Page 80 of Meant to be Mine

Later, I stretched out on the bed, naked and boneless, listening to the shower run in the bathroom. My body hummed with satisfaction. The sheets were twisted around my legs, half-hanging off the mattress. I didn’t care. I felt too good to care about anything.

I reached for my phone on the nightstand, thinking I’d check the time. Maybe order room service. Something decadent. Chocolate cake. Champagne. Strawberries. Why not?

The email notification sat at the top of my screen.

From: Westfield Preparatory Academy

Subject: Fall Semester Update

I opened it without thinking. Just habit. Teacher mode kicking in automatically. It was a message about the coming school year. Dates for the first faculty meeting. First day of school. Six weeks until I had to be back in New Jersey, standing in front of a classroom again.

Reality crashed over me like a bucket of ice water.

I’d been living in a bubble. Playing house in Drew’s Malibu mansion. Pretending this was my life. The private jets and fancy hotels and afternoons spent browsing bookstores like we had all the time in the world.

But we didn’t have all the time in the world. I had six weeks. Less than that, really, if I was being honest with myself. I should leave at the end of July to give myself time to prep. To get my classroom ready. To transition back into my actual life instead of this fantasy I’d been living. Five weeks. Maybe. Five weeks wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

The shower cut off. I heard Drew moving around in the bathroom, probably toweling off. He’d walk out any second looking stupidly handsome with water still clinging to his shoulders and that satisfied smile on his face.

I locked my phone and tossed it back on the nightstand like it had burned me. I was not thinking about that right now.

The bathroom door opened. Steam billowed out ahead of him. He had a towel wrapped around his waist and another in his hands, running it through his wet hair. Water droplets traced paths down his chest. His skin was flushed from the heat.

Good god. It was not fair. How was I supposed to walk away from that? How was he not married? Oh yeah, because he didn’t want to be.

“Hey,” he said, grinning when he saw me still sprawled on the bed. “You look like a very satisfied woman.”

I forced a smile. “I wonder why.”

“I’m starving. We should order room service.”

“We stuffed our faces.”

“And we worked it off,” he replied. “Twice. And that was hours ago. We have the rest of the night. I plan on taking full advantage of it.”

“You just showered.” I should tell him about the email. About the dates. About the fact that our summer had an actual, concrete deadline that was racing toward us faster than either of us wanted to acknowledge.

But I didn’t want to ruin this. Not tonight. Reality could wait. It would still be there in the morning.

“Room service it is,” I said. “What are we having?”

“Anything you want. All of it.” He sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the room service menu on the nightstand. “What do you want?”

All of it, I thought. I want everything you have to give me and for this to never end.

“Surprise me,” I said.

He glanced at me over the menu, eyebrows raised. “That’s a dangerous game.”

“I trust you.”

He smiled. “That’s even more dangerous.”

Drew picked up the hotel phone and ordered. I watched him, memorizing the way he looked right now. Relaxed. Happy. Mine.

I was going to memorize it all. The way he laughed. The sound of his voice when he first woke up. The way he looked at me like I was the only person in the room. I didn’t hear his order, too lost in my own thoughts.

Drew hung up the phone and turned back to me. “Thirty minutes.”