Well Matched (Well Met #3)(23)

He flashed me a grin as the engine started with a roar. “Here.” He handed me his phone once I’d clicked my seat belt. “Lulu sent me all the info for the hotel when I was at the gym this morning. It’s in the calendar. Can you pull it up?”

“Sure.” I took the unlocked phone and navigated to today’s date. Sure enough, there was an entry for three p.m.—our check-in time—with the address, phone number, and confirmation number for the hotel reservation. I was about to tap on it when an entry from earlier this morning caught my eye: 6:00 a.m.—Fran.

Huh. I glanced over to Mitch, trying hard to not make it a side-eye. “You said you were at the gym this morning?”

“Yep.” He glanced over his shoulder as he backed out of the driveway, one long arm across the back of my seat. “Why?”

“Nothing.” I glanced down at the phone, then back up at him. “I . . . I figured that’s why your hair was still wet.” Indeed, his hair was damp, the residual water making it a dark blond color, and he smelled clean, like soap. He’d definitely showered before picking me up, but why was he lying about going to the gym? We weren’t a couple. But we were friends. He could tell me if he was having a quickie before going out of town.

“Yep,” he said again easily. “You got that address?”

“Oh. Yeah.” I pulled it up and plugged the address into the truck’s GPS. But I couldn’t resist poking through his calendar. I should have, but I couldn’t. Every other day this week was dotted with appointments, and I clicked on them. Monday said Annie, and Wednesday was Cindy. Both at six in the morning, like his rendezvous this morning with Fran. Apparently he was into early morning hookups these days. Good to know.

No. No, it wasn’t good to know. I didn’t need to know this. I had no right nor reason to know or care who he met up with and when. I plugged in his phone and tucked it into the center console, settling down for the drive to Virginia. Besides, maybe it was good that he’d hooked up before the trip. Maybe he’d keep his flirting with me to a minimum.

The beginning of the trip was tense, as a road trip that went through Washington, DC, always was. But it didn’t take long for us to be out of the insane beltway traffic and into the rolling hills of the Shenandoah Valley. By then my nervousness had faded, lulled by the scenery and the classic rock station on satellite radio. Then something he’d said registered, far later than it should have.

“Wait a second. A hotel? What happened to the whole family gathering at your grandparents’ homestead?”

“Oh. Yeah.” He turned the radio down a few clicks, so this was going to be a conversation, not just a quick answer. “Sorry, I should have told you. There’s a lot of people coming this weekend, and there are only so many bedrooms in their house. Lulu emailed me this week to tell me that some of us got put up in a hotel. It’s not far from their place—like a ten-minute drive. Not a big deal.”

“Sure.” I turned back to the window with a frown. The weekend suddenly looked a lot different. It was bad enough when I thought I was navigating a family weekend: three days of social activity, but at least there was a bedroom where I could hide. But now even that had been taken away from me. I hadn’t thought this through. What had I expected? He’d told his family we were a couple. Chances were slim that I would have been getting my own room anyway, at either the hotel or the house. No matter what, I was about to share a room with Mitch.

This was bad. But I didn’t realize how bad until we got to the hotel. Everything was in Mitch’s name, so he checked in while I tried to stretch the kinks out of my back—not to mention my leg—in the parking lot. It had been a relatively short drive, as road trips went, and his truck was so big that it felt like I was sitting on a sofa the whole time. But even a comfortable couch was hard to sit on for hours on end, and as I put my hands on my hips and leaned backwards I heard as well as felt a satisfying pop from somewhere in my lower back. I straightened up just as Mitch came back to the truck and handed me a keycard.

“All set?” He slung the strap of his bag over his shoulder and wheeled my suitcase behind him, again without asking, leaving me to trail after him with my purse and smaller tote. It was weird not schlepping my stuff. Women who had partners in their lives probably had help like this all the time, but I couldn’t fathom it. I always carried my own stuff, and at least half of Caitlin’s.

“What’s in there, anyway?” Mitch nodded at the insulated tote I carried, and I glanced down at it.

“Guacamole supplies. Tonight’s the guac-off, right?”

His eyes lit up. “Oh, definitely! I didn’t want to put pressure on you, though.” The keycard beeped and the light turned green as he unlocked the door to the room.

“No pressure,” I said as I followed him into the room. “I emailed my college roommate, Hope, this week. She’s from Austin, and if there’s one thing Texans know, it’s their guacamole. I am in it to win . . .” My voice trailed off as he flipped the lights on and we both came to a stop in front of the bed.

The.

Bed.

As in one.

“Um . . .” I looked up at Mitch, who was staring at the bed as though it were a particularly nasty kind of snake.

As well he should. Said bed was ginormous, and festooned with rose petals, sprinkled across its surface and around the perimeter. A garishly red heart-shaped pillow perched at the head of the bed, on top of the pillows like a vulture of love. A bottle of champagne and a box of chocolates were on the nightstand, honestly the only palatable part of this scenario.