I brush my teeth, swallow two Advil with a handful of water, and try to pull myself together. We have Niagara Falls today. Two hours on a bus with my entire family, followed by a full day of playing the happy couple while it seems like we might not be playing anymore.
Or I don’t want it to be playing. I don’t even know.
Rodriguez is still awake in bed. Propped up on one elbow, watching me with an expression I can’t quite read.
“Morning,” he says. His voice is rough with sleep, deeper than usual.
“Morning.” Mine comes out barely better, scratchy and weak. “How’s your head?”
“Fucking awful. Yours?”
“Like someone’s drilling through my skull.”
“Yeah.” He sits up, running a hand through his hair in a way that makes it stick up even worse. He should look terrible, hungover and rumpled and half-asleep. Instead he just looks warm and soft and I really need to stop staring. “Coffee should be here in ten minutes. I ordered it right after you woke up.”
He ordered coffee. Of course he did. Because apparently Rodriguez is the kind of person who wakes up hungover and immediately thinks about what other people need.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.” He swings his legs out of bed, arching his back and stretching with his arms over his head, his shirt rides up a bit and I have to remind myself to breathe properly. “But you don’t seem like a morning person.There’s water on the nightstand if you need some.”
He disappears into the bathroom before I can even think of how to respond.
I sit on the edge trying to wrap my brain around everything that’s happened since last night. He ordered coffee because he knew I’d need it. Because he pays attention to details like that. Because apparently at some point in the last two days, taking care of me became something he just does without even thinking about it.
The knock on the door comes exactly five minutes later. I tip the delivery guy and bring the cups inside, setting them on the small table by the window.
Two paper cups. Both with the hotel logo. Both steaming.
I stare at them for a second, debating which one is mine, then give up and call toward the bathroom. “Rodriguez? Which coffee is mine?”
The water shuts off. “The one that qualifies as dessert.” His voice carries through the door, and he sounds amused. “Isn’t that how you like it?”
I freeze with my hand hovering over the cups.
He remembered. One offhand comment at the airport, me joking that I liked my coffee with as much cream and sugar as physically possible, and he remembered. Not just remembered, but ordered it that way without me having to ask or remind him or explain it again.
Garrett never did that. In three years, he never once remembered how I took my coffee. I’d have to remind him every single time, and even then it was fifty-fifty whether he’d get it right. But Rodriguez heard it once and made it happen without thinking twice.
“Yeah,” I call back, popping off the lids to check the color, the lighter one almost beige with cream. “That’s how I like it.”
I take a sip and it’s perfect. Exactly right. Sweet enough that it’s barely coffee anymore, just the way I’ve always preferred it even though I know it’s objectively ridiculous.
Oh boy. I’m in trouble.
Real trouble. The kind that doesn’t go away when we fly home Monday. The kind that’s going to hurt when this ends.
If it ends.
No. When it ends. Because it has to end, right? This isn’t real. We’re just pretending. We’re opposites who make no sense together.
I’m still spiraling when the bathroom door opens and Rodriguez emerges in a cloud of steam, towel wrapped around his waist, water still dripping from his hair and running down his chest.
“Coffee good?” he asks, grabbing his own cup.
“Perfect. Thanks.”
“No problem.” He takes a long drink, then checks his phone. “What time do we need to leave?”
