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No. She really didn’t need to think that. She tried not to think it. She tried to never, ever think it. Yes, she loved him. As a friend, almost a brother, really. But the feelings...the attraction feelings... Those things she tried to keep separate and in their own box. Desire didn’t have to be anything deeper.
But right now, lying next to him in bed, it was hard to keep it separate. They seemed to wrap around her completely, like invisible vines. Jace. And everything he was to her, along with how much she wanted to lean in and...
She rolled in the opposite direction. Fast. And went right off the edge of the mattress, down to the floor.
“Ow!”
She looked around the room, all lit up with daylight and felt...silly. About the whole ghost thing. About getting into bed with Jace...
“What happened?” She could hear him moving behind the curtain.
“I fell. I...”
“Were you up here?” he asked, and she was thankful he was behind the curtain and she was on the floor.
“Yeah I...something freaked me out last night.” She winced. “So I got in bed and closed the curtains. Sorry.”
“No need to apologize.”
She heard his feet hit the floor on the other side of the bed, and she stood up quickly because she didn’t need for him to see her on the floor in an undignified heap when she was sure she already sounded like an undignified heap. He didn’t need visual confirmation.
She smoothed her hair and tried to lean casually against the bedpost. He came around the corner of the bed and she ignored the way her heart throbbed. “Morning,” she said.
“You made it. The hotel is yours. Assuming you still want to buy it after Raccoonageddon.”
“Oh, if anything I want it more.”
“This is why you need a full-time babysitter, Cara.”
“Don’t worry. I’m bringing Grandpa’s whiskey bottle over.”
“Cara... That’s not what I mean. Let’s go out to the diner and get some breakfast.”
And she was grateful for that. Because she needed to get back somewhere more familiar with him. On regular old footing. He was acting normal. Unaffected. Standing there in the same jeans and Henley he’d been wearing yesterday, he almost looked like last night hadn’t happened. And maybe... Maybe he didn’t remember. It wasn’t like they’d done anything. It was just that she’d... Told him one of her more embarrassing secrets, and... Really, it wasn’t so much like she had propositioned him. She could play it off like it was a joke.
It was just... It had not been a joke. And it hurt her to know that at the very first moment, she had exposed herself like that. Why had she done that to herself? He didn’t want her. If he did, there had been ample opportunity for him to let her know along the way. Not that she had really ever let him know. But... There also hadn’t been anyone else.
She ignored the ache in her chest that was still there from moments ago. From that terrible, ridiculous thought about love.
She didn’t need to go thinking things like that.
And she didn’t need to go marinating in all these feelings. They were just Jace and Cara, the same as they’d always been. One weird moment wasn’t going to change that.
They packed up their things and went back out to Jace’s truck.
“If you want, I can drive us over to the diner, then swing us back by here.”
“Sure,” she said.
The diner was packed. It was Sunday morning, and a whole lot of people were there for free church bacon and eggs. And a lot of other people were there for a hangover cure. The diner was where every kind of person in Lone Rock met.
“Good morning,” said Rosemary, who had been hostess at the diner ever since they had graduated from high school.
“Morning,” said Cara.
“Two,” said Jace.
Rosemary gave them a sidelong glance.
