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Not that I don’twantto be alone in a hotel room with Azalea. I really fucking do. I’m just not sure how far my self-control will go.
“This is nice,” she says, squeezing past me when I hold the door open for her. She doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about sharing a hotel room with me. Meanwhile, I’m having heart palpitations. “Which bed do you want?”
“Doesn’t matter to me.”
Azalea dumps her bag on the bed closest to the window and then walks over to look outside. This is her first time in Chicago, and she’s been gawking since the moment the city came into view in the distance. “Are we going to take the train to the game?”
“I usually do,” I tell her, “but we’ll just Uber.”
“Why? There’s a train station right there on the corner.”
I drop my bag on the other bed and unzip it, digging around for the button-up Cubs jersey I brought. “The trains going to the game will be packed. Like, people shoved in every corner. It wouldn’t be a good situation for you.”
“Oh.” She visibly shudders, bunching her shoulders up around her neck. “I’m glad you thought of that.”
I think back to the day we met on the plane. I barely knew her at that point, but when I looked over during takeoff and saw the fear and panic clouding her expression, there was nothing I wanted more than to make it go away. Over my dead body will she squeeze onto a Chicago L train during rush hour. “Trust me, Zale,” I say as I locate my jersey and pull it out. “I’ve got you.”
Azalea turns to face me, leaning back against the windowsill. “I know.”
“I need to take a shower and then we can go.”
She nods. Gathering her purse and slipping her feet back into her shoes, she says, “I need a snack. Meet me downstairs?”
“Yeah, sure.”
As soon as the door falls closed behind her, I let out a loud sigh, both relieved and disappointed that she won’t be on the other side of the wall as I shower. I spend a long time staring at the two double beds, fixating on the two feet of space between them.
It won’t be the closest to each other we’ve ever slept. There was the time freshman year when we fell asleep in her bed together, her head on the pillow and mine at the foot. I was jarred awake when she shifted and kicked me in the nose.
Then there was the time last summer when I woke up in my bed, the only light in the room coming from the ending credits on a movie we'd tried and apparently failed to watch, and found Azalea sleeping next to me. She was curled into a ball, facing away from me, her back against my side. Her shirt had ridden up a little and I couldn’t stop myself from running my palm over her bare hip. At my touch, she made a noise that fell somewhere between a grunt and a moan before shifting so that her round ass rubbed against my thigh.
I didn’t stop thinking about that one for a week.
With a groan, I lightly tap my knuckles against my forehead a couple of times, trying to stall my overthinking so I can do what I came here to do: watch a ball game and hang out with my favorite person.
That resolution lasts only until I walk into the lobby twenty minutes later to find Azalea perched on a chair in the lounge area, talking to a guy sitting on the loveseat across from her. Her hand is buried in a small bag of chips and there’s a polite smile on her face, but this guy—our age, maybe a little older, with dark hair and a short, trimmed beard—is giving her a flirty grin.
I approach from the side, and neither of them notice me at first. The guy is telling a story, gesturing with his hands as he does. I get within earshot just in time for him to slap his palms together and say, “My head banged right on the railing. Hurt like a motherfucker. I saw stars.”
“Did you go to the hospitalthen?” Azalea asks, biting into a chip. I can’t tell if she’s genuinely interested or just making conversation.
“Oh, nah. Had my buddies check every so often and make sure my pupils weren’t too big, y’know.”
Her eyes widen slightly. I recognize that tell—she thinks he’s an idiot—and I fight to keep a smirk off my face.
“Anyway,” he says, and that’s when I see it—his gaze flicks down to her chest and hovers there for a full three seconds. He’s still talking, but I don’t process what he’s saying. I’m too focused on him openly ogling Azalea like it’s his right.
Neither of them notices me until I’m standing right next to her chair with my hand perched on the back—not touching her, but still a bit possessive. “Hi,” I say to Azalea, but I keep my stare trained on the guy across from us. His easygoing grin is gone; now he looks like a deer in headlights.
Good.
“Nice talking to you,” he says abruptly, standing up and heading quickly for the door. For the first time, I notice that he’s wearing a Mets jersey.
Hitting on Azalea and now headed off to root against the Cubs. What a tool.
“Maverick,” says Azalea, drawing me out of my violent daydreams. She stands up, crumpling her empty chip bag in her hand. “What are you doing?”
“What?”
