AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Where the hell was he? I glanced at my phone and saw it wasn’t even quite six in the morning. What kind of monster left their bed–let alone their room–that early?
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and decided to call Steph. She’d probably complain about being woken so early, but I could live with her annoyance. I’d been dying to unload everything that had happened on someone since about twenty minutes into entering the lobby yesterday. I still hadn’t told anybody else the truth about Dean, besides Steph. Even Marley had no clue.
To be fair, I only kept the secret from Marley because I didn’t want to get her in trouble. At some point, I realized I was playing with fire when I started using the lie to get out of work and brought Jonas into the web. If things ever went south, I wanted Marley to have plausible deniability so her job wouldn’t be in danger, too. If that meant having to lie to one of my only close work friends? So be it.
Steph answered, exaggerating the grogginess in her voice, probably to make sure I knew I’d woken her. “Who’s dead?” she asked.
“Nobody. But I have lots of gossip. Do you want to go back to sleep, or do you want to hear it?”
“Hold on. Let me pee first.” In typical ladylike fashion, Steph carried the phone with her to the toilet so I could hear her overly aggressive sigh of relief and the torrent of liquid hitting the water in the bowl. “Alright,” she said. “That’s much better. Hit me, sis.”
Hit her I did. From the kiss in the lobby to the naked shower through the glass to the game. For some reason, I found myself not wanting to include anything about the conversation we’d had in bed last night. Why was that? Was it because it was one of the only times Dean’s shroud of carefree humor had cracked to reveal the man underneath? I didn’t know, but I wound up just shrugging and telling her nothing interesting happened when it was time to sleep.
“Huh,” Steph said, sounding a little disappointed once I’d finished. “I mean, holy shit. But huh. I’m surprised he didn’t whip it out and start doing the helicopter or something once you two were alone at night. He really just went to sleep?”
“Yep,” I said. “And now he’s not in the room. I have no idea where he went.”
“Probably all sweaty and lifting weights somewhere. Guys who look like that practically never miss a day. Remember when I dated Sven? He kept a pair of dumbbells by the toilet so he could ‘get a pump while I do ‘da dump’. Disgusting. But those biceps? Mwah.”
“Ugh. That’s disgusting. But, maybe you’re right. He could just be working out, I guess.”
“So you guys get a spa day and some fancy dinner? Are you excited?”
“Kind of? It means I’ve got to spend all day with him. But then again, I don’t know how much talking we’ll really be doing during a spa day. Maybe he’ll keep his pretty mouth shut for once and just enjoy the treatment.”
“Hmm. Unless they put you in a sauna together and he starts stripping his clothes off. Or maybe a romantic hot tub.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “It’s just so frustrating. After Eric, it sounded so easy. All I had to do was stop giving guys a chance and nobody could hurt me again. And it was working just fine. But this guy makes me… ugh. He’s obnoxious. Mostly, at least. It’s just that there’s something about him, it–”
“Talking about me with your girlfriends?” Dean asked. I had no idea how he’d let himself into the room so quietly, but he was standing at the foot of the bed in a sleeveless shirt and glistening with sweat.
“Pearl?” Steph asked, but her voice was quiet because I’d let the phone fall from my ear.
“Gotta go, bye,” I said quickly, then hung up.
“I was talking about someone in a movie,” I said.
“Oh, was it that Thor guy? He’s dreamy.” Dean moved to the closet where he’d hung up his clothes and pulled out an outfit. He looked over his shoulder, grinning at me like a total fucking hearthrob. His hair was dark and wet with sweat and dangling in front of his dazzling eyes. He didn’t even bother pushing the hair out of his eyes–of course he didn’t. He probably knew how ridiculously good he looked with those perfect white teeth and slabs of tanned muscle clinging to his flesh.
“Yeah,” I managed. “The Thor guy.”
Dean’s grin widened like he knew I was full of shit, then he went behind the frosted glass door to our bathroom. I probably should’ve averted my eyes, but I stared at the blurry shape of him behind the door and watched him peel the shirt off his back. I chewed my lip when he slid down his athletic shorts.
