He got up to turn the light off, and I slipped off the bed and ran to the bathroom. There would be time to overthink this tomorrow. And regret it. And walk back from it. But I put all of that on Tomorrow Eliza’s plate and brushed my teeth instead, trying to hide my huge smile behind foamy toothpaste.
When I left the bathroom, the lights were off, and he was under the covers. An invitation was there, but I wasn’t sure what the terms were exactly.
Sensing my hesitation, he said, “I promise I won’t bite.”
“That’s disappointing,” I teased.Now or never, Eliza.In the end, it was being cold that pushed me toward the bed. It was one thing to have a torrid affair with your brother’s best friend in the middle of nowhere. It was quite another thing to avoid that torrid affair and freeze to death.
Slipping beneath the covers, I lay on my back and pulled the blankets up to my chin. His hand reached for mine, bridging the gaping space between us.
I took a deep, settling breath. His hand was more of a comfort than I wanted to admit I needed.
In the bathroom, I had decided there was absolutely no way I could sleep tonight. It was impossible. To be honest, it would have been hard before all the kissing. Obviously, I freaked out when Jonah slept on my couch. No way was I going to be able to survive sleeping in the same bed with him.
Except the longer he held my hand, the easier to breathe I found it to be. And pretty soon, it wasn’t just easy breathing. It was slow, steady breathing. My eyes fluttered closed, and sleep overtook me. If I had thought making out with Jonah Mason would overcomplicate my life, I clearly wasn’t that worried about it.
At least judging by the deep, deep sleep I almost instantly fell into.
It might have been the vodka...
Or it could have been the warm, sexy, gorgeous man sleeping next to me. The one who had finally addressed the elephant in the room that had been between us for more than a decade.
Addressed it by kissing it to death.
twelve
I wokeup with a strange sense of déjà vu and a simultaneous sense of where the hell am I? It was very confusing.
First things first, I was not in my own bed. That was very clear. Although I did have my pillow—also very clear because I preferred to hug it against my chest. But, and this was where things began to get next-level baffling, I was also being hugged against someone’s chest like I was their favorite pillow.
And that person was very warm. And I seemed to fit against them perfectly. And their very strong arms were wrapped around me. One beneath my head like a pillow, the other heavy and possessive around my waist, holding me against them, their hand snaked up to rest on my breast.
I took all this in as I drowsily climbed from dead asleep to groggily awake. My brain was noting pieces to a puzzle it couldn’t seem to fit together.
And then, all at once, with the light of morning sneaking in through the cracks of the curtains, I remembered everything. I remembered I wasn’t at home. I was glamping with Jonah. I remembered the vodka. And the fun. And the cabin. And the one bed. And the kissing.
And now, the cuddling.
We fell asleep holding hands last night, but we did not wake up with space between us. Gosh, it actually hurt my heart how good this felt. I must have wiggled a little now that I was awake because he held me tighter against him. It took everything in me not to snake my arm around his neck and press my ass into his, um, front. I closed my eyes and imagined waking up like this as a couple. Pulling him back in for more kisses. And this time, not stopping there.
“Mmph,” he murmured into my neck. It was a warm, content sound that did make me press back into his chest. Just when I thought he was going to be as confused as me, he whispered, “Eliza,” against my skin, and it was the most delicious sound.
“Jonah, what—” A buzzing phone interrupted my question. He squeezed me against him, and we both let it go until it finally ended.
“This is nice,” he said in that sleep-roughened voice I’d gotten acquainted with the other morning. “I could get used to this.”
I didn’t know if he meant waking up with someone in general or waking up with me specifically. Also, his hand was still cupping my breast. And my morning dry mouth dried out even more. I was worried that if I opened my mouth now, it would smell like a dead person’s mouth being pried open after years of decay. A cloud of green smoke would puff out, and then either he would die immediately from asphyxiation or he’d be so grossed out by my morning habits that he’d make me walk back to Durham.
So instead of asking him what he meant, I stayed silent. And then that damn phone started buzzing again. He leaned back, presumably to check his phone, but then settled against me once more. “It’s not mine,” he declared, getting as close to me as possible, from our feet to the tops of our heads.
I had questions. Like what was he doing? And why was he doing it? And had we formed an alliance last night where we make out and cuddle, and nobody complains? Or was this something else? And what the hell, Jonah!
I needed to brush my teeth before we settled any of these questions, though. I mean, priorities.
But also, what did I want? Did I want this?
It was a hard question to answer. I knew what I didn’t want. That was much easier to figure out.
I knew I never wanted to be the heartbroken seventeen-year-old girl crying over her brother’s best friend ever again.
