“Shit,” she said. “I need a shower.”
Jamie felt himself pressed firm against his jeans and knew he had to take evasive action.
“Me first!” he said, and like a bratty child, hopped into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind him. “Don’t worry,” he called out to her. “I won’t use all the hot water.”
In fact, he didn’t use any hot water at all.
…
Is that what you’ve always looked like?
That’s the best she could do? What else was she supposed to come up with when after a day without sight and a night like last night the first thing she sees is Jamie, hair rumpled with sleep, and the whole no-shirt-with-jeans thing happening.
These ways she’d been seeing him since the trip began…it was just projection. She was projecting her feelings about Spencer—about the possibility of Spencer—on Jamie. That had to be it.
She spun slowly, taking in the room’s polished wood floor, its four-poster wooden beds and ornately patterned wallpaper. This was no motel, and Brynn knew it wasn’t a place Jamie would have stayed alone. Then there was the situation of the glasses. She blamed him again, guilted him into paying for the courier, and now on top of whatever this room had cost him, he just dropped two hundred fifty dollars cash so she could see.
She flopped down on the bed and listened to the shower water run, going over their pattern for the past week. It seemed Jamie was always opening doors at the wrong time, and Brynn was always losing something when he did—a contact, Spencer, a contact again. For two people who were supposed to be the best of friends, they had a shitty rhythm. She didn’t want to blame Jamie when things got thrown out of whack, but he always seemed to be there when they did.
Yet he always picked up the pieces when she couldn’t. Contact in her apartment sink? Jamie to the rescue. Spoiled kiss (second attempt in ten years) with Spencer Matthews? Jamie brings her to California. Contact lost in a Galena, Kansas, gas station? Jamie gets her glasses to her by morning. Maybe he had some work to do in the opening doors department, but he did pretty well with the friendship.
Brynn sighed, and then she felt the urgency that came with waking up—the urgency to pee.
She popped back up and padded to the bathroom door. A light knock.
“Jamie? Can I come in to pee?”
He didn’t answer, so she knocked harder and then cracked the door open.
“Jamie?”
“Yeah?”
His one word dripped with exhaustion, and she wondered if she should offer to drive again even though she knew what his answer would be.
“Can I sneak in to pee?” she asked.
“Sure.”
She opened the door wide, expecting to hit a wall of steam, but the air in the bathroom was as cool and clear as that out in the bedroom.
“Don’t listen,” she said as she slid down her shorts and underwear. “And don’t peek, either.”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
She expected him to tease her, but his words were clipped and compliant.
“I’m gonna flush, okay? Just warning you.”
He didn’t respond, so she assumed he was enjoying his shower, waking himself up for the long day ahead.
“Thank you, by the way.”
Brynn decided this was as good a time as any to have a chat, especially since she didn’t have to see him and think about him shirtless in his jeans. Because now he was naked in the shower and, oh God, she needed to keep talking and stop thinking.
“Thank you,” she started again. “For my glasses, for bringing us to this nice place last night, for the fun with Tim in the bar.” She took his silence as permission to continue. “I know I can be difficult when things don’t work in my favor, like yesterday. And last week. But you never lose your patience with me, Jamie. You should, but you don’t. So—thanks. I’m going to pay you back that two-fifty when we get to an ATM. That part’s not on you.”
He remained silent, and she hoped she hadn’t misread his smile when he gave her the glasses. Although, if he was angry with her, she wouldn’t blame him. Maybe this trip wouldn’t exactly be glass-half-full the whole way through. But she promised herself this—for the rest of the journey, she was going to go with the flow. Roll with the punches. Take whatever came at her and make the best of it. That was how she’d get to the finish line and guarantee that when she arrived at Spencer’s book launch, she’d be in the best place—in her head and in her heart—for their reunion.
She headed for the bathroom door and was almost out of the room when Jamie popped his head around the shower curtain.
“You’re welcome, Sleepy Jean,” he said. “I just—need a few more minutes to wake up. Order us some coffee?”
She smiled at him. “Sure.” She pulled the door closed behind her and filled her mind with thoughts of steamed milk and caffeine, certainly not with what lay behind the shower curtain.
Chapter Thirteen