Page 14

Rhys

I answer the door, accept the breakfast plates, and tip Snapback Guy—whose name is actually Joe.

“Thank you for saving our asses last night,” I tell him. “We really needed a place to stay, and this was perfect.”

He waves off my thanks. “My aunt’s still on track to be back tonight, and she can look at the car first thing tomorrow.”

“No chance anyone around here might be able to look at it today?”

“Give it a go,” he says. “Call around. But I don’t know of anyone within an hour of here who works Sundays. If you find someone, I’ll tow you there.”

“Thanks, man. That’s awesome.”

He waves that off, too.

“I’ll look into rental-car options, too. Any chance you’d be interested in returning mine once it’s functional?”

He gives me a look I recognize as an inquiry about price. “Depends on how far you have to drive it,” I say, “but I’ll pay twice what you could make doing anything else with your time, for as long as it takes to get there and back. And obviously anything else, like gas, snacks.”

He grins. “Sounds like a sweet gig. You’re on. Just let me know where it needs to get back to.”

When he leaves, I check out the plates he’s left us. Breakfast is hot: pancakes, bacon, hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, fruit—plus coffee and OJ. Eden’s still snoring, and I don’t know if I should wake her for hot food or let her sleep, but while I’m trying to decide, she stirs and opens her eyes.

“That smells amazing ,” she says.

“Do you want it in bed?”

Her eyes get huge. “Do you know what’s weird? I don’t think I’ve ever eaten breakfast in bed.”

I frown. That’s not okay. “In case you were still in any doubt, you’ve been with assholes.”

“Not gonna argue with that ,” she says.

“You know my feelings about serious relationships, but if I were ever to allow myself to be in one—” I pause, because I’m wondering whether to say again , to bring up Fay and my one failed long-term attempt at lifelong monogamy. I decide against it. “I’d definitely bring her breakfast in bed.”

“Ah. You do have a romantic bone in your body. I was wondering.”

“Does it count as a romantic bone if it’s purely hypothetical? If I were foolish enough to get myself in a relationship, which I would never do, then I would do a thing? I don’t think that’s romantic. It’s more just…analytical. The correct course of action in scenario X is Y.”

“Uh-huh,” she says, pressing her lips together like she’s trying not to laugh.

We sit on opposite ends of the couch and eat our breakfasts.

It feels like ten years since dinner last night, despite all the junk food we chowed in the car, and I’m ravenous.

I plow through the entire plate of food, and then I look over and she’s done the same.

She looks at my plate, and then we look at each other and laugh.

“That was really fucking good,” I say, and she says, “God, it so was.”

“At home I eat an egg-white omelet with veggies and a bowl of steel-cut oats with raisins and nuts,” I confess.

“Of course you do.”

“And you eat a bag of Doritos and a bag of peanut butter M&M’s.”

Eden rolls her eyes at me. “I actually have granola with milk—thank you very much.”

She checks her phone. “Paul’s still in Spokane. Whew.”

“Still in the hotel?”

“For now.”

“You said the quilts were supposed to be hung today.”

“That was the original plan. The show starts Thursday. I have a little grace period, but not much.”

If we overtake Paul immediately, we’ll be fine. If he leads us on a longer chase…

I don’t let my mind go there. “I’m going to search for alternate rental options,” I say.

She nods. “I’ll shower.”

I find a car pretty quickly on my phone—it looks like it would be about a twenty-minute ride to the rental car place, and it’s in the right direction. Worst case we might be able to pay Joe or one of his buddies to drop us off.

But when I try to book the car, the site freezes.

I grab my laptop out of my messenger bag, which is leaning against the wall not far from the bathroom. There’s a gap under the bathroom door, and the steam from Eden’s shower, scented with strawberry from the shampoo and conditioner Joe’s aunt provided, wafts to my nose.

Funny, it didn’t smell nearly this good when I was the one washing in it. Something about the fact that I know Eden is running her fingers through her hair as fragrant lather spills over her naked body?—

Rhys Hott, get your mind out of her shower.

It doesn’t help that last night, when I went to shower, I accidentally dislodged a hand towel, which fell to the bathroom floor, revealing Eden’s lacy pale blue thong.

I quickly picked up the towel and replaced it, but the sight of those flimsy panties would not leave my mind.

Plus, the presence of them in the bathroom meant that they weren’t on her body.

Which meant that she had nothing on under her sweatpants.

Fuck. Me.

Thankfully, the shower shuts off right then.

I open my laptop and try once more to book the local car, but the site freezes again.

I call the rental car company and get told I have a one-hour-and-twenty-seven-minute wait for customer service.

“Any luck?” Eden asks.

I turn and see her, standing in the door of the bathroom.

She’s wrapped in one of the room towels, another one twisted around her hair.

Her skin glows a soft pink from the heat of the shower, dewy and fresh, and my eyes linger on the upper slope of her pretty tits.

The towel touches her thighs, barely long enough to make her fit for public viewing, and it still feels indecent in a way that stirs my cock under the thin cloth of my boxers. If she shrugged, I’d see everything.

“Rhys?” she prompts. “Any luck with the rental car?”

I tear my eyes from her soft, pale thigh and meet hers. She raises her eyebrows, and I know I’ve been caught. But she doesn’t look mad. She looks—amused. Her gaze tangles with mine, and it’s teasing, until I look away. Heat swims through my veins and settles, heavy, in my cock.

Shit.

This. This is why it was easier when she hated me. When she thought I was the enemy. The last thing I need is an invitation to do what can only be disastrous for all of us—her, me, Hanna.

“Rhys?” Eden repeats, and the tease is gone. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe I wanted to hear it enough that I hallucinated it.

“Uh,” I attempt. “Um. Not so far. I think we need to show up at the desk. I can’t book it online and I can’t get customer service on the phone.”

She nods at that. “I’ll get dressed and see what I can do to get us a ride. Where are we going?”

“I’ll text you the address.”

And then I grab the pile of my clothes and lock myself in the bathroom, shutting the door behind me like there’s a zombie outside instead of the most desirable almost-naked woman I’ve ever seen.