I follow his gaze and see him staring at my thigh. It occurs to me then that the sleep shorts I’m wearing are pretty tiny and pretty threadbare, and that, from a certain angle and in a certain light, you can pretty much see straight through them.
I blush tomato-red, cross my legs, and drop my hands in front of my lap.
Only then does Bastian clear his throat and drag his gaze back to my face. “I came to take you to see the sunrise.”
I feel like my brain is buffering. “You… came to take me to see the… what now?”
“The sunrise. From the lakefront.” He pulls my notebook from his jacket pocket and holds it up. “Number one on your list.”
My eyes widen as recognition dawns. “That’s my— Hold the hell on. You stole my notebook?!”
“Borrowed. Not permanent.”
“Bastian, that’s—” I reach for it, but he holds it just out of reach. “Give that back!”
“In a minute. First, you need to get dressed.”
“It’s not even four in the morning! Sunrise isn’t for hours!”
“Which gives us plenty of time to get to the lake, drink some coffee, and pick a good spot.” He meets my eyes. “You wrote that you wanted to see it. So I’m taking you to see it.”
I shake my head. “You have officially gone fully insane.”
“Probably.” He shrugs. “But I’m also not leaving until you get dressed and come with me.”
I cross my arms, and the motion makes his pullover, his goddamn pullover that I’m still wearing, ride up just enough to expose another inch of skin at my waist. The same inch he touched earlier in the elevator. “This is ridiculous.”
“You’ve mentioned that,” he says.
“You’reridiculous.”
“Also noted.”
“And you’re not going to leave, are you?”
“Not a chance in hell.”
I let out a long, defeated sigh that makes my whole body deflate. “Fine. Fine! But if you think this means we’re picking up where we left off…”
“I had no such thoughts.” He holds up his hands in surrender. “I’ll be the picture of restraint and decorum.”
“That’ll be the freaking day.” I turn back into my apartment, leaving the door open behind him. “Give me five minutes. And stay right there. ‘You shall not pass’ and all that. Got it?”
He mimes drawing a line on the ground. “Wouldn’t dream of stepping across.”
“Pfft, yeah right. You’ve never met a line you didn’t want to ruin.”
I pause in the doorway to my bedroom and glance back at him over my shoulder. There’s a long, pregnant pause.
I look at Bastian.
Bastian looks at me.
Then I shake my head and disappear.
I can hear him shifting in the doorway, but true to his word, he doesn’t follow. Part of me almost wishes he would. The other part of me knows that if he did, we’d never make it to the lake.
I pull on layer after layer—leggings, joggers over those, two sweaters, my puffer coat, another coat over that. When I catch sight of myself in the mirror, I look ridiculous, but I don’t care. If Bastian Hale wants to drag me to the lakefront in February at four in the morning, I’m going to dress for survival.
