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“It was only melatonin,” I began, but he put up a hand to stop me.
“I want you to feel safe. I want you to trust me. And the other guys, of course. I violated that trust last night. Or, well, I guess it was this morning. Either way, I wanted to let you know it won’t happen again.”
I let out an incredulous laugh. “Jordy, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were just laying there, and I’m the one who crossed the pillow barrier and cuddled up againstyou. Which, by the way, was totally by accident. I didn’t know what I was doing. But if anything, I owe you an apology.”
He chuckled to himself. “I spent all day freaking out about this and thinking you were mad at me.”
“So did I!”
“We’re both really pathetic, aren’t we?” he asked.
“Very pathetic.”
Jordy flashed me another smile, and my heart melted. “How about this. We call it even and pretend it didn’t happen. Deal?” He extended his hand across the table.
“Deal.” His palm was big enough that it enveloped mine completely, and his callouses tickled against my skin.
“I’m exhausted,” he said, rising and stretching. “I don’t know if you were going to stay up later, but I’m going to go ahead and crash on the couch, if you want to take your wine upstairs.”
“No!” I blurted out. Jordy blinked in surprise. The passion in my voice surprised even myself. “Jordy, we’re both adults. We can share the bed. I’ll put a bigger pillow between us, and I’ll make sure I stay on my half. If you want.”
He furrowed his brow as he considered it. I realized that I desperately, urgently wanted him to agree to it. And not just because I didn’t want my presence to be an inconvenience.
I want him to sleep next to me.
“The bed was comfortable,” he grudgingly admitted. “Way more than the couch. As long as you don’t mind, I’m cool sharing.”
“I am!”
“But for the next contract,” he said, “I’m going to make sure we have better sleeping arrangements. So this won’t happen again.”
“Of course,” I said. “This is just temporary.”
13
Trish
A strange mood came over me as I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed. Maybe it was the three glasses of wine I’d had. Or the couple of hours I spent worrying about the guys when they were late coming home. Or maybe it was being on the other side of the world from the only town I had ever known, and not knowing what to do with myself.
It’s none of that,I thought.It’s because I’m about to share a bed with Brownie, my gym crush. Again.
When I went into the room, I found Jordy already in bed. He had moved one of the long body pillows, dividing the bed neatly in half. Although he was under the covers, he was still wearing a shirt.
“Well, goodnight,” I said as I crawled into bed and turned out the light.
“Night, Trish,” he replied.
For a long while, I stared at the ceiling and listened to Jordy breathe. I was hyper-aware of every noise I made, every small shifting in the bed. Like I would annoy him if I was too loud, like Archer’s snoring. I desperately didn’t want to be an annoyance to this man, as silly as that sounded.
A few minutes later, I heard him remove his shirt and toss it on the floor. Then he became very still again. I listened for any sound. A water pipe shifted in the wall. I cleared my throat. The comforter went taut as he rolled over.
“It’s too quiet in this place,” he whispered. “I feel like I can hear my own heartbeat. I miss the sound of the ocean.”
“Yes!” I replied. “There’s no background noise here. I was wondering why it was so strange.”
“Better than being in a city center.” His voice was a soft rumble. “A few years back, we stayed in the middle of Prague. Nothing but car horns and pedestrian noise all night. Harrison can sleep through anything, but Archer and I struggled on that mission.” He shook his head. “And then everything went to shit. Closest call we ever had. And the asshole we were there to get, Anton Novak, got away.”
“What happened?”
