Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
So…was this how Fitz was with his friends? To him, was this kind of contact casual? And if this was casual contact, how on earth would she someday survive a real kiss, a real embrace?
Whatever was happening, Fitz seemed to melt somehow. He would reach out and squeeze her thigh to take the edge off a joke. He’d tweak her ear, poke her dimple, tuck her hair behind her ear. When she recounted the sequence of terrifying vehicular events that occurred while he’d been sleeping, he reached over and put his hand on hers. It felt like he was finding every possible excuse to touch her as much as possible. As soon as they were settled in tonight’s hotel, Ren promised herself, she would point-blank ask him what it all meant, and why he was running hot and cold constantly. She didn’t know how to play this game.
So, of course, the first time she really, really hoped they’d be forced to share a room again, the hotel in St. Louis had two available. It was clean, it was ready, and it was cheap. They still had plenty of money left from the Screaming Eagle, so unless she was ready to fess up about wanting to room together, there was no way for her to turn it down.
“Great,” she said with false brightness. “I’ll take it.”
The man with a handlebar mustache and bow tie tucked her key into one envelope, tucked Fitz’s into another, and wrote down their room numbers on each. Ren peeked over to see if they were even on the same floor.
They were not.
Using a pen to point to a small map printed inside the key envelope, the gentleman showed them where their rooms were. “Breakfast buffet opens at six thirty. Elevators are here, general store is over here, and our heated pool and hot tub are on the first floor, which is one floor down from where we are now.” He looked up at them and smiled. “Our pool is great. You’ll need your key to access it, but definitely give it a try if you can.”
Her brain screamed at her that hunger and sleep could take a backseat to time spent in the hot tub with Fitz.
The man closed their envelopes and handed them over. “Welcome to St. Louis,” he said as they bent to pick up their bags.
“Finally,” Fitz said in the elevator, “I can stretch out in bed, take up the entire thing.”
This made her laugh. “You’ll still sleep on your side anyway, completely immobile all night.”
He glanced at her sidelong. “You been watching me sleep, Sunshine?”
Heat rushed up her neck. “Definitely not.”
He was still looking at her when he said, “Maybe I’m really just looking forward to walking around the room naked.”
The words landed just as they arrived at the fifth floor. Ren stared at her reflection in the metal of the doors as they slid open, her body immobile, brain caught in a nuclear meltdown. Fitz held his arm out, pinning the elevator open. “This is you. I’m one more up.”
When the doors began to loudly beep, she startled into motion, stepping out into the hall. But then she turned, summoning a rush of courage and stopping the elevator doors from closing again. “Wanna meet at the hot tub in ten?”
Fitz’s expression went blank, and then he took a step forward. She released the doors to close just as his answer burst free: “Absolutely.”
Ren stood in front of the mirror, tugging on the thin fabric at her hip. What on earth was she thinking? A hot tub? With Fitz? She’d worn a bathing suit exactly one other time in her life, and now she was just going to—what? Walk around in front of him like she was some kind of supermodel? He’d probably dated the prettiest girls in school, in every school he ever attended. No—he’d probably turned down the prettiest girls in school because there were prettier girls somewhere else. Staring at herself now, Ren registered that she’d made an enormous mistake.
Once every few months, Miss Draper over at the Finders Keepers thrift shop in Troy would let Ren go through the bins of new donations and keep a few things in exchange for helping her get them washed and mended and ready for sale. Never having had a sibling to give her hand-me-downs, it was the easiest way for Ren to get new clothes when she’d outgrown her old ones. Sometimes the boxes would overflow with so many nice choices, and she’d want to try on all the silly impractical things—tube tops, tiny shorts, soft fluffy sweaters—but in the end Ren would take only what she needed. A bathing suit wasn’t ever in that category; Ren always swam alone at Finley’s Pond or at their secluded creek, anyway, and would just strip down to the buff and jump right in.