Page 25 of Take Me Home

Ash laughed. “Okay. Want to hear the starting lineup of every Major League Baseball team from the 2017 season?”

“Perfect.”

—

Hazel blinked awake to dim morning light and an enveloping warmth. All was well. Better, in fact—soft and cozy and still.

Until she spotted the unfamiliar flamingo lamp on the bedside table and remembered. The icy roads. The power outage. The bed.

Her dream flashed back—a car drifting across a center line, her reaching from the back seat to correct the steering wheel. Every last inch of her skin prickled with panic. The pillow beneath her face was too solid, too warm. In her clenched fist was smooth flannel—Ash’sshirt, his warm stomach rising and falling with even breaths beneath it. His shallow exhale stirred the fine hairs around her face, chin pressed firmly to the crown of her head. She hadn’t just breached the pillow barrier. She wasonhim, her cheek resting on his chest, herthighover hisknee.

She had tomove. Unfisting his shirt, she initiated a controlled roll. The blankets rustled, and she froze partway, her knee hovering above his still form. When nothing happened,she resumed her stealthy escape, successfully unpeeling her body from his. All she had to do was scoot back over the pillows, and it would be like this had never happened.

“Morning.” His voice was scratchy and low from sleep. “Let the record show thatIwasn’t the one who needed the wall of pillows.”

Hazel flopped onto her back. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I was asleep.”

Grinning, Ash rolled onto his side, propping his head up in his hand. His eyes were still half closed, his features sleepy and soft. His hair fell across his forehead in unkempt waves. Reflexively, Hazel finger-combed her own mess of curls back from her face.

“I’m not complaining.”

Hazel rolled her eyes. “Survivor’s instinct. I was cold.”

“If you say so.” He dropped back against his pillow. “Power’s back.”

She registered the low hum of the heater and the bedside clock blinking the wrong time. Desperate for an escape from this moment, Hazel lifted her phone from the nightstand, but a text from her father wondering when he could expect her was another trap. She hadn’t told him she was leaving yesterday, nor that she had gotten stuck halfway home. She swiped his message away. “We should check the roads. I assume you want to get going as soon as possible.”

Ash grunted softly in agreement before rolling out of the bed. He shuffled toward the bathroom, yawning and stretching his arms over his head—like a little boy, she thought. Until he scratched at his stomach and subtly adjusted his sweatpants.

“Gonna shower unless you need to pee,” he said over his shoulder.

She’d started the morning draped on top of Ash. Now, shecouldn’t block the thought ofwhatneeded adjusting in his sweatpants. Could this morning get any weirder?

“Hazel?” He turned in the doorway to face her.

“Huh?” Her eyes dropped straight to his crotch. “Sorry. What? Sorry.”

Instead of bolting into the bathroom like she’d have done if she were a guy sporting morning wood in front of a girl he wasn’t dating, Ash propped both hands on his hips. “I said,” he began slowly, lips quirking, fighting back a smile, “do you need to pee?”

“Nope.”

“Okay.” He turned, stopped, and faced her again. “This isn’t because of you.”

“I didn’t think—” Hazel closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “Asher.”

“Ash.”

She chucked her pillow at him, but he ducked inside the bathroom, and it hit the door.

“I’ll be quick,” he called.

“Take your time,” she shot back way too brightly.

Yep, this morning had gotten weirder. She flopped back and yanked the comforter over her face.

Chapter

Six