Page 86 of Bad Run

“In you go.” I lift the duvet, and without a fight, she slides under the covers to the far side of the mattress and rolls onto her side, facing me. I switch off the light and slip into bed, facing her. A gap of space separates us as we stare at one another.

“Is it weird?” she whispers.

“Is what weird?”

“Sleeping in different hotels all the time?”

I can’t help but chuckle. No one has ever asked me that before. “It used to be. But now I have a … routine to help me settle in.”

Even in the dark, I can see her smile at my answer. She had the same smart-ass smirk on her face during dinner when she asked me about the television again.

If she only knew.

“Routine? You mean superstitions. Typical baseball player,” she says with a teasing scoff.

I shrug. “I’m not as bad as some of my teammates.”

“What’s your little superstition then?”

I bite back a laugh at her emphasis on little.

It’s not that I’m embarrassed about so-called superstitions and other rituals, but I’ve also never said them out loud. All of us guys keep that type of stuff to ourselves.

“I promise I won’t tell a soul,” she says, eyes pleading.

There’s not a single cell in me that doesn’t trust her. Gut instinct, I guess, but from the moment I met her, I knew she would never share something I told her.

“I bring my own pillow. I can’t sleep with my face on scratchy cotton,” I admit.

“That’s smart, actually. All hotels, even nice ones, have scratchy, unscented bedding. It’s kind of bizarre how they have no smell. How do we know for sure they got washed if you can’t smell laundry soap?”

She gets it.

I grin. “Exactly.”

“What else do you do?” She slips her clasped hands under her cheek, looking like sweetness and innocence personified.

“Nope. Your turn.”

“What do you want to know?” she asks.

We’ve never spoken about the morning after. Her disappearance. I can’t ignore it anymore. Especially not after the little comment she made before we got into bed.

We didn’t just pass out in bed.

“Why did you leave?” Her breath hitches at my question as my pounding heart beats against my chest like a bass drum. Her curious eyes search mine for answers. I tuck a fallen curl behind her ear. “You have to know I didn’t want you to go.”

“You didn’t?”

I shake my head. “Hell no. I thought I was pretty clear I wasn’t done with you.”

“I didn’t want to go. I had to.”

Her confession changes everything and nothing all at once.

twenty-eight

Gwen