Jamie woke with a start. The room was pitch black, and it took him a moment to get his bearings, to remember he wasn’t in his apartment but instead in a hotel in Oklahoma. He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and checked the time. It was just after nine in the morning. His brows furrowed. He couldn’t reconcile the darkness of the room with what his phone was trying to tell him, and then it happened again, the noise that must have woken him. A sharp knock at the door.
He climbed from the bed, eyes straining to make out Brynn’s form in the bed across from his. She was still asleep.
There had been Jack at the bar last night, but he only drank one shot, regardless of how many times Tim insisted he have one more. He knew Brynn would want to get on the road as soon as her glasses arrived. While Tulsa was their planned first stop, they weren’t doing much of the tourist thing like they had in St. Louis. Last night was simply to rest—and to see a side of Brynn he never knew was there. Sure, he’d always found her beautiful, but she had never let on that she knew it. That’s one of the things he loved, how unassuming she was.
But last night she floored him, and thank God she couldn’t see the look on his face when she dipped her tongue into the foam of that beer. Her hair in a haphazard bun atop her head, eyes closed in concentration, recognizing the beer before she officially tasted it. Nothing had ever turned him on more.
As he approached the door, he finally took note of his attire—shirtless but jeans still on from last night. This was a good thing, because imagining what Brynn did at the bar had the same effect on him as watching her do it in real time, and his erection strained against the denim.
One more round of knocking sounded before he reached the door.
“Just a sec,” he said, his throat dry and hoarse.
When he opened the door, a young woman stood there. She wore an unzipped fleece jacket, under which was a green T-shirt, the image of Yoda dead center on her torso and the letters OOYL stretched across her chest.
“That’s funny,” Jamie said.
“You’re half naked,” she responded. “And you owe me two hundred fifty bucks.”
“Excuse me?”
The question came from behind him. Brynn.
Why was it so dark in here? He turned to face Brynn.
Her hair was crazy. There was no other way to describe it than tornado-like. Creases from her pillowcase lined her cheek, and she squinted either at the light coming in from the door, or to try to make out the scene before her, or both.
It was her T-shirt, though, that caught his eye. Her Chicago Cubs shirt, the one she’d had since high school. Brynn wasn’t even a Cubs fan, but she bought the shirt to wear to school for a team-themed spirit day, and when Jamie asked why she didn’t borrow a Sox shirt from him, she claimed she didn’t want to wear a shirt two sizes too big.
Why hadn’t she bought herself a Sox shirt? he’d asked, and her only response was that she wanted something with a little color. She wouldn’t get rid of the shirt, so Jamie made her promise she’d never wear it when she was out with him. He guessed this was her way of bending the rules since they weren’t technically out.
As much as it should have been the team represented by the shirt that got Jamie’s attention, it was the realization that he hadn’t seen her in the shirt since high school. And that maybe the shape of her upper body had changed since they were teens. And maybe—just maybe—now would be a good time for her to put on her bra.
“Ahem.” The sound came from the girl at the door.
“Who is it?” Brynn asked. “What time is it? And why is there, like, zero evidence of daylight in here?”
Jamie looked from girl to girl, only sure of one of the answers. He opened his mouth to speak, but the girl outside the door’s threshold beat him to it.
“I’m Lauren. It’s nine fifteen. I heard this place has some sweet blackout shades. And I have a package to deliver to a Brynn Chandler.”
Finally, Jamie thought. Answers.
Brynn clapped her hands together and squealed. Then she leaped at Jamie, depth perception be damned, and flung her arms around his neck.
“My glasses! You did it! Oh my God, thank you.”
She squinted hard toward Lauren, no doubt Brynn’s new best friend, and reached for the package Jamie hadn’t noticed in the girl’s hand.
“I need you to sign and pay first,” she said. “Two-fifty, and I forgot my scanner, so I hope you have cash. Otherwise I gotta drive an hour there and back again.”
Jamie found his wallet on the dresser and counted out its contents. Two hundred and seventy-five bucks, enough for the glasses, a small tip, and a little left over for housekeeping. They’d have to hit an ATM on their way out of town.
“Here you go,” he said, and then signed for the glasses since Lauren wouldn’t hand them over until he did so. As soon as she relinquished the item, he thanked her and closed the door.
“Open it, Jamie. Open, open, open!”
He laughed as he freed the item from inside the box and then placed the glasses gingerly on Brynn’s face.
She crinkled up her nose.
“Is that what you’ve always looked like?”
He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Very funny.”
Then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and Jamie’s eyes lingered on the snug Cubs T-shirt.