Page 102 of Any Port in a Storm

“Frasier, I guess.”

When Nick puts the remote down between us, I can feel his fingers brush against my thigh. There’s that feeling again, thrumming from my heart to my belly and lower.

I try to focus on Kelsey Grammer. I really, truly do. But there’s something exceptionally distracting about having Nick this close. Especially when I’m tired, and probably more than a little drunk.

And still thinking about his face in that picture. And the way he held my hand.

Nick breaks the silence. “So, what else can we do to help Grace?”

God, and now he’s going to be a staggeringly decent man on top of everything else? It was hard enough for me to ignore my feelings before. But now, when he’s being so protective of my best friend…it’s doing something to me.

“Maybe breakfast tomorrow?” I suggest, trying with all my might to focus on Grace. That’s who this night is supposed to be about.

He checks his watch. “It’s three AM.”

“So?”

“Do you really see us being up for breakfast?”

“I guess it depends on when we go to bed.” I realize as soon as the words are out that it sounds like a come-on. Like I’m suggesting we’ll be going to bed together.

He starts to stand up. “Then I guess I should probably head out.”

“Wait.” I grab his hand. “Don’t go. It’s dark. And cold. And you had a lot to drink.”

He fights a bemused grin. “I’ll be fine, Laurel.”

“Please stay.”

His pupils smolder in the darkness, but he clears his throat. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

An image of Nick, breathing against my lips in a hotel room in Philadelphia, whooshes to the forefront of my brain. It’s the worst kind of intrusive thought, really, because now I’m thinking about his mouth and how badly I want to taste him.

I throw a bucket of cold water over the thought by dragging its follow-up back to center—how I’d stopped him; told him I couldn’t bring our relationship there. Because he mattered too much, and because I couldn’t lose him.

“It’ll be fine.” I feign nonchalance. “We can just sleep.”

He looks like he wants to argue, but then I see his eyes flick down to my lips. “Okay,” he says quietly.

It takes everything in me to ignore how his obvious display of interest is making me feel. I busy myself with grabbing him a t-shirt and whisper, “There’s an extra toothbrush in the medicine cabinet.”

“Thanks.” He heads into my bathroom to change.

I slip out of my clothes and into a nightgown, my mind swimming with booze and ideas of where this night would go if I were here with anyone but Nick. How I wish he were anyone but Nick.

But then I wouldn’t feel this way.

“Your turn,” he says, leaving the bathroom a few minutes later.

I fight the urge to watch him slip into my bed and head to brush my teeth instead.

It’s not the first time we’ve spent the night together. We’ve crashed on each other’s couches many times, in fact.

And then there was our museum trip.

But this feels different, somehow. Maybe because of how Nick held my hand under the bar. Maybe because of what happened last month in the pool. Maybe because of how he called me last week, just to see how my day was going.

Or maybe it’s because of how, with every passing day, it’s getting harder and harder for me to pretend that what’s going on between us is nothing.