Chapter 27
“I can neither confirm - nor deny - that my pants are cranky.”
-Flint
Sleep eluded me.
Not because I wasn’t tired. More like I was afraid Celia would kill me in my sleep. I wouldn’t put it past her. I decided to sleep with one eye open. This was good because Celia tossed and turned during the night and kept muttering something about “Mr. Cranky Pants.”
I knew that was about me.
And I probably deserved it.
Being back in Dorsey was tough enough. Harry’s reaction to me being here was just the tip of the iceberg of what I expected. The sooner we got to Oxford to look into Echo’s past, the better.
The sound of the shower woke me. I guess that one eye open thing didn’t work as well as it used to in the Marines.
Shit.
I heard Celia singing in the shower. My cock stood up to remind me he liked showers too. Especially showers with the sexiest woman on the planet where she sudsed up her perfect breasts and pussy.
I thought of clogged toilets, dusty battlefields, and chain-smoking Etta Wilks to get my mind off Celia. Those thoughts worked to get Mr. Pecker to calm down.
Celia stepped out of the steamy bathroom with a towel wrapped around her hair and another wrapped around her body. “Oh, you’re awake. You might want to go to the lobby and tell Harry you need a towel. There were only two, and I used them both.”
She shouldered past me to her open suitcase on the dresser. She was bent slightly over the case, rooting through packing cubes. She pulled one out with lacy underwear in it, and my brain went on the fritz. Short-circuited by Mr. Pecker again.
Celia turned around with underwear, jeans, and a shirt in her hand. She saw me staring at her with my mouth hanging open, then popped her free hand on her hip. “Flint Mendota. I barely got six hours of sleep last night. I need coffee. And waffles. So, you can stand there with your jaw on the ground, but I need you to get out of my way. I need back into the bathroom.”
I could feel the fury radiating off of her, but there wasn’t much I could think of to say. Even when she was mad, she was hot. And fuck. There goes my dick again.
Celia narrowed her eyes at me, then eased her way around me. She acted like she’d get a big case of Ebola if she touched me on her way back into the bathroom, then slammed the door. That’s when Mr. Pecker realized it would take more than staring at Celia to get back in her good graces or her bed. He calmed right the fuck down.
I took a deep breath, pulled clean jeans and a t-shirt out of my suitcase, and got dressed. Harry Tracy barely rented us a room. There was no way he was going to give me extra towels. Well, extracleantowels. I’d shower when we got to the hotel in Oxford.
Celia appeared in the bathroom doorway two minutes later, looking like a million bucks. I’d never seen her wear jeans before. Even during the road trip, she wore dress pants, like she was on the way to a casual business meeting.
And her long hair was completely dry. I hadn’t heard a hairdryer. I narrowed my eyes and looked past her into the bathroom where all of the towels - All. Of. Them. - were on the floor right next to the toilet.
That little minx.
She turned to grab her purse. I caught a glimpse of her ass in those jeans.
Damn it.
This was going to be an uncomfortable day.
???
I didn’t know if The Gracie Spoon was packed because it was a Saturday or because of the potential gossip of me being back in town. Either way, there were no tables available when we walked through the door. There were two stools up at the chipped Formica counter, though.
Celia led the way through the diner, ignoring the hush that fell over the crowd, and sat down on a stationary stool covered with a black and pink checkerboard pattern that matched the motel next door.
A waitress holding a coffee pot stood in front of us. “What can I get ya?”
I didn’t recognize her, but that didn’t mean anything since she was probably in her late 20s. She had black hair, blue eyes, and the kind of physique that made you think she bench-pressed spare tires in her free time from playing field hockey. Her nametag said “Sonni.”
I looked up and smiled. “Good morning, Sonni. Two coffees, please. With sugar.”
