Page 3 of The Snuggle Is Real

“I look yellow?”

“Yes,” I lie. He doesn’t look like any of those things. He looks…gorgeous, damn it. “With a hint of hangover green.”

“And you look exhausted with a side of workaholic,” he says.

So that backfired on me.

I know he’s joking. I think he’s joking. But it still stings because it’s true. I’ve been going nonstop since March. Meaning March a decade ago.

“Then we share the same ailment,” I say lightly, raising my coffee for another sip.

It’s one of the reasons our friendship has lasted this long—we respect the other’s time constraints. Career has come first for both of us.

“Come here.”

Malcolm startles me by reaching out and pulling me into a big bear hug, squeezing the stuffing out of me. I raise my coffee cup up and out to the side so the lid doesn’t pop off and cover us both in very disappointing, definitely-not-pumpkin-spice hot coffee.

It’s a nice hug. Warm. Comforting. He smells like fall leaves and toasted almonds and something else very earthy that I can’t quite define. I lean in, breathe deep…

Then I realize something.

Malcolm never hugs.

He is most adamantly not a hugger.

The fact that he has me enveloped in his arms right now is both confusing and alarming.

I instantly pull back. “You’re scaring me. Did someone die? Do you have a serious illness?”

“Worse,” Malcolm says solemnly.

“Worse?” I repeat in disbelief.

What the heck could be worse than death?

“We have to share a hotel room.”

I blink. Um… “Excuse me?”

“We have to share a room at the Inn. It’s a long story, but there are no empty rooms and we can’t stay at either of my brother’s houses because they’re filled with out-of-town relatives for the wedding and I looked into a hotel but the nearest available room is over an hour drive and that’s just not practical.”

I barely hear a word of his rambling explanation. I stare at him as he takes a swig of his coffee.

“Sharing a room with me is worse than cancer?”

He coughs a little. “Cancer? Why are we talking about cancer?”

“We’re not. But I thought something really bad had happened and you’re just worried we have to share a room, which apparently to you is a fate worse than death?”

I’m not so much offended as I am annoyed that he’s being so dramatic about it.

His expression relaxes. “I just thought you’d be upset that you won’t have any privacy. Or that you might be tempted by all this.” He puts his arms out and gives me a bicep curl.

That has me rolling my eyes. “I feel like I can restrain myself. But if you’re scared for your virtue, we can sleep feet to head like we did in college when we road tripped to Destin for spring break.”

“I won’t subject you to my feet.”

Both of our voices are getting increasingly louder to be heard over the band, who is now marching down Whiskey Way in crooked formation.