Page 31 of Speeding Hearts

Stella

I didn’t really thinkthis through. I didn’t consider how it might have been forward of me to suggest Dean stay over in the tiny trailer, but I didn’t mean anything by it. I wasn’t thinking about anything beyond that I didn’t want to be alone tonight.

And that I specifically wanted to be not alone with Dean.

I was already shaken by my injury, not to mention in a bit of shock because of the injury itself. Then, when I’d gone back and seen the motel surrounded by cops and fire trucks? My room behind yellow tape?

I was in shock—it was clear. So, it made perfect sense that I’d ask my best friend to stay over in this cozy, isolated little trailer with me.

Where there was only one bed.

I stepped under the rain shower, and for a brief moment, everything was washed away by the feeling of warm water sluicing down my skin. This was good.Iwas good. I was safe and far away from that motel. Far away from the race car and any thoughts about racing. Should I have been worried that not having to think about racing was a relief?

Tomorrow was another day at the Speedway, and I’d already spent the weekend playing the conversation with Colin over in my head. I’d be up in the office for half the day per his request—and God knew he needed the help. There would be lots of opportunity to drop in my request about racing, and I’d have leverage now too, with my helping him out in the office.

But is it what you really want?

I shook the thought from my head. It had been the longest day, and I didn’t need to think about that now. Besides, there was the more pressing concern of Dean. My friend.

My gorgeous friend who’d rescued me from the motel. Who’d given me this incredible place to stay. Who’d offered to stay with me.

Don’t overthink it.

I lathered shampoo into my hair, breathing in the cool minty scent of it, working as hard as I could at keeping what I wanted to feel at arm’s length. But after conditioning and soaping the day’s dirt and grime away, the exhaustion and emotion pressed at me too hard to keep resisting. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to think about Dean in an entirely more-than-friends way. To imagine him scooping me up at the motel and kissing me, long and deep, as if we were together in a very different way. As if he really were my knight in shining armor.

I thought of opening the door to this shower, calling his name and having him stand here, watching me as I sudsed myself with soap. To watch his jeans grow tight as I slipped my hands over my bare breasts…

I cranked the faucet to cold. It wasn’t like that. This wasn’t like that, and we weren’t like that.

My breath caught at the cold, and gasping under the icy water running over my skin, I forced myself to rinse off.

Maybe I would be all right here on my own. Maybe just having him stay up top at the house would be fine. I was tough after all, even though I felt as soft as a bubble right at this moment—one on the brink of popping.

I turned off the tap and dried off with the towel.

Then, I looked at my filthy clothes, lying in a heap where I’d dropped them. They were soaked.

Shit.

Dean definitely couldn’t stay here if I had to sleep naked. Even though the thought of that sent a warm throbbing between my legs.

Maybe there were some clothes in the trailer. I seriously doubted it, but there was only one way to find out. I stepped out of the shower, walking gingerly along the grass in my bare feet, clutching the towel around me. Peering around the side of the trailer, I spotted him sitting in one of the chairs, one leg crossed at his knee.

The sun had fully gone down now, the only remnants of the day streaks of pink lighting up the deep blue sky. Dean was only a silhouette, but I could see his face was angled toward the field of wildflowers and trees across the creek.

All I had to do was get around to the side of the trailer without him noticing, get in the door, and check to see if there was a robe or something.

The thought occurred to me that it wasn’tthatweird for Dean to see me in a towel. Guys saw each other in towels in the locker rooms all the time, and they didn’t read anything into it. Right?

Somehow, this was different. Something had happened today—Dean pulling me to him at the motel, his face in my hair. Him bringing me to the hospital, making sure I was fixed up. Him bringing me here, making sure I was safe.

Offering to stay.

I needed to find something more substantial than this towel to wear. Thankfully, I was quiet in bare feet and managed to get to the door without him turning.

I fumbled around for the handle to the front door in the dimming light. When I finally found it, I let out a breath and pulled at it as quietly as I could.

It didn’t budge.

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