“Should we have breakfast before we go?” Harper asks.
“No. The sooner we leave, the better.” Rowan knows that I’m alive and staying at this hotel. Which means I need to get the hell out of here. The only reason I was able to stay put and not totally panic last night was because… I had company.
Yep. Yesterday was just full of surprises. Rowan was the worst of it while Melody and Harper were, well, they weren’t the worst. Not even close.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
“Yeah. The coffee here sucks anyway.”
“Right.” He shifts his weight, adjusting his grip on his suitcase. “Maybe we could find someplace else to eat then.”
I tilt my head to look at him. “Oh god, are you one of those breakfast is the most important meal of the day people?”
“Breakfastisthe most important meal of the day.”
My hands raise, fending off a lecture. “No, don’t start. You’re going to find that my diet consists mostly of coffee and junk food and that’s the way I like it.”
“That’s not remotely healthy.”
“That’s the way I like it,” I insist, adjusting my bag as the strap slides down my shoulder.
Quietly, he says, “I just thought it might be nice to get some breakfast.”
“Oh.” As in breakfast with me. A breakfast where I don’t ignore him, treat him like an inconvenient stick in the mud, and wish I were anywhere else. Because things have changed between us, even if we aren’t exactly sure what that means. Besides great sex.
Great sex and breakfast. Yeah. I could handle that.
“We don’t have to,” he says when the silence stretches.
“No, we should,” I jump in too quickly. He can’t take it back now. “Breakfast is nice. It’s the most important meal of the day after all.”
“Okay.” Harper leans into me, and I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips when Harper’s knuckles graze mine. He looks particularly attractive with stubble dotting his handsome face and his shirt slightly rumpled, disheveled because of me. Last night still lingers between us—the tangle of sheets, the way Harper’s wolf-gold eyes flashed in the darkness, how his hands felt rough and gentle all at once.
The elevator pings and the doors slide open to reveal the hotel lobby with its beige walls and forgettable landscape paintings. Morning light streams through the front windows, catching dust motes that dance in the air.
Harper heads toward the waiting area with the case for my enchanted guitar, but I catch his sleeve.
“I can take those,” I say, nodding at the guitars. “You go check us out.”
“You sure? It’s not a problem.”
“Hey, I’ve always wanted two guitars. Living the dream here. I think I can handle hauling them a few feet.”
Our fingers brush during the hand-off and I feel a spark. God, it’s so ridiculous. Sleep with a guy who’s supposedly my mate one time and suddenly everything about him makes me all gooey.
I adjust my duffel on my shoulder, then grip both guitar cases by their handles, one in each hand. The enchanted guitar is bigger than my regular one and it’s a little awkward trying to maneuver with both. But I’m a grown-ass man who just spent the night with an Alpha werewolf; I can handle two guitar cases and a duffel bag.
Or not.
One guitar swings like a pendulum and smacks me in the knee, nearly buckling my leg. I stagger, catching myself just before I go down completely, narrowly avoiding a collision with a potted plant that looks plastic but might be real, hard to tell in hotel lobbies.
After sending away the werewolf who was perfectly happy to be my gopher, I can’t admit defeat, so I keep going and end up doing a strange, stumbling dance in the middle of the lobby. Not my finest moment.
The whole thing leaves me out of breath and totally mortified when I drop down into the nearest chair in the seating area. How am I supposed to handle hell beasts if two guitar cases nearly bested me? I make the executive decision to forget any of this ever happened.
A soft chuckle reaches my ears. “Nice show.”
Oh god, there was a witness.
