Page 54 of And Now, Back to You

GIANNA: Maybe start with that next time.

CHAPTER 13

DELILAH

We stand together in the small entryway of the room, unmoving, staring at the bed smack-dab in the center of it. It’s massive, with a plush velvet headboard and hand-carved posts, layered with pillows and blankets and a thick plaid comforter. It’s indulgent. Cozy. It’s so far from the bed across the street, it’s laughable.

There is, however, an issue.

There’s only one.

“It could be worse,” Jackson says, wandering to the foot of the bed and dropping the duffel slung over his shoulder. He stretches his neck, one side and then the other. “It could be bunk beds.”

“Joke’s on you. I always wanted bunk beds.” I place my bag next to his. “You’re being surprisingly calm about this.”

He shrugs. “I figured there’d only be one bed in the junior one-bedroom suite.” He drags his hand through his hair, then leans up against the foot of the bed, his long legs extended. Crossed at the ankles. “I asked Lottie to bring up a cot.”

I scan his six-foot-three frame and imagine him trying to wedge himself on a cot that probably folds up and is kept in a closet somewhere.

“Or—” I raise both eyebrows, staring at him.

He blinks once, slow and heavy. His glasses are the slightest bit crooked, and it makes him look younger. Boyish.

“Or?” he asks.

I glance at the bed. We could fit roughly seventeen Delilahs on this bed, stacked in a row.

“Or we could share.”

“Share,” he repeats.

“Mm-hmm.” I hop up so I’m sitting on the edge and toe off my boots. I let out a happy sigh and flop backward, the blankets rising around me like a cloud. I have to bite my tongue against a moan.

“Jackson, I cannot in good conscience allow you to sleep on a cot when this bed feels like this.” I reach out, one arm extended, and pat the space next to me. “Try it.”

“I don’t need—”

I sit up, grip his arm, and pull. “Try it,” I say again.

He allows me to tug him down onto the bed, falling gracelessly next to me with a huff. He’s a tangle of limbs, his head tipped against my shoulder and his hip pressed to mine. He moves around with a grumble, adjusting his long legs, but then he settles, sinking into the bed with an utterly indecent sound. Something deep and rough and delicious.

I grin at the top of his head. “Right?”

“Oh my god,” he moans, and my belly flips. A sharp twist, right in the middle of me. “Okay, yeah. No cot.”

“You’re not going to argue with me?”

“Delilah, I can’t.” He rocks his head back and forth against the blankets, letting his body go heavy and limp. I hear two thumps as he toes off his boots and then he tilts his head back, peering up at me, his hair rustling against the fabric. He smiles and it’s so soft, so sweet, that I have to curl my hand into the blankets to keep myself from reaching for him. From tracing that little groove between his eyebrows.

Finally, I think. This is who you are beneath everything else. This is who you are when you let go of all that weight.

Heavy blue eyes. A gentle curve of his mouth that feels like something just for me.

“Maybe we can find something to argue about tomorrow,” he murmurs. “To make up for it.”

I smile. “Maybe.”

It should be more awkward than it is, sitting with our backs against the headboard, our shoulders pressed together, staring at the weather projection open on his laptop. But either we reached a new level of understanding, or Lottie spikes her hot chocolate, because it’s been distractingly easy since we decided we can be two adults who share a bed.