Page 62 of As the Years Pass

There’s a weird look on his face, and I can’t tell what it means. So I give him a playful shove and he falls onto his back. I have the strangest urge to straddle his hips, something I’ve done so many times in the past, so before I do that and make this weird, I hurry to my bag to start unpacking. From the corner of my eye, I see him get up and go to his bag.

“There are enough drawers for you.”

“I don’t unpack when I’m in a hotel,” he says.

I look at him over my shoulder. “Why the hell not?”

“One: I don’t want to forget anything. Two: why waste time putting everything away, just to pack it all up again when I leave? Seems like a waste of time.”

“This won’t take me long,” I comment.

“No?” He smirks, toeing his shoes off before walking toward the bed and diving onto it, then rolls so he’s lying on his back. He crosses his ankles. “Well, I’m already done.” He grabs the remote from the end table and turns on the TV to scroll through the guide as I work on organizing my clothes.

When everything is in the drawers, I put my suitcase in the closet and bring my smaller bag into the bathroom to get everything set up in there. Emmet hasn’t brought anything in the bathroom yet, but I save him space on the counter for when he does. I get out of the bathroom and move to the side of the bed.

“You need to move over.”

“Excuse me?” he says, slowly turning his attention on me.

“You’re on my side of the bed.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Idothink so. Move.”

He smiles like he’s just thought of something sneaky, then he gets out of the bed.

“Fine. I’ll give you this side of the bed.”

It’s all he says before he walks around to the other side and gets back on. It’s a weird move, since he could have just scooted over. It only makes me think he has something up his sleeve.

I narrow my eyes. “Why do I feel like I’m going to pay for that somehow?”

He shrugs. “No idea what you’re talking about. What are we doing for dinner?”

“Whatever you want,” I tell him as I get into bed.

As I said, there is plenty of space on the bed.

“Hm… anything I want?”

“Are you fucking with me?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says smartly.

I stare at him for a moment, and anyone would think he was fine, but I see the gears turning in his head. He’s up to something, and I don’t know what it is.

Or he just wants me to think he’s up to something…

No, he definitely is. I know him, and he’s thought of something to get back at me for making him move.

I say, “Well, I’m not really in the mood to go anywhere, so if we could do room service tonight, that would be good.”

“Fine by me.”

I get out of bed to get the menu from the table beneath the mirror, then get back into bed. Emmet was hardly on here for long, but the pillow already smells like him. Or maybe that’s because he’s closer than I thought he was. The space between us suddenly seems smaller.

Did he move? Did I?