I chuckle, hoping he can’t see straight through it. “Sorry, I get a little randy-pandy after tequila.” Not really true, since I hardly ever drink. I scurry off to the bathroom as quickly as I can whilst tripping up the bedsheet trailing the ground around me. “See you in the morning for breakfast, captain?”
“You don’t want— I could shower and come back. We could?—”
“Tanner Pace, lost for words. Never thought I’d see the day.” I laugh again, this time the pitch of a hyena, as tears catch somewhere inside me.This is on me. I did this to myself, again.“There’s no need to snuggle this out. We’re good, Tanner. You gave me a mind-blowing orgasm. I’m grateful. We don’t need to make this something it isn’t. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yeah. You’re right. Nothing to tell… anyone, I guess?”
“Our secret is safe with me,” I say. “No need to tell my brother.”
I hear him say, “Right,” as I close the bathroom door, turn on the faucet and cover my mouth to prevent a sob escaping.
What did I do?
32
PACE – LATE OCTOBER
Sibling Instinct
There’s a tightness in my chest that I can’t shift. Staring at the ceiling and listening to Annie shuffling in her room, wondering all night why she didn’t want me to sleep in her bed, made it worse.
I know she has reservations about us. She’s right to. I have a million solid reasons why we shouldn’t be hooking up. Not that we’re hookingup; she made perfectly clear that last night was not going to be repeated.
I naively, indulgently, thought that she wanted something between us more than an orgasm. So I’m sitting here at the breakfast table in the hotel, alone, on my third coffee already, wondering what her main worry is. It could, understandably, be her thinking that a guy who came in his pants last night wouldn’t be worth a risk. But IknowAnnie. She’s so far from superficial. Her reservations must be bigger than that.
For the first time in thirty-four years, I’m on the receiving end of the one-night stand brush off and it’s fucking eating me. Because last night, not sleeping a wink, I kept coming back to one thought – Annie is so much more to me than a cheap orgasm in a hotel room.
But I’m not that to her. I am to Annie what every woman has seen me as since college. What I’ve intended to be to them. Sex. The guy they screw before they start their real lives. No commitment. No heartbreak.
It’s always suited me. I’ve seen the fallout of relationships enough times through my mom. Iknowwhat rejection feels like from my own father.
But this morning, it feels like I’m dangerously close to getting hurt. Is that it? Has Annie been hurt so badly that she’s shutting herself down, too? Or is there more to it? Auston.
I’ve chosen a breakfast table tucked away from the sight of most people in the restaurant, and I’m wearing a black cap pulled low over my eyes. There’s a newspaper next to me that I requested but that I’ve been too distracted to even open.
“Someone woke up hungry,” Sas says, eyes screwed tightly behind her specs, the way they do when she’s hanging.
As if right on cue, a waiter tops off my coffee and takes away my empty plate because she’s right, I woke up ravenous after what limited sleep I managed and since we slept with the adjoining door open, I didn’t want to disturb Annie.
“Would you like coffee?” the waiter asks her.
“Massive, yes,” she murmurs, adding “please” as an afterthought.
“I see you’re firing on all cylinders this morning, firecracker,” I say, just as grumpily, despite the fact I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol last night.
Except the tequila I tasted on?—
“Are you reading?” Darcy slips onto the bench seat next to me, looking brighter than Sas but undoubtedly like she had margaritas last night, too.
I’m pleased Annie switched to club soda long before the end of the night, otherwise what happened last night never would have.
That might have been for the best.
“I didn’t even know youcouldread,” my sister jibes, stealing my mug of coffee and gulping it down, then realizing it was boiling hot.
“I’m a man of many hidden talents. How’s the head?”
“Did I fall off my horse yesterday and forget?” she asks.
