And she wassocozy warm. Cozy enough that she groaned and mumbled, "Probably friendship-ending levels of trouble? Which seems worth it?" back.
Luke didn't laugh out loud, but his silent chuckle shook the whole bed. "No, so far they seem to like me. I'd like to keep that going as long as possible."
Sabrina nearly whined, "But comfy," then grimaced at her own tone.
Luke breathed, "Yeah," into her hair and tucked her closer. "Myalarm is set for five-thirty…"
"Ninety minutes is enough time to get ready, right?" Sabrina didn't care if it wasn't. She wassocomfortable, and however long she'd been asleep hadn't been long enough. Although maybe no amount of time would be long enough to be curled into a snuggle with Luke Jones. She was pretty sure she could stay there forever.
Luke made another agreeable sound in her hair, and a little to Sabrina's surprise, she fell back asleep. Or she must have, because it felt like all she did was close her eyes and then his alarm was going off. They both groaned this time, and Luke rolled away decisively, like if he didn't move immediately he never would.
Sabrina immediately rolled over, put her arm over him, and tucked her nose against his ribs. "Donwanna."
"Me either." He yawned, then chuckled again, another of those silent bed-shaking laughs.
If he could shake the bed just with hislaugh, Sabrina could hardly imagine how he'd rock it if they actually—wait, Luke was saying something. "What?"
"I said, but I don't think you could stop me from getting out of bed. You're very small."
Sabrina still didn't want to get up, but between her own thoughts about him rocking it, and the idea that leaped to mind about how she could, in fact, prevent him from getting out of bed himself—well, she was wide awake all of a sudden, anyway. She didn't quite trust herself to say or do anything, but hoo boy, wasshe awake. After several frozen seconds, she cleared her throat and rasped, "Good things come in small packages, they say. I'm gonna…I'm gonna shower again. Lake water."
That made enough sense to her that she got up and hurried to the shower, although once she was in it, she realized she'd forgotten to grab her dinner clothes on the way. This whole fake dating thing was much more inconvenient on a practical level than she'd imagined, but at least she was out of theone bedshe was sharing with Luke. Aloud, although not loudly, she said, "What was Ithinking," and put her face into the water until she hoped all her dirty thoughts were washed away.
When she came out again, Luke looked up with a brief smile, then politely glanced away. "I'll grab a shower myself, while you get dressed?"
"Sounds like a plan. And I can hide in the bathroom while you get dressed, then."
"This is harder on a logistical level than I was thinking," Luke admitted as he headed for the bathroom, though he stopped when Sabrina laughed out loud.
"Sorry, go ahead. It's just that was exactly what I thought while I was in the shower. I know we're adults, we can probably get dressed and undressed in the same room with each other without the world coming to an end, but I feel like we're trying to be extra-polite."
Luke smiled on his way into the bathroom. "To be fair, in our culture we don't usually get undressed in front of people we've only known a couple of days."
"I told them, you know," Sabrina said as the water turned on, so she knew he wouldn't hear her. She wasn't even sure she wanted him to. "They didn't believe me because of how I said it, but I did tell them. I don't want to…I don't want to start things out with a lie." She put her face in her hands, rubbing her eyes and shaking her head. She didn't know if Luke evenwantedtostart things for real, and if he did, that was a discussion for later. This right now was just a…agame. Just two friends helping each other out, even if the friendship was very new.
But somehow her heart didn't really feel that way. It felt important to get things clear withhim, at least. Her friends could be told later, when it was something to laugh about, instead of being raw and uncomfortable. But God, she also didn't want to make the next couple of dayswithLuke uncomfortable, because if he wasn't interested in maybe making this thing real, that would get real awkward real fast.
Sabrina sighed and stood up to go to the closet. At theveryleast,beforethe rehearsal dinner was not the time to talk about it. If it went badly, she'd be a mess during the dinner, and that would distract from Mindy and Craig's special evening, which would be genuinely awful. So one thing at a time, she told herself.
…and that one thing was getting into her rehearsal dinner dress without anybody to zip her up. After several squirming tries, Sabrina groaned and went to do her hair and makeup, hoping she and Luke were right about being able to be half dressed in front of each other without making it weird.
She had her hair done up in a half-updo when the bathroom door slid open again and Luke called, "Everybody decent?"
"Yeah, it's safe. I won't look if it's not." That made more sense in her head than it did out loud, but Luke laughed.
"Not any less safe than this morning, anyway."
A vivid image of Luke in that towel wrapped around his hips popped into Sabrina's mind. That wasn't safe atall, in her opinion, but she mumbled, "We don't have time for it to be not safe," and heard him chuckle again.
"Give me five and I'll be safe for work."
"Your work clothes are pretty revealing," she pointed out, now grinning at herself in the mirror. It took effort to not lether gaze slide sideways in hopes of catching a glimpse of Luke getting dressed, so she picked up her makeup and focused on getting that done instead of peeking at her fake boyfriend.
He finished dressing as she put her lipstick on, and said, "You can look now."
Sabrina did, and felt a slow, silly smile spread over her face. He was definitely not in his work clothes now: he wore light grey slacks and an unexpectedly pale pink button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose his truly excellent forearms. To her utter delight, his socks matched the shirt, and he was wearing a gold chain necklace that looked fantastic. His hair was still damp, and he had a jacket that matched the slacks slung over his shoulder. Sabrina said, "Wow," and he ducked his head, pleased.
"I'll do, then?"
