“Well,” I say, tossing my backpack onto the chair like I am handling this normally, “looks like they upgraded us.”
Zack makes a sound behind me that isn’t really a laugh, but not quite a groan, either. He stands just inside the doorway, hands in his pockets, eyes locked on the bed as if it personally betrayed him. How the hell am I supposed to keep my shit together in these circumstances? He makes it too damn easy for me to fuck with him.
“I booked a double,” he says after a moment. “Two queens. That is what the site showed.”
I shrug, trying to appear unfazed, even though my pulse is hammering like I just ran five miles. “These places overbook all the time. No big deal.”Play it cool, Hazel. Yeah—calm, cool, and collected.
His eyes flick to me, sharp and searching, like he’s trying to figure out if I’m just saying that to keep things easy. He is not wrong. The truth is, I don’t know what I feel. Nervous? Excited? Terrified? All of the above?
He steps farther into the room and sets his helmet down on the table. He has that careful posture he gets when he is choosing his words with surgical precision.
“I can sleep on the floor,” he says, simply.
I blink at him. “Zack. No. Absolutely not.”
“It’s fine,” he insists. But there is something too gentle in his voice, like he is trying to spare me from something he thinks I cannot handle.
“Zack, you are six feet tall and built like someone designed you to ruin furniture. You are not sleeping on the floor.”
He looks at me with a startled kind of stillness, like he cannot decide whether to be offended, amused, or concerned by that statement. The corner of his mouth twitches, barely there, but it is the closest thing to a smile I’ve managed to pull out of him since we left the diner.
The air between us shifts. Lightens just a fraction.
“It is one night,” I continue. “We are exhausted. We have a long ride in the morning. We can share the bed. It is big enough for, like, six people.”
He gives the mattress an assessing look that feels almost scientific. “Maybe four,” he concedes.
“Four and a half,” I counter, refusing to let him be the serious one right now. “But we only need room for two.”
He looks down, jaw flexing. He’s uncomfortable, but not because of the bed itself—again, it’s somehow because of me. Or maybe the possibility of messing up, crossing a line, breaking some rule he has in his head about keeping space between us, even though fate seems determined to shove us into the same square foot of air.
I cross my arms gently. Not defensive, just steady. “Zack. I trust you.”
The words land between us like a stone dropped into still water. His whole posture shifts again, but this time in a way that feels more vulnerable, almost fragile. He looks at me like he’s trying to understand how I could mean that.
“Hazel,” he says, quietly, “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
“I don’t,” I answer. “Not with you.”
Silence stretches for a beat. Then two. Something warm flickers and rises in my chest when the tension in his shoulders eases a fraction.
He walks toward the dresser, pulls his phone out, and clears his throat. “I will…take the side closest to the door. You can have the one by the window.”
“Perfect,” I say, maybe too fast, and definitely too brightly.
He nods—unsure, serious, and entirely Zack.
I sit on the edge of the bed, testing the mattress. It is soft, warm, and very real. He glances over, and I can tell he is bracing again. The fear living inside him doesn’t know how to handle these moments. Not for danger, ‘cause we’re not in direct danger. But it’s for the closeness that was thrust upon us—for the possibility this night might change something between us in a way neither of us can fully undo.
And I cannot tell if that terrifies me or exhilarates me.
Maybe both? Yeah, probably both.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
APRIL SKY
ZACK
