Once she’s distracted with brushing her teeth, I take her in from head to toe. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more gorgeous woman. About three glasses in, she threw her long chocolate hair into a messy bun, but all of her dancing and singing made little pieces fall and frame her face. The most enticing ones are floating around the back of her neck, begging me to run a finger along the length of it. Would it make her shiver? Would goose bumps appear behind my touch?
I’m quickly pulled from my thoughts, by the sound of Sloane spitting her toothpaste in the sink in the most unlady-like manner. Instead of grossing me out, it makes me smile.
“All right. Now, how about you go change and I’ll bring you a water bottle and a granola bar,” I direct her.
“Okay, but after that we have to be really really really really really quiet. We can’t wake Liam,” shewhisper-shouts at me as she presses a finger against my mouth. She’s so close I can smell the mint on her breath. She hasn’t been this close to me since I moved in with her. Now I’m the one with the full body shivers. Thankfully, she’s too drunk to notice.
I get back to her with the promised snack, water, and an added bottle of Tylenol, knowing she’ll be grateful for the medication tomorrow morning. I was expecting to see her in bed, but she’s standing in the hallway, pulling her hair out of her bun, seemingly waiting for me.
“Not going to bed?” I ask her, tilting my head toward her bedroom.
“Not yet. I need to wait for Liam to be in bed before going to bed,” she says with determination as she grabs the granola bar from my hand, quickly opening it and taking a bite.
I let her chew, intrigued as to why she needs to wait for me to be in bed before going to bed herself, and still trying hard not to laugh at the fact that she doesn’t realize that she’s talking to me—Liam. She doesn’t elaborate though, instead wordlessly finishes her granola bar, reaches for the bottle of water I’m holding, and takes the two Tylenol tablets I offer her.
Suddenly, she says, “Okay, Liam, you go to bed, so I can go to bed.”
“How about we get you to bed first, then I go to bed,” I counter.
“No,” she stubbornly replies, crossing her arms around her chest. It’s almost comical how she thinks she can boss me around. Actually, as it turns out, she can . . . Becauseafter trying to guide her to bed multiple times, I end up going to my room and lying in bed while she watches me before she goes back to her room.
I don’t sleep though. I’m going to wait a few minutes before going to check up on her—to make sure she actually went to bed.
Surprisingly, I don’t have to wait long to learn she isn’t in bed. Not two minutes after I got in bed, she’s standing in my doorway with Gigi under her arm. Before I can ask her what she needs, I hear her quietly, but still tipsily, tell Gigi: “Now, you know the rules. You can’t cuddle Liam, only me. He can’t know we sleep here every night.”
She sleeps here every night? Too stunned by what I just learned, I don’t say or do anything as I watch her oh so carefully pull the blankets back before scooting her way into bed beside me and placing Gigi in front of her under the blankets. Next thing I know—still too shocked that she sneaks into my bed every night—she’s softly snoring beside me.
Is this why my sheets smell like peaches and vanilla all the time? Already the smell is thicker in the air. It doesn’t take me long to get my answer, though, because the next thing I know, she’s rolling over to cuddle right up next to me, laying her head on my chest and snaking one of her legs through mine.
In that moment, cocooned in her smell—my favorite smell—I feel the most at peace. A peace I’ve never felt anywhere else before. Unable to stop myself, I slowly start running my fingers through the soft waterfall of long,thick brown hair, earning a soft sigh from her mouth as she cuddles in closer to me.
I never understood how people could meditate. How someone could be so utterly present in a moment that everything in their mind faded away. Every time I’ve tried, my mind would wander to my next project, my next workout, what I was going to make as meal prep the next week, what book I should read next, the last episode ofWhite CollarI watched. I never seemed to be able to shut off my brain—the real reason behind my “resting bitch face” as Summer, my younger sister, likes to put it. And quite honestly, as much as I tried to medicate and clear my mind—since my mom was always going on about its benefits—I never saw the appeal until now.
Right now, with Sloane in my arms, as if she truly wants to be there, I feel like I’m on a cloud. I’m just soaking her in—her smell, the flutter of her eyelids, her soft even breathing. In this moment, nothing else matters.
I don’t want to lose this.
She can’t know that she drunkenly gave her secret away though because I know her.
I know she’ll stop sneaking in if she knows her secret is out.
Chapter 15
My head feels like it’s going to explode, my mouth feels like sandpaper, and why am I so sweaty? Why did I let Cassie convince me to drink last night? I always feel like I got run over by a bus the next morning.
I stretch to try to get the unexpected soreness out of my body. What the hell did we do last night?
That’s when I realize . . . I’m not in my bed; I’m in Liam’s bed—alone.
“Fuck,” I curse under my breath.
No.No.No.No.Shit.Fuck.No. I did not drunkenly get into Liam’s bed and sleep past sunrise.
Though, truthfully, I don’t remember anything after putting on the first High School Musical last night.
“I see you’re up,” Liam says, walking into his room, startling me. What pulls me from my thoughts, though—what makes my mind go blank—is the fact that he’s wet. Wet and shirtless with gray sweatpants hung low on his hips and a towel around his neck. Damn.
Now, instead of freaking out that I’m in his bed, I’m concentrating on not drooling at the sight of water droplets running down his right peck and onto his abs.
