Do you . . .?” I start to ask, but talking is so hard in this overheated state that I can’t finish the sentence—think this is a good idea?
He must sense my question because he rolls his eyes. “It’s a lot more comfortable than sitting in those awkward chairs for a two-hour flick,” he says, reaching for the TV remote on the nightstand and clicking to the menu. “C’mon.”
Here goes nothing.
I lie next to him, and he turns on the movie.
I don’t know what to do with my arms. I let them hang at my sides, but I bet that looks dumb. I cross them at my chest. I bet I look mad. I lace my hands together across my belly. I bet I look prim.
I want to just lounge and stretch and be cool as Tom Cruise rappels into a vault in the CIA’s headquarters, but I can’t focus. I can’t think about a single thing that Ethan Hunt is doing on the screen when I’m literally six inches away from the man I’ve crushed on, lusted after, and now fear I’m starting to like.
Truly like.
Jones watches the screen intently, and I wish this was hard for him, too. All I can think about is the six inches between us and how much I wish they were zero. Half a foot feels insurmountable. But at the same time, if I moved my hand a little bit, then maybe a little more, I would touch his leg.
