I, of course, had no idea how to react, smiling awkwardly, but Zander put his arm around my waist, pulling me close and pressing a kiss to my hair.
God, god, god.
It would be so easy.
He walks into the room unfazed, placing my bags that he insisted on carrying in gently on the bed before tossing his own backpack to the floor without care.
“I mean . . . I don’t . . . how . . .” My anxiety starts to build as I look around.
“We’ll share, Zo,” Zee says, and my eyes go wide. I feel it. I move over to the cute antique chair in the corner, placing my purse there before walking back to the center of the room, where I begin pacing.
“We can’t share a bed, Zander.”
“We can actually do whatever the hell we want, Zoe,” he says, and when I look at him, he’s smiling. “This isn’t a family vacation where the boys get the bunks and the girls share the pull-out.”
He, of course, is referencing the many family vacations we’ve taken over the years: heading up to the cabins in the Poconos for a week in the summer. Fishing and swimming in the lake and s’mores around a fire were pretty much just a given when we were all together.
And he’s right.
The boys always got the bunks or cots (the Davidsons always brought their not-quite-adopted but sort of adopted kid, Tony, with them as well, making the “boy” count odd with Zee, his younger brother Ace, and Tony) while Luna and I got to share the big pull-out couch.
We loved it.
Those trips have always been some of my favorite childhood memories.
“But . . .” He turns to me, and the words dry up in my mouth.
I don’t know what to say.
Especially when I see the look in his eyes, like there is no universe where he’ll be giving in, where he’ll be cracking under the pressure I’m presenting him.
Like there’s nothing I can say to convince him that sharing a bed is a bad, bad idea.
“I don’t like sleeping with people. I like my space,” I say, trying to give him any reason why he can’t sleep with me. He steps closer, and the breaths become harder to pull into my lungs.
For a moment, I wonder how bad of an idea it actually would be for Zee to sleep in the same bed as me.
A terrible idea, Zoe. Terrible. The worst idea ever, possibly, common sense says.
“I get hot.” He takes another step closer to me and all I can think about is the way it felt with his lips on mine. “And I move around a lot.”
My voice cracks with my words.
My brain moves to how I don’t think I’ll ever recover from that, from knowing how damn perfect it is to kiss this man.
I can’t handle another kiss where the world quiets and seems to make sense for just a moment.
When my heart gets a chance to speak instead of logic.
“One bed, Zo. I’m not sleeping on the floor.”
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” I offer quickly, taking a step back, trying to put space between us.
He steps forward, closing the gap I widened.
It’s strange, the inner turmoil I’m feeling.
Part of me wants to keep my feet planted in place, to let him come closer.
Part of me wants to say, Yeah, let’s do this. Let’s sleep in the same bed and forget about reality.
Part of me wants to say, Let’s do things other than sleep in that big comfy bed.
But the logical side, the side that was built from expectations I need to meet and common sense and reality, tells me it would be the absolute worst idea on the planet if I sleep in the same bed as Zander Davidson.
“The fuck you will,” he says, and as I step back once more, my body hits the wall. “You’ll sleep in that bed next to me. I’ll give you your space.”
His voice is low and smooth, and it makes me not want space.
Not when it’s space from Zander.
God, get it the fuck together, Zoe.
“Seriously, it’s fine. You didn’t sleep last night. I did. You should get a good night’s sleep tonight.”
“And I will. Next to you.”
Now with my back to the wall, his hands move to either side of my face, and he’s smiling that stupid, handsome smile that I love more than I’ve ever let myself admit.
“Zander—”
“You agreed to pretend.”
My heart stops beating.
“Zander—”
“Pretend, pip,” he whispers, breath hitting my lips.
And that’s what does it.
What has me staring at him.
What has me nodding.
Pip.
The name he’s been calling me for as long as I can remember, the way it comes off his lips the same something like baby would. The way I’m dying to close the gap, to let him kiss me, to remind myself how good his lips felt on mine.
It’s all pretend, after all, right?
When his lips tip up in a smile, when he leans forward, not to press his lips to mine but instead to my forehead, I can’t help but wonder if that was a terrible choice.
If mentally agreeing to pretend won’t be my downfall.
FIFTEEN
I THINK HE KNOWS
-ZOE-
Hours later, I’m counting Zander’s breaths.
Clearly, I’m insane, lying in a bed next to my best friend’s brother, him over the sheets, me under them as if the thin cotton would stop my body from recognizing his if it touched me, and I’m counting the man’s breaths.
That’s not normal, right?
To lie in bed wide awake after barely a few hours of shitty car sleep and not be able to pass out because you’re counting the breaths a man is taking?
But what if it’s a man who, when he was a kid, your childhood self was convinced would be the one for you? A man who is somehow slowly doing every perfect, sweet move effortlessly, like he has an instruction manual to my soul?
A man who, when he kissed me, my mind went blissfully blank.
I think about that first kiss. The way his lips moved against mine as our bodies were locked together, standing in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. How the song changed and my brain barely registered it.
How his tongue touched mine, and my body erupted in chills. How heat took over me.
How I wouldn’t have been upset if it went further.
How, if we were somewhere else, I think it would have gone further.
What would he have done? I can’t help but wonder . . .
I’ve heard stories, whispers of his prowess in bed—old flings gabbing at the bar, forgetting his sister owned Luna’s. It was back before he started being more selective, started avoiding dating in town.
Would he have taken me into the car?
My mind starts to create the entire scenario in intimate detail, my own hand inexplicably moving down my body as it does.
Zander’s asleep, I tell myself. Maybe this will help me feel less pulled to him.
Yes, that’s it. Let me just get this out of my system and we’ll be good. God, I can’t even remember the last time I gave myself an orgasm, much less a man did.
That has to be the reason my body is so on edge after a single kiss.
With that small permission, I fall completely into my fantasy.
We’d get into the car in a flurry—before we opened the door, he would pin me to the side, letting me feel how hard he was. He’d grind into me, and I’d moan his name.