A Cross-Country Christmas(25)

Right?

She drew in a breath and met his eyes. He held her gaze for several seconds, hoping they could reach a truce. He didn’t know why it was so important to him—despite Lauren’s assumption, plenty of women didn’t fall for his charms.

But Lauren was different. She was now and always had been good. Winning her approval, in a skewed way, could somehow make him good too.

A clean slate.

She abruptly broke eye contact and dragged her suitcase toward the bathroom. “I’m going to get ready for bed.”

She closed the door, leaving him sitting in the small hotel room alone.

That truce would apparently have to wait.





What is even happening? How did I get here?

Lauren stared at her reflection in the hotel bathroom’s mirror, willing it to come to life and give her some kind of answer. How did she end up in a hotel room with Will Sinclair? How was she going to survive?

She scrubbed her face clean, dried it, and surveyed the hair situation. It was a mess after dozing off in the car. She pulled the elastic free and the messy brown waves fell past her shoulders.

She fluffed it with her hands, trying to add a bit of volume, turned her head to the side, and wait. . .what was she doing?!

Oh, for the love, Lauren, knock it off!

She was thinking about the way she looked because Will was on the other side of the bathroom door.

She threw her hair back up in a messy bun and ventured back out into the main part of the room.

“Care if I shower?” he asked.

Her heart sputtered. “Uh, no.”

“I think the hotel actually has room service. We should order dinner. I’ll buy since you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.”

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, he was being really, really nice to her. And she really, really didn’t know how to handle it.

“Do you mind ordering me a pizza if they have it? Cheese and pepperoni.”

She nodded, not trusting her voice. Something about knowing he was about to shower in the very next room had her insides reeling. And it’s not like hotel bathrooms were exactly soundproof. Every noise would conjure up an image of Will. The water turning on. His hand under the stream to test the temperature. His shirt hitting the floor.

For some reason, a picture of the two of them standing in front of a half-fogged bathroom mirror flashes in her mind. Imaginary Will flexes, posing in the mirror. She shoves him, toothbrush hanging out of her mouth. They smile. Something that couples who have been together forever do.

Lauren Richmond, I swear, STOP IT.

He disappeared into the bathroom, and she ordered food, then figured she had a few minutes to herself. She pulled out her phone and dialed Maddie.

After half a ring, Maddie answered. “Girl! It’s about time, I’ve been dying over here! Did you hook up with Cap yet?”

“Maddie!” Lauren hissed. “This is really, really bad.”

“What’s wrong?” Maddie’s teasing tone changed.

She put Maddie on speaker and paced the length of the room. “I am stuck in a hotel room for the night. With Will. Alone. In a hotel room. We made a detour to see a player of his—an injured kid with a lot of issues, and Will was. . .well, he was actually really sweet and good with him. Even the kid’s mom was talking about him like he was a saint or something. I mean, he’s no saint, Maddie. I know this from personal experience, but watching him with Jackson, the way he so obviously cared what happened to him—I don’t know, it was different. Different than the picture I had in my head anyway. But now, we’re stuck here, in this tiny hotel room with one bed, and he said he’d sleep on the love seat, but he’s still in the room, you know? In my room. Feet away from where I’m sleeping, and right now he’s taking a shower, and I daydreamed that I shoved him and the mirror is all fogged and I don’t know what to do!”

A pause.

“Maddie!?”

“Calm down, you spaz. I’m still waiting for you to tell me what the problem is.”

“Maddie, I am trying really hard to hate this man,” Lauren whispered.

“Why?”

“Because he is a recipe for disaster. A literal recipe. Two cups of charm, three ounces of inappropriate flirting, and a dash of dimples make for a very, very broken heart.” She knew this from experience. Did she really want to put herself in that situation again?

Why wasn’t her heart (or her pulse) getting the message?

“You’re overreacting,” Maddie said dryly.

“I promise you I’m not.”

“You’re doing the rambling thing you do when you’re nervous,” Maddie said. “And when you’re trying to talk yourself into something.”

Lauren thought about the fact that Will had changed his entire schedule, which whether he admitted it or not, was pretty important to him, just to connect with one of his players. To make sure he was okay. She was lying to herself about what a horrible person he was because admitting it messed with her resolve.

“Oh, no. Maddie. I think. . .I think he’s actually a really good guy,” she conceded with a sigh.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing!”

“It is,” she said. “Believe me it is. You just. . .you just don’t know everything.”

It embarrassed her to think of how horribly she’d reacted to what had happened between them all those years ago. How long it took her to recover. It wasn’t something she talked about—ever. Not even with Maddie. Lauren had eventually moved on. Put it in her rearview mirror and forgot about it. Forgot about him.