Thad must be even more exhausted than I am after all that driving because after he showers, he collapses onto his bed—the one closest to the door, at his insistence—and lets me take care of ordering the food. Considering that he’s paying for all the gas and the room, and doing all the driving, I’m happy to take over finding dinner. That way I can put it all on my card and he won’t be able to do anything about it, if he’s even awake enough to notice.
“Pizza’s on its way,” I tell him, setting my phone on the bedside table. Actually, on second thought, I better take it into the bathroom with me while I shower. I have a passcode on it, but Thad seemed pretty confident that he’d be able to break into it without my help, and I don’t want him figuring out where we’re going and leaving without me.
“Hrrmm,” Thad grunts from the bed.
If the thought of me getting naked in the next room is at all titillating, Thad does a really good job of not showing it. Rolling over onto his back, he reaches for the remote and switches on the television.
Whatever. It’s not like during his shower, I was thinking about his naked body underneath all that hot water. That would be weird. And I definitely did not do that, not even once.
Thad may not care, butI’mself-conscious as I take off my clothes in the bathroom and step into the shower. I can hear him watching the TV through the wall. It’s the most intimate I’ve ever been with a nonrelated man before, and even though absolutely nothing is going to happen, I choose to see this as a positive step forward instead of simply being sad. This man might not want to see me naked, but we are sharing a sleeping space tonight, and we will be in pajamas in the same room together, and that feels like progress.
If this were a romance, there would be some emergency that would make Thad need to come into the bathroom while I’m showering. My hair would get caught in the showerhead or there would be a giant spider on the wall or something. Thad would be a gentleman and keep his eyes above my shoulders for most of it, but maybe he would sneak just one little peek and be overwhelmed with the sight of my puckered nipples and heaving breasts.
But this is not a romance, and nobody is interested in these boobies. I pat them consolingly. “Sorry, girls. Maybe someday.”
I am a certified weirdo, but this has already been well established.
When I’m fully dressed again and absolutely no one has seen me naked, I find Thad in the same exact position, completely supine, like his body has been drained of all its energy.
“Are you alive?” I tease him, putting my toiletries back in my bag. I’ve decided to treat this whole sharing-a-room thing like a fun summer camp adventure with two buddies, since I need to stop thinking romance-novel thoughts so I won’t act like a total creep with Thad.
He grunts at me. “Do you always sing in the shower like that?”
I honestly hadn’t realized I was doing that, but it doesn’t come as much of a surprise. A singing nun—what a cliche. “Sorry. Julie Andrews was a big hero to me growing up, go figure. Was it annoying?”
He grunts again but doesn’t say one way or the other. He hasn’t looked at me at all since coming out of the bathroom, I realize. I’m nothing more than a lamp in the room to him. An annoying lamp that sings.
A knock at the door saves us from this scintillating conversation. “That must be the pizza,” I say, moving to answer it so he can keep resting.
Thad shoots up out of the bed faster than should be possible, considering he was practically catatonic moments ago, rushing to intercept me. “I’ll get it.”
Once he reaches the door, he peers through the peephole. “Who is it?” It’s kind of cute, how paranoid he is. Like there’s something rare and precious he has hidden away in here that he doesn’t want anyone to take.
“Pizza.”
Thad reluctantly opens the door, just enough to fit the pizza through. I approach from behind, cash in hand. “It’s already been paid for, but here’s the tip.”
Thad snatches the money, then waves me back. “Go back to the bed.” He waits until I’ve done so before thrusting the cash through the door, along with some more he pulls from his wallet. “Don’t tell anyone what room we’re in, if they ask.” And with that he slams the door shut, bolting it for good measure.
“Such a people person,” I tease him as he returns, pizza in hand. “And who’s going to care what room we’re in?”
“Don’t worry about it.” He drops the pizza on the bed. “Whatcha wanna watch while we eat?”
I glance dubiously at the TV screen, where an old black-and-white movie is playing. “What’s this?”
“Oh.” Thad runs a self-conscious hand over the back of his neck, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was blushing. “It’s an old film noir.Double Indemnity.”
I probably shouldn’t comment, but I can’t help myself—outside of being a bounty hunter, a minor reality television star, and an obsessive car owner, this is the first thing abouthimselfthat Thad’s let slip. “I haven’t seen much film noir,” I say, treading carefully. “I like older movies, but I kinda stuck with the Judy Garland, Fred Astaire side of things. You know, the musicals, the romances.”
Thad shrugs. “Yeah, I dunno. I’ve stayed at a lot of hotels over the years and they almost always have the classics channel. The noirs are decent.”
I know enough about film noir to know the gist of what to expect—world-weary, warworn detectives and beautiful, dangerous women. No wonder he’s into them. This must be a glimpse into his world, or as close as I’m going to get to it.
“Let’s watch it,” I tell him. “Can you catch me up with what’s going on during the commercials?”
I pull out a slice of pizza, then hand the box across the gap between our beds to Thad. He settles back against the headboard, motioning to the screen. “Okay, so there’s an insurance salesman, Fred MacMurray—that’s the actor’s name, not the character—and he goes to this rich guy’s house to get him to renew his policy, only the guy’s wife’s there, Barbara Stanwyck, and she’s this praying mantis. Gorgeous, but bad news…”
Thad fills me in up to the point where we are in the story, the final twenty minutes or so leading into the climax. I’m enjoying the movie a lot more than I thought I would, but what I’m enjoying even more is Thad’s obvious enthusiasm for it. He’s no longer a grunting, inert lump on the bed, but he’s upright, animated, talking to the characters onscreen like they’re old friends who can hear him.
