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“Yeah.” We halted in front of the board. “Each school gets time to practice on the track tomorrow morning. The races start at four p.m.” He placed his finger on the board and dragged it down until he saw Reagan’s and my name. “Twelve until twelve thirty.” He blinked several times and turned to face me. “Early breakfast, then lunch after practice and some warm-ups after that.” I raised my brows at him, having no idea why he was staring at me as he was working out the schedule. “What are you grinning at?” he asked, his own lips spreading.
“Nothing.” I shrugged but couldn’t wipe the happiness off my face. “You just look excited.”
“I am excited.” He stepped closer to me, but shook his head and moved back. “Come on, let’s go and check in to the hotel.”
I spun around, seeing a few people staring at us, but unlike before, where I would have wondered why they were staring, I couldn’t bring myself to care. I was happy beyond belief, I just wasn’t sure if it was because I was hours away from taking part in my first track meet, or because I got to spend so much time with Cade. Either way, I wasn’t going to think about it too much.
It was only a ten-minute drive to the hotel we were staying in, and from the looks of the check-in desk, we weren’t the only ones staying here from the track meet.
“Name,” the woman behind the desk asked when we got to the front of the line.
“Easton,” Cade said, pulling his wallet out and handing the woman a card.
She didn’t look up from her computer screen as she asked, “Would you like to add breakfast to your room?”
“No, thanks,” Cade said, and finally the woman looked up and took the card from him.
She swiped it and handed it back, then spun around to collect some papers from the printer. “You’re on the fifth floor, room five-twenty-seven.” She handed Cade the papers and then two keycards. “Enjoy your stay.”
I kept quiet as I pulled on the handle of my suitcase and followed Cade toward the elevators. His bag was slung over his shoulder along with mine that had all my running gear. He clicked the button next to the door, and a couple of seconds later, they opened up, and we stepped inside.
“So…” I stared at the doors, not willing to look up at Cade. “We’re staying in the same room?”
“Yeah,” Cade answered right away. “I got us two beds, though. It was the only room left unless we wanted to travel thirty minutes each way.”
I nodded, understanding why. We could totally share a room together with different beds. It was no different to when I’d stayed over at his house last weekend. He’d slept on the sofa, and I’d had his bed, and we’d managed just fine with no incidents.
The door whooshed open, and we both stepped out, then walked down the hallway. We passed every number but ours until the end, and then Cade swiped the card on the door handle. He opened it up and waved at me to go in first.
“Wow.” The decor was modern, the room nice and cool from the AC. A door to the left housed a bathroom with a standing shower, and then the room opened up to a bed. A singular bed. “Erm…Cade?”
“Yeah?” he called, his footsteps coming closer. “Ah, shit.” We both stared at the king-sized bed, silence stretching between us. “I’ll go back down and see if they can switch our rooms.”
“Okay,” I whispered, not looking away from the bed as he left the room. I drifted toward the window and pulled the curtain aside to look out of it. The skyline was beautiful, the late afternoon sun casting a glow over the top of the buildings.
The door swung open not long after, and I turned to face Cade whose features were etched with anger. “They don’t have any more rooms. Fuck.” He spun around and stared at the section of the room between the bathroom and bed. “I can make a pallet on the floor—”
“No.” I stepped away from the window. “It’s fine. We can share a bed—”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Cade interrupted, his intense gaze focused on the bed now.
I blew out a breath, my stomach sinking. Of course it wasn’t a good idea. “Because of Miss Simmons?” I asked.
“What?” He frowned as he stared at me. “No. Willow and I…well, let’s just say she has nothing to hold over me now.”
“Huh?”
Cade sat on the edge of the bed, his hand rubbing over his face as he did. “She was threatening me, Aria. She said she’d tell everyone about us.”
“But I took the blame in the classroom. I don’t understand.”
“She asked me if we’d been more than that, and I didn’t answer her.”
I let my head drop back and groaned. “Dammit, Cade. Did no one ever teach you silence speaks a thousand words?”
“Well, what did you expect me to do, Aria?” He stood and spread his arms wide. “I couldn’t fuckin’ lie and tell her you meant nothing to me. I couldn’t fuckin’ do that.”
My heart hammered in my chest at his words. “So what does this mean now?”
