Page 99

I stop, letting her slim hand wrap around my wrist.

“What if … what if we⁠—”

I put a finger to her lips before she can say anything more.

She’s been drinking, and while I don’t know for sure what she was about to say, I have a good feeling I know where it was headed.

I want that.

Bad.

But not like this.

Not when she’s been drinking.

Not when I’ve been drinking.

Not because we are forced to share a room, a bed.

“How about we go to bed?” I say, and she rolls her eyes.

I can’t help it. I laugh and ask, “What?”

“I don’t want to go to bed.”

“I know, but it’s the smarter choice right now.”

“For who?”

“Both of us.”

“But I want to⁠—”

“Whatever you’re about to say, say it to me in the morning,” I cut her off again. “If you still mean whatever you want to say in the morning, I’m in. I’m all in.”

She sighs and then gets up, grabbing her pajamas with a stumble or two. She heads for the bathroom, stopping in the doorway to look back at me.

“For the record, this is not the nice version of you that I wanted tonight.”

I can hear her laughing.

But as soon as the door is shut, I flop back onto the bed.

Yeah, Sunny, me neither.

Chapter

Twenty

GRACE

I wake to the sound of waves crashing in the distance, and as soon as my eyes open, they focus on the arm wrapped around me from behind and the way the chest pressed to my back breathes in slowly and then out.

This version of us is growing on me.

And last night, well, I tried to make that clear, but Preston shot me down.

I pinch my eyes closed.