He turns to a PC that’s right out of the 80s and finger-pecks on the clackity keyboard. Snorts. “A suite.”
Beside me, I swear I catch Harlow’s shoulders give a shake.
Glad she thinks this is funny.
“Yes, sir. Also, we don’t need anyone in to make up the room this week.”
There’s another stare that has me feeling guilty. For what, I don’t even know. But the last thing I need is Marcy or Nadine, if they’re still working housekeeping here, to let it slip that a certain couple isn’t sharing a bed.
He hands us our key cards and, with a short huff, returns to the office.
Once we’re in the elevator, Harlow turns to me, barely suppressed laughter playing at her lips. “What was that?”
I smile. “Right? I’ve been telling my parents he hates me since I was a kid and they’re always like, ‘No way, Wade.’”
There’s a sort of unhealthy shimmy when the car reaches the third floor that has my hand moving to Harlow’s back. But then the doors open and we’re faced with a drab hallway that was probably intended to be sunny but isn’t.
We’re the last door on the left. And when I swipe our key card, I’m relieved to see that as dated as much of the hotel is, the room is clean and smells fresh and would probably feel plenty big if I was standing in it with anyone other than the woman beside me.
I set the bags down, eyes landing on a pull-out sofa I’m betting hasn’t been replaced since I was born.
Damn. Good thing it’s off season.
Harlow
The bedroom doesn’t have a door, but on the upside there is a fully equipped bathroom that does. So I call it a win even if things get a bit weird once we start trying to give each other some privacy in a space that simply isn’t about it.
I hear Wade opening his bag. Then the expulsion of a breath that’s distinctly masculine. The creak and groan of the couch that’s supposed to be his bed.
His muttered curse.
“I take you to the nicest places, huh?” he says from the other room, using a voice that’s probably quieter than when it was just the two of us in his truck.
“Bed’s not bad,” I say, giving it a tentative bounce and then lying back on it.
“Yeah? Watch out if I start putting moves on you.”
I roll my eyes. “Plotting to get off the pull-out already?”
Even from the next room, there’s something about his laugh. And then I’m kind of wondering what an actual move from Wade would look like and how many of the girls in Enderson already know.
I roll to my side, stretched out along the mattress. “So, Kelsey?”
“Yeah, Kelsey.” A beat passes but then he clears his throat. “We used to be pretty good friends.”
I wait. Trying to imagine the past between her and Wade. When he told me about her, he’d been pretty vague, just mentioning she lived at his house. But the way she behaves around him says there must have been something.
There’s another deep, protesting groan from the couch. And then Wade’s standing in the doorway. One solid shoulder propped against the frame. “She’s a good girl. Really.”
“She’s in love with you.”
There’s a flash of pain in his eyes as he rubs the back of his neck. “I want to tell you that’s not it, but hell, I don’t know. Maybe it’s love. If it is, that’s nothing I want to fall into.”
Wade seems like such an open, lighthearted guy. It’s hard to imagine him closing himself off to anything. “When did things end between you?”
He huffs a short laugh. “High school, junior year. About thirty seconds after it started.” And then he’s shaking his head. “It was so stupid. We were at my buddy’s party. I’d just broken up with my girlfriend and I was drunk enough that all I wanted was to find an empty bedroom and clock out until the next day. But then she was there too, coming to check on me. A little drunk herself. Didn’t want to go home, so she crawled in with me.”
Ahh. “You slept together?”
If I were a real girlfriend, I’d probably have liked to know that before walking in blind. Lucky for Wade, I take the fake part of our relationship very seriously.
“Slept together in the literal sense of the word. But… sometime during the night, we must have started fooling around some. Hell, I barely remember how it started. Just the moment when I realized it had and it was Kelsey. She deserved better than some drunk dickhead. So we stopped, thank fuck. But ever since…”
He blows out a long breath and moves to the far corner of the mattress to sit. “It doesn’t matter how many times I tell her it isn’t happening. I’ve tried to be nice. Hell, I’ve tried to be less nice. But every time I see her, it’s still there. The hope and then the hurt. And it guts me, because while I don’t feel about Kelsey the way she feels about me, I care about her a hell of a lot.”
Oh man. Wade is a really good guy.
“How long has she been living at your house? She seems pretty close with your family.”
He laughs but there isn’t any humor to it. “Since before we graduated. Her home life wasn’t ideal. My mom’s the high school cheerleading coach, and she and Kelsey bonded early on. Somehow she found out about the situation at home, and when things got really bad, Mom just moved her into our spare room. I’m glad my family could be there for her when her own wasn’t. But—”
“It makes things tricky when you come home. Does your family know how it is?” But even as I ask, I remember those nervous glances and what Wade told me before the trip. That the whole town was waiting for him to come home and marry a girl from Enderson. I hadn’t realized they’d actually picked her out already. “Never mind. Of course they do.”
“Pretty safe to say that everyone knows how it is. Or at least they know how Kelsey feels. It’s been this Will They, Won’t They game since sophomore year. Everyone waiting for it to happen. Setting us up, pairing us off… scheming ways to get us alone. Totally ignoring the fact that I was not interested.” He gives me one of those shrugs like it’s no big deal, but I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t. “Last time I was home, my dad was ‘working on her car’ and I became her ride to work at the courthouse each day… and her lift into the city an hour away that weekend.”
“Wow. Your own family?”
“That’s nothing. My mom left us at the high school together after practices once. Drove right off without us so we had to walk together. Strangely, no friends available to pick us up either. Social blowing up so bad for the rest of the night with everyone asking what happened, I was ready to turn off my account.” He shakes his head. “But it’s the guilt that gets me, you know? I don’t want to be an asshole, but I don’t want her wasting her life waiting for something that will never happen.”
“Honestly, I can’t even imagine.” My life leans so far in the other direction, I wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to explain it to someone like Wade. “So what happens when you’ve brought dates home in the past? Everyone just backs off?”
Wade laughs. “So we’re clear here before I answer, I’m not some stunted emotional moron. I’ve had girlfriends. In high school and college. But since then, girls haven’t really been the priority, so my relationships have been more”—he pauses and clears his throat—“casual.”