“I’m really sorry,” I say to Mac, but he dismisses me with a wave of his hand. He ushers me up the stairs, but this time I slow and look at every picture lining the wall. It’s almost hard to tell which kid is which—all the brothers look vaguely similar. But Mac’s smile stands out in all the photos.
“You were a cute kid,” I say, pointing to a photo of him in elementary school.
“I’m still cute.”
“That’s true,” I say with a smile. I take the steps one at a time, pausing to look at the photos. Mac with a trophy from a spelling bee. Mac and his brothers at the Grand Canyon. Proms and graduations for each of the boys. A family photo at Rob’s wedding. It’s a whole glimpse into Mac’s life that I didn’t know I wanted. A lump forms in my throat, and I hustle up the rest of the stairs. He walks down a long hallway and leads me to what I assume is his bedroom.
I assumed right.
Mac opens the door and I step in cautiously, like this is sacred space. The room is a bit sparse, and somehow this surprises me. I didn’t really expect Mac to be a minimalist. He walks confidently to one corner of the room, illuminating the dark space with a lamp. It casts a soft glow over the navy-blue walls, making the space feel even more intimate.
Bookcases span an entire wall of the room, covered in more books than I’ve ever seen in one bedroom. It doesn’t surprise me at all. In fact, it delights me. I resist the urge to march right over to them and look at every single book. I take in the rest of the room instead. There’s a large window that takes up nearly the whole wall directly across from the door, framed by long, flowy curtains. A small desk in front of the window with just a solitary lamp on it is the last piece of evidence that Mac is every bit the schoolboy nerd I’m learning he is.
The room is twice the size of any room I’ve ever lived in, and the centerpiece is the huge king-size bed. Mac has slept there. Mac has slept there many times. His half-naked body tangled up in sheets flashes through my mind, and the heat in my cheeks spreads through my whole body.
Mac grabs my overnight bag from my hand and sets it on the chair in front of the desk. “So. This is it. The sheets are fresh, I’m sure. If you don’t like the pillows, we have more.”
“Thanks,” I murmur. I’m tempted to wander the room and touch everything as if I could soak in everything I don’t know about Mac through osmosis, but I feel frozen to the spot, staring at the bed.
“Well, let me know if you need anything.” Mac walks across the room to leave, but I grab his wrist as he passes me.
He pauses, standing beside me, waiting for me to speak, but my throat is dry.
“Stay,” I say.
“Stay?”
In my peripheral, I can see Mac looking at me, probably giving me a totally baffled stare, but I can’t seem to bring myself to look him in the eye.
“The bed. It seems big enough for both of us. It’s silly for you to try to sleep on an uncomfortable couch. I wouldn’t sleep if I knew you were uncomfortable. So stay.” I release my grip on him, my hand slipping over his.
As my fingers graze his, he flexes his hand, trapping my fingers between his. Only a few of our fingers are touching, but I feel it everywhere.
“Are you sure?” he asks, his voice a near whisper.
It’s bold, and if I’d thought about it before I said it I would have talked myself out of it. But we’re here now, and the air between us is so tense it’s hard to breathe.
“Yes.”
The silence between us is so loud, it aches in my ears. My shirt moves with the hammering of my heart. He glides a thumb over the back of my hand.
“I’m going to go say good night to my family, if you wanted to, um,”—he clears his throat—“change and such.”
He doesn’t move for what feels like ten minutes but must only be ten seconds, and when he does, slipping out of the room, the weight of his absence clings to me. His room feels twice as large, and so empty I almost crawl into the bed to hide under the covers until he comes back. But I force myself to change into pajamas, brush my teeth, and braid my hair. When I do crawl into the bed, I push away all the voices screaming in my head about how weird this is. His sheets are soft, and as I settle, the laundry detergent scent surrounding me, it’s like being completely engulfed by Mac’s scent.
I dig my book out of my bag and try to settle in to read, but it’s so distracting being in here, surrounded by Mac. It isn’t just his smell; his whole personality is stamped in this room. And when he slips back inside and steps into his bathroom to change, I’m so distracted I can’t focus on the words on the page.
All I can think is that any minute now Mac and I are going to be sharing a bed. And two months ago, all this would have been entirely unthinkable. But it isn’t just happening—it was my suggestion. Jade is going to implode. She’s also going to assume something happened between us.
Which it definitely, one hundred percent, will not.
Mac walks out of the bathroom in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms. I burn a hole through the pages of my book to keep from staring at him, but my gaze slips and the way his T-shirt hugs his body and his pants hang loose on his hips makes me squeeze my legs together.
Fuck, he is so good-looking.
The bed doesn’t even shift when he climbs in, and now he’s so close I could reach out and touch him. I should get an Olympic medal for resisting the urge to do so.
Does he want me this bad too?
