“A little is enough,” he said. “You don’t really want to kiss me.”
“I’m pretty sure I do,” I protested. I’d been thinking about kissing him since the first day we worked in that office together. It was just there had never been an opportunity until now.
He didn’t even go to the office Christmas party, and I’d only turned up to the lame shitshow because I’d thought I might have a chance of getting him alone there.
“We’d better get some sleep,” Rowe said steadfastly, standing up and putting that distance between us again. “I’m going to get changed and wash up.”
He walked away into the bathroom and just like that, I was alone again.
I looked down at myself, kneeling on the floor like I was trying to worship him. Pathetic. Loser. As if someone as hot as Rowe would want to be with me, anyway.
Fuck. It was bad enough that we had to share a bed when we weren’t going to fuck in the first place. Now I just had to make it even more awkward.
I glanced at the bathroom door; I could hear the tap running. Rowe would need a minute to get ready, so I grabbed my stuff from the drawer where I’d already unpacked it and changed fast before he could come out. At least I didn’t have any lingering frustration to take care of. Getting rejected like that had completely taken care of any fire that might have been shooting down my spine.
There were more supplies at the top of the closet: spare pillows and even a spare comforter. I grabbed them down and set up a small sleeping area at the foot of the bed, the only area in the room where there was actually enough space. It was almost claustrophobically small in here, but it made sense that Aiden and Cade had chosen this hotel for their wedding. They didn’t have the kind of money that Olly and Keaton did – thanks to all the success Keaton had already seen in the film industry – and this place was close to home, easy to get to, and cheap enough to suit everyone’s budgets.
At least there was room for me to curl up on the floor down here. I wouldn’t have to go through the added awkwardness of sharing a bed with Rowe when he’d made it so very clear that he would rather not have to touch me at all.
As soon as the bathroom door lock disengaged I was over there, not giving him the chance to talk to me. I brushed right past Rowe and into the sanctity of the lockable room, shutting him out on the other side while I brushed my teeth and stared at myself in the mirror, wondering how the fuck I always managed to take good things and turn them into shit.
We could have just done this fake boyfriends thing clean and easy and gone home afterward. I didn’t have to embarrass myself by trying to throw myself at him.
I didn’t have to find out that he would reject me. I could have gone on pretending to myself I had a chance.
It took a long, hard stare at myself in that same mirror before I could get up the courage to open the door and step back outside. If it had been an option to just sleep in the tiny bathroom, I would have done it. I had a feeling that Rowe would have been knocking on the door, checking I hadn’t knocked myself unconscious in a drunken stupor, though.
I had to face him eventually.
I just didn’t have to face him head-on.
I rushed out of the room without looking at him and went straight for my nest on the floor. I didn’t say a word and neither did he. There was a long pause before he turned off the light. The two of us breathed in and out in the same room, the same space, so close that it was awkward but so far away from one another that it hurt.
I heard a huffing sound from the bed.
“Xavi,” Rowe said. “Get up here.”
“What?” I asked, raising my head from the – uncomfortable, I even had to admit to myself – pillows.
“Come on,” he said. “You don’t have to sleep on the floor. Get into the bed. Just… don’t attempt anything handsy, okay?”
I swallowed. The thought of getting into bed with him had gone right to my dick, but his last words tempered it a little. Only a little. Thankfully, it was dark in the room now, and he wouldn’t see that I was still half-hard as I got up and scrambled over to the side of the bed he had shifted away from.
“Thanks,” I said, quietly, sliding between the covers and feeling somehow like I was taking up too much room, even though I was the one who had paid for this hotel stay.
“It’s your hotel room,” Rowe said, echoing my thoughts. I didn’t think he would say anything else again, but just as the silence was getting too heavy to bear, he spoke up. “You should try not to drink so much tomorrow.”
“I’ll drink as much as I like,” I huffed back immediately. Who was he trying to be, my mother? I already had one of those, and it hadn’t been particularly effective.
“Alright, fine,” Rowe said, as if he could care less. “I just thought it might be a good idea to enjoy the day instead of forgetting it and making an ass of yourself. That’s your pattern, right? Get way too drunk, try to find someone to go home with, get thrown out of the bar?”
That hit way closer to home than I was willing to admit. In fact, it was a near-perfect description of how I spent most of my weekends, not to mention every major get-together our friends had.
“Alright, Mom,” I said, turning on my side so I could put my back to him. “I already have Ace lecturing me about stuff like that now he’s all coupled up. I don’t need you doing it, too.”
“Why do you care what Ace says if you’re not together anymore?” he asked, almost lazily. It sounded like he was falling asleep.
“We weren’t together in the first place,” I said. I thought a moment. “And I could have him again any time I wanted, darling, believe me.”
