Page 81 of Back in the Saddle

He took me to the king-size bed at the back wall, pulled me into it, uncovered a remote from a bedside table and flicked on another huge TV mounted to the side wall but swung out to face the bed.

He queued upThe Nice Guys.

Seriously primo taste in film.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” I offered quietly.

He looked me dead in the eye. “That my ex is borderline stalking me?”

I gave him Harlow’s stretched-and-turned-down-lips face.

He looked at it, it seemed to lighten his mood, then his mood took a hit when he leaned forward, pulled his phone out of his back pocket and scowled at it.

He did some things to the screen with his thumb and put it to his ear.

I didn’t know if she said anything, I just knew he spoke pretty quickly upon putting the phone to his ear, and what he said was, “My next step is a protective order. Not sure your rep will take that hit when it gets out. And I promise you, it’ll get out. Your choice. And you know that’s not an empty threat.” He then tossed his phone on the bedside table and said to me, “Your gelato is melting.”

I spooned some up and told him, “Your bedroom is da bomb.”

“Da bomb?”

“Da bomb,” I confirmed.

His lips twitched, and he spooned up his own ice cream.

“Though I now get why you’re so fit, because I think your living room is in Phoenix, but your bedroom is in Hawaii,” I quipped.

He started laughing.

Good.

I made him laugh.

“That’s the longest hall in history,” I kept going for it. “If he was alive, Louis the Fourteenth would be jealous as all hell.”

He shoved pillows behind him, rested against his headboard, yanked my back against his chest, stretched his legs out, and said, “Shut up, Jess.”

He then started the movie.

I shut up, and somehow we both managed to eat ice cream in his bed with me using him as my cushion (I saw how he did it, he held his bowl in the hand with the arm around me, and used his free one to dip into the creamy deliciousness, performing a minor miracle by not dripping any on him…or me).

When we were finished, he put the bowls aside, and I was pleased beyond measure when he relaxed against me and started laughing at the movie.

It was such a good choice, my selection of21 Jump Streetafter didn’t compare, but Eric didn’t complain.

Though I fell asleep, curled into his side, my head on his chest, my arm around his abs, in his bed, about halfway through it.

And Eric didn’t wake me to send me home.

NINE

TINKERBELL

My eyes opened, only to take in a slate-gray pillowcase.

My pillowcases were white.

I sat up and realized I was in Eric’s bed, in his killer bedroom that was decorated in navy, gray and black with touches of hunter green. I wasn’t under the covers, but a super soft throw was covering me.

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