Page 47 of The Room(hate)

“Is this a bad time?”

“No, I needed a break anyway. If I have to bone one more fish while listening to Aaron practice his freestyle raps, I’m going to lose my mind.”

“Don’t they kind of need your help?”

“Fuck ‘em,” Trinity said. “They can handle it. I’ve been picking up their slack all morning. So, tell me everything. Did you two bang on the plane? Did you give him a handie during takeoff? Did you pretend to get airsick so you could cuddle?”

“No, no, and no? This isn’t a porno, Trin. It’s just what it seems like. He had this thing set up and he felt bad about how everything with Mr. Meatball went.”

“I still can’t believe your idiot brother actually did that.”

“I can,” I said, laughing. “But anyway, I don’t have long. Sebastian announced that it’s bedtime, and I think he’s going to growl at me if I wait too long before I get into bed.”

There was a long pause.

“Trin? Are you there?”

“I’m sorry. You told me this wasn’t a porno. But am I understanding correctly? You two are sharing a room and he’s setting bedtimes for you?”

“There was a mix-up. The cabin was full of other writers and there was only one room left. So we’re sharing a room, but not a bed. He’s on the couch.”

“Wow,” Trinity said. “You two are totally going to bang on this trip. It doesn’t get much more obvious.”

“Stop it. We’re not, because he’s allergic to commitments. Something like that would imply it was more than a one-off, and that would imply we were forming some kind of commitment. Translation? Not happening.”

“So that’s the only reason? He’s not interested, but you’d totally be down?”

I glared at the phone. That wasn’t what I meant. Honestly, I didn’t really know how I felt. All I knew was that I preferred to explore my feelings instead of caging them up like Sebastian did. If the moment was right, and we wanted to… you know, then why not? We could do that and see where it went. But he made everything more complicated. More serious.

“Well?” Trinity asked.

“I’m supposed to hate him,” I said. “I spent four months convincing myself I did, anyway. Most of the time, he’s unbearable, too. He’s stuffy, bossy, and has the personality of a rock. Except then I see glimpses of something else under it. It’s like he’s being that way on purpose to scare me off. And the stubborn part of me wants to see more of what he’s hiding.”

“You mean his cock?” she asked.

I laughed. “No. I mean the real him. The one who wrote Embers. That’s not a book written by a hollow man with no personality. It’s absolutely bursting with life and meaning. A beautiful soul wrote that.”

“Barf,” Trinity said. There was a loud sound in the background. Trinity sighed. “Okay, okay. I really have to go.”

I put the phone away and went back inside. Sebastian was laying on his back with a single blanket draped over his long body. His eyes were closed, but he didn’t look like he was sleeping. I dug through my bag for toiletries and went to clean up before bed in the bathroom. Once I was back out, I saw Sebastian hadn’t moved.

I watched to make sure his eyes were closed, then slipped out of my leggings, but left my shirt on. I usually liked to sleep in just my panties, but there was no way I was going to risk that with him in the room. I just slipped off my bra and tucked it under my pillow, along with my pants.

Once I was laying there with my eyes closed, my stupid brain couldn’t stop thinking about how he was right there. He was only ten feet away from my bed and his shirt was off. I’d lost count of how many shameful fantasies I’d had of the man since the writer’s conference.

I would never, ever admit it to a living soul, but the idea that he’d put a baby in me was confusingly hot. Ever since I’d found out, the memory of sleeping with him made my stomach swirl with excitable heat.

I tried to calm my breathing down as I lay there, but I couldn’t stop from thinking about everything. The untouchable, unreachable man lying on the couch had been all mine four months ago. He’d gotten me pregnant. He still claimed he wanted nothing to do with me, but also refused to let me go.

I rolled to my side, putting my back to him. I made a silent vow to tell him the truth about the baby before this retreat was over in two weeks. But not tomorrow. Tomorrow, I was going to write my ass off. As soon as I got coffee and some bacon in my stomach, at least.

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