She doesn’t answer.
But I swear she stays there staring at me long after I should be asleep.
I can feel it.
And when I start to think I’m being paranoid, that of course she’s not staring at me and my overactive imagination is fuckingwith me because of how close I am to freedom and also how far away it feels at the same time—that’s when I hear the ladder creak.
“Sleep well, Oliver,” she whispers. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
My brain betrays me again, this time with a memory of her crawling into the back seat of the Camry in that short dress yesterday morning, showing ass cheek—allof her ass cheeks, in fact—and now I have a goddamn boner.
OverDaphne.
I’d punch the pillows and roll around, except she’d hear me.
And offer to help put you to sleep, some moronic asshole in my head suggests.
Forget three days.
I’ll find someone else to teach me how to have fun, and I’ll send her home tomorrow.
12
TROUBLE IN THE LADY CAVE
Daphne
Oh god,oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god.
He looked at me.
I mean, yes, ofcoursehe looked at me. We’re traveling together. He’s going to look at me.
But he looked at me like he wasseeingme for the first time, and I am freaking the hell out.
Oliver Cumberland is no more supposed to look at me as though he recognizes that I’m a woman who is something more than Margot’s little sister than I’m supposed to spend the day driving him farther and farther from New York while trying to findanydistraction from remembering how he looks when he’s sleeping practically naked.
And I’m wrong.
That’s the answer.
I’m completely wrong about how he was looking at me and?—
And I want Bea.
I want my best friend.
Since Oliver slept all day, we made good time, but we started late, so darkness is falling outside. If Simon has his kids today, I likely won’t be interrupting private time if I call now because the boys will be up for another hour.
At least.
Teenagers keep late hours.
If he doesn’t have the twins and Bea and Simon are busy, she won’t answer.
Probably.
Maybe.
