Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2)(73)

She lost it. It took her a solid minute to stop laughing long enough to reply.

“Look, there are extra toothbrushes in the drawer under the sink,” she said, still wheezing. “I can slip your retainer under the door and we’ll take care of Lieutenant Dan. Also, you should know the walls are very thick…”

I groaned, sitting heavily on the closed lid of the toilet. “I cannot believe this is happening…”

“I can.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I grumbled.

“Let’s just say that sometimes things happen here that I can’t explain.”

I put my forehead into my hand. “God. And why is the bed so fucking small?”

“Daniel’s re-staining the old frame. He put that one in the room until he’s done.”

“It might as well be a hammock.”

She was laughing again. “Bri? I think you’ve just made it to the Only One Bed scene.”

“Ha-ha.”

When I hung up with her and came back out into the room, Jacob was crouched in front of the fireplace, poking it with a metal rod.

“What are you doing?”

“Starting a fire,” he said, standing. “It’ll help dry the room out on our side.”

Of course. We’re sharing a tiny bed, and there’s going to be a romantic fire. Perfect.

He stood there giving me that earnest, hat-in-hand, puppy-dog look again. He knew I didn’t want to be here. I sighed and resolved to try and be less visibly miserable. This wasn’t his fault.

He looked over his shoulder at the bed and came back to me. “So…what side do you want?” he asked.

Sides? We were going to have to sleep stacked on top of each other.

I sighed. “What side do you normally sleep on?”

“The right.”

“Okay. I’ll sleep on the left.”

I looked at what I was wearing. I was in a tank top and jeans. My boobs would be everywhere the second I lay down.

“You can borrow a shirt,” he said, reading my mind.

“Thanks.”

“It’s just sleeping,” he said.

Ha. Right.

I changed into the shirt he gave me. It smelled like him and made the whole situation a million times worse. Alexis slipped my retainer under the door, which I actually didn’t want to wear in bed with Jacob, but I’d made such a big deal about it I had to. It made me lisp.

His shirt was long enough to cover me. Barely. I debated sleeping in my jeans, but that idea actually did make me feel claustrophobic, so I just got under the covers as quickly as I could to keep from accidentally flashing him.

When Jacob got in, his entire left side was pressed into my body. After some awkward, apologetic shifting that seemed to be mutually geared at keeping his penis as far away from me as possible, we agreed to sleep back to back. It would have been easier to let him spoon me, or for him to lie on his back with me sleeping curled up next to him in the crook of his arm, but there was no way I was doing either. It was waaaaay too slippery a slope.

My knees were halfway off the bed. I’m sure his knees were halfway off the bed.

He cleared his throat. “You know, we’d fit better if we—”

“No,” I said, cutting him off.

He spoke over his shoulder. “We hug all the time. It’s not sexual.”

I had to hold back a maniacal laugh. “It’s not that. I’m just…really claustrophobic,” I lied. “I can’t have someone hugging me right now or it’ll make it worse.”

He was quiet for a beat. “Okay.” He went back to facing his side of the room. And then over his shoulder again, “Do you want to stay up and talk for a little while? It might be hard for you to sleep if you’re anxious.”

I let out a long breath. Then I rolled onto my back and he rolled onto his.

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked.

“You could ask me one of your weird questions.”

“My questions are not weird,” I said, lisping through my stupid retainer.

He propped himself up on his elbow. “‘Would you rather drink toilet water or eat dirty kitty litter?’ That’s not weird?”

“That was an excellent ice breaker, meant to get to the core of who you are as a person.”

“Uh-huh.” His eyes were creased at the corners.

“Well, what about your questions? They suck too.”

“My questions are great. You just don’t take them seriously.”

I gasped. “I have taken every question you’ve asked me seriously.” Major lisp on seriously.

He looked amused. “Really? Your near-death experience was when your thighs were rubbing together at Disney World on your twenty-fifth birthday—”

“I WAS FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE, JACOB.”

He laughed and his chest rumbled against my arm. It rumbled everywhere. He was so close.

We were alone…

I swear his eyes flickered to my mouth for a second and I had the brief realization that if he kissed me right now, I wouldn’t say no. I couldn’t. It was like I was under some spell. I had just enough strength to hold my ground, but not enough to save me if he advanced. I prayed that Jacob would be Jacob tonight and be respectful. He always was. But what if he wasn’t?