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I feel like death, so I can only imagine how bad I look, but since the comments last night assure me my crew has already seen me at my worst, I sling on a silky slip, then trudge to the kitchen for a clean mug and some sachets of sugar.
My throat dries for an entirely different reason than a hangover when I break through the kitchen's swinging door. Laken is at the cooktop, pouring pancake batter onto a skillet. He’s barefoot and wearing nothing but a pair of low-riding sleep pants. Since he’s facing away from me, I get to drink in the two dimples in his lower back I missed out on the last time I checked out his ass, as he was fully clothed.
When my throat works through a hard swallow, desperate for lubricant, its rough bob announces my presence. He spins around to face me while saying, “Just a few more minutes, River, then you…” His words trail off when he spots me standing in the entryway of the kitchen. “Hey…” His smile makes my hangover nonexistent. “Out of bacon already?”
I laugh. It is a foreign thing to hear with how wretched I felt last night. “Not yet.” I shake the coffee mug before pointing to the sugar canister on the bench. “I think that was meant to be on the serving tray instead of a massive saltshaker.”
“Shit.” He tries to hold back his smile this time around. His efforts are woeful. As his grin gleams as evidently as his impressive V muscle, he says, “Let me grab you a fresh one.” Before I can announce his job is to protect me, not serve me, he fetches a mug from an overhead cupboard, pours a generous serving of caffeinated brew, then passes it to me to finish its preparation. “Figure you’d rather guarantee you’re not about to get a mouthful of salty dishwater than relish me waiting on you hand and foot.”
I could leave once I’ve added cream and sugar to the mug, but only an idiot would give up this view. The daily rate at this hotel is astronomical because of the uninterrupted views.
It has nothing on the wonderment in front of me.
When I slot my backside onto a breakfast stool under the counter, Laken shyly grins before shifting his focus back to the pancakes. He works in silence over the next several minutes, his creations plucked from the plate at his side before they’ve had the chance to cool.
“This is the last batch, Nicole, so if you want some, you better beat back the masses and let your voice be heard.”
Something about his statement doubles the output of my heart.
I can’t pinpoint exactly what, though.
I drop my eyes to my mug when Laken cranks his head back. “Coffee is about all my stomach can handle right now.”
He nods like he understands the cause of the swirls of my stomach before setting down a plate of bacon in front of me. “And bacon. Bacon and coffee are theonlythings needed to cure a hangover.”
Before I can ask him how he knows I’m hungover, a voice at the side asks, “Did someone say bacon?”
Knox enters the kitchen a second before the excessive amount of aftershave he placed on and plucks up a strip of bacon from the plate, crunching through it with his teeth. The crispiness of the salty strip being eradicated should drown out the growl Laken hits Knox with. It is as apparent as the tension that deprives the air of oxygen when Knox presses his lips to my temple.
“I need to head out for a few hours. Will you be all right here, or do you want to come with me?”
Laken appears prepared to answer on my behalf, so I speak quickly. “I’m good here.” Before I can configure a reason for the relief on Laken’s face, I accidentally wipe it off. “I promised River I’d join him for a movie marathon.”
Knox’s growl is as rumbling as the one Laken released only moments ago.
It annoys me as much as it does Laken.
“I tried to save you.” After plucking a second strip of bacon off the plate under grumbled protest from Laken, Knox salutes me before exiting the kitchen as fast as he entered.
It takes several long seconds for the tension to drop low enough for me to speak. “Is everything okay? I didn’t do something stupid last night, did I?”
God, please don’t let me have done something as stupid as sleep with Knox.
I will never forgive myself if I did something so foolish.
Although Laken’s reply liberates me of worry, it also piques my suspicion. “You weren’t the one doing stupid shit.” His smile is only half the size of his earlier one. “Eat, Nicole. You’ll need the energy.”
“You need energy to watch a movie?”
Now his smile is more prominent than ever. “You do when it comes to River.”
* * *
Hating that I’m pacing in my room, waiting for the clock to strike two like a loser without a date, I unravel the strand of hair I curled around my index finger and walk to my bed.
The lyrics I’ve been encountering nonstop over the past six days are still coming in strong and fast, but they’re a little different today—more about second chances and forgiveness than the one who got away.
“Where are you?” I murmur to myself when my dig through the blanket folded at the foot of the mattress fails to find my songbook.
