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That damn muscle in my chest began to beat faster. “And you like it when I do?”
She nodded. “I like it when you do.”
“Does that mean we’re close?”
She turned her head toward me, her brown eyes locking with mine. It was only for a slight second before she turned her attention back to the road, but it felt forever wrapped in her stare. I hoped she’d look at me like that more often. As if when she met my stare, she saw forever.
“We should pull over and fill up on gas,” she said, shifting the conversation. Clearly, I’d crossed a line asking her that question, but to be fair, she walked me toward said line when she mentioned me calling her Star. Plus, each day, it felt as if our lines of appropriate and inappropriate was drawn in the sand, and with one small breath, it could’ve been blown away.
Blurred lines, Starlet. We were walking on blurred lines.
As she exited the freeway and pulled into a gas station, I hopped out of the car to fill it up.
“Oh, no, you don’t have to—” Starlet started, but I stopped her.
“It’s cold out here, and you don’t need to freeze your ass off. I’ve got this.” One thing I did learn from my father was the fact that you never allowed a woman to fill up the car tank. Honestly, my father imposed a lot of good life lessons on me before he was lost to grief. He always treated Mom like she was his queen, and he was a peasant who was lucky to even exist in her orbit. That was one thing my father excelled at—loving my mother.
I filled up the tank and told Starlet we could switch driving since we were about three hours from our destination. She agreed. I opened the passenger door for her, and she slid into the car. As she situated herself, I bent down over her, grabbed her seat belt, and slid it slowly across her body. My knuckles glided along her chest as I moved the buckle into place. I clicked it in and winked at her. “Safety first.” Then I shut the door.
I was thankful for the two-second walk to my side of the car in the cool air. I needed to calm myself down from the slight touch of her chest against my hand.
“I’m a bit shocked that you trust me to drive your car,” I said after getting into the car and turning the key in the ignition.
“What can I say? I’m a bad judge of character. Don’t make me regret it,” she joked as she hooked up her music.
Kendrick Lamar blasted from her speakers, and she speed-rapped the lyrics of the mastermind lyrical genius.
And just like that, I wanted Starlet Evans more than ever before.
Once we made it to the boutique hotel, I was ready to sleep for a few hours before gearing up for our hike and photo shoot. As she went to check in for our rooms, I gathered our suitcases to take inside. When I entered the boutique, I saw the rage on her face as she went back and forth with the receptionist.
“No, no. You don’t understand. We have to have two rooms,” Starlet argued. “How could you have overbooked? I booked two rooms!”
“Yes, ma’am, but unfortunately, you went through a third-party website, and the other guest went through our site. Therefore the room must go to them. But your room is one of the best. It’s our extra-large honeymoon suite.”
“Honeymoon suite? I like the sound of that.” I smirked as I approached Starlet, but the annoyance in her body language made me realize it wasn’t a joking manner.
“Is there another hotel nearby?” Starlet asked the worker.
“Yes, but they’re all booked due to the winter festival this weekend.”
Starlet slammed her hand against the counter and groaned.
The employee looked at me and batted her eyes. “I mean, I could think of worse-looking men to share a room with,” she teased.
Starlet raised her head and made the most dramatic eye roll I’d ever witnessed. “Please don’t stroke his ego.”
“No, by all means, stroke it. I love being stroked. Tell her, Star. Tell her how I love being stroked.”
Starlet smacked my chest as she grew bashful. I caught her hand against my chest. My stare fell to our touch, just as hers did, and I held her hand for a second longer than I should’ve.
She yanked her hand away from me and combed her hair behind her ears. She always did that when she was nervous or thrown off by my absurd comments. It was cute. There were so many cute things about her. My mind made a mental list of everything I found adorable about the woman.
I smiled at her annoyance as I slid my hands into my pockets. “We’ll take the room,” I told the employee. Clearly, Starlet was in the middle of an emotional breakdown, so the sooner we got her into a room to have her full-blown freak-out, the better.
