“Okay, great.” There’s a flash of hopefulness in her tone. “And when is that?”
The employee looks down, probably checking the day’s schedule. “He’ll be in at nine.”
Reese exhales this whiney groan sort of sound before dropping her head onto her folded arms and resting on the check-in desk.
I take another cautious step closer. “Everything okay?”
She perks up but then rolls her eyes and drops her head back down when she spots me. “You’re too late. Your reporter girlfriend just left the bar with someone else, but you might be able to catch her if you hurry.”
I bite back my laughter. “Well, aren’t you just a ray of fucking sunshine at this time of the day.”
“Not tonight, Emmett. I haven’t slept and I’m too exhausted to spar with you.”
“Good. I may actually win one for once, but then again, probably not.” I lean an elbow on the desk next to her. “I haven’t slept either.”
She’s got this optimistic look of comradery when she lifts her head again. “Is your room also so cold that you can no longer feel your fingers?”
“I’m having the opposite problem. It’s a little too warm.”
“God, that sounds like heaven.”
“The thermostat seems to be broken.”
“Sorry about that, sir,” the front desk employee cuts in. “As I was telling Ms. Remington, our maintenance staff will be here at nine and can take a look for you. We seem to be having an issue regulating the temperature on your floor right now. Not sure what’s going on with the system.”
“And you have no other rooms she can get some sleep in until then?”
“I’m so sorry, but we don’t. We’re at full capacity.” He directs his attention to Reese. “But we’ll make sure that you’re not charged for your stay tonight and I can send some extra blankets up to your room.”
She offers him the best smile she can muster, which is a pretty sad and pathetic one if we’re being honest. “Sure. Thank you.”
“Or if you’d like, I can see if I can find you a room outside of the downtown area. You may have to take a rideshare about twenty minutes—”
“That’s not happening,” I cut in. “She can stay in my room.”
The words are out before I can think better of them.
“No.” She huffs a startled laugh before redirecting her attention to the hotel employee. “Yes, please. I’m fine jumping in a rideshare.”
“You’re not getting in a rideshare in the middle of the night to find a random hotel twenty minutes away, Reese. You’re staying in my room.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Don’t be ridiculous and I won’t have to. I’ll call Kai and Miller to see if I can crash in their room.”
“Absolutely not. They have a sleeping toddler with them. The last thing I need is for you to wake them up because your boss is too much of a princess to sleep in a slightly chilly room.”
I place the back of my hand against her pink cheek, and I’m stung with how sharp the cold is. She’s more than slightly chilly. She’s absolutely frozen right now.
“Jesus. How fucking cold is your room, Reese?”
I can tell she wants to lie to me, to tell me it’s just a few degrees below comfortable, but thankfully she’s too tired to attempt to bullshit me. Sure, she doesn’t give me any response, but that’s enough to let me know it’s unbearably cold in her room.
“You’re going to get sick if you go back in there. You’ll be lucky if you haven’t already. You’re sleeping in my room.”
“Emmett, I can’t do that.”
There’s enough conviction in her tone that it makes me pause. I don’t want her to do something that will make her uncomfortable, but I’m also not going to let her drive across town with a stranger to some random hotel, because that’s something that will makemeuncomfortable.
