Page 172 of No Headlines Please

The Secret Passageway

Maddox

It was after midnight when my phone rang in the dark. Wide awake, I rolled over and reached out to snag it from the unfamiliar nightstand.

Instead, I smacked the phone onto the floor.

Damn it.

The sheet slid down my bare chest as I leaned over the edge of the bed, finally grabbing the phone just as the ringing stopped.

The screen glowed in my hand.

A missed call.

Delaney.

My pulse kicked as I turned to stare at the bathroom door – the same one I'd been staring at before the ringing started. On the other side of the connecting bathroom, there she was.

Maybe naked.

Maybe not.

Definitely not asleep.

Just like me.

Huh.

In the darkness, I could barely make out the door. Even so, I kept staring and wondering.

I debated calling her back.

Instead, I waited to see if she'd leave a voicemail.

She didn't.

A drunk dial?

Maybe.

But probably not. She'd had at least two glasses of wine earlier, but she'd seemed perfectly fine.

After Ryder and Tessa had kidnapped our luggage, we'd spent maybe ten minutes settling into our rooms before returning to visit around the fire.

We'd been given separate bedrooms with a shared bathroom in the middle.

Tessa hadn't even asked if we were sharing a room. She'd just put us in separate ones like it was normal and expected.

This wasn't a problem.

I'd been planning to ask for separate rooms all along – if only to avoid putting Delaney on the spot.

But it was Ryder who'd leaned close to say with a laugh that if we wanted to visit, we could take the secret passageway through the middle.

The bathroom.

Thus, my staring.