Page 41 of Back to You
He glanced sidelong at me. “I do.”
“Really?”
“Really-really,” he said, quoting Shrek, and it was my turn to laugh. “Is it really that hard to believe? You’ve only been my best friend for like, forever. I adore you, Hollister. You make me happy.” With a dopey smile, he reached down and took my hand.
I squeezed his. “Good.”
The first words out of my mouth when I saw the four-star hotel were, “Holy shit. Wow. What the hell, Dane?”
“I told you,” he crowed. “Ten times better than a cabin in the woods, am I right? Better yet? There’s a hottub in our suite.”
“We have asuite?”I gasped.
“Only the finest formyboyfriend. It’s not the Caribbean, but it’ll do.”
We grabbed our bags and went into the overly-lavish lobby, with its marble flooring and sleek burgundy runners. The chandelier that hung from the ceiling over the reception desk was easily as big as my VW. It cast glimmers of light over the polished floor.
Wow was right.
Our room was just as amazing. I dropped my bag to the floor with athunk. “Dane, this is…”
He pointed at me. “Don’t you dare say it’s too much, because it’s not. You’re worth it. End of discussion. Now I’ll give you two minutes to peel out of your clothes and put on your swimwear, or I’m throwing you into the hottub naked. Got it?”
I giggled out a, “Yes, sir,” and changed in record time, right there in the middle of the room. I groaned as I sank into the hot water. It sizzled against my skin and turned me into a puddle of jelly at the bottom of the basin. The jets shot streams of bubbles against my back. It felt so good.
Dane slid in behind me, his hands settling on my shoulders. I closed my eyes when he began to gently knead them. “Mmm. I didn’t know a massage was included with this package,” I murmured. His breath fluttered against my wet skin when he chuckled, but he didn’t stop.
I bit my lip and let my head fall forwards, dropping my chin to my chest. His thumbs rubbed and massaged the kinks from my tight back, easing my pent-up anxiety little by little. “That’s right, baby. Relax. Let me take care of you,” he purred. “You’re so tense.”
I groaned again. “Wow. You’re good at this.”
He kissed my neck, a whisper of a touch. “I know.”
“Cocky.”
“Don’t hear you complaining.”
“Oh, I’m not,” I breathed out. “My body is all yours.”
His teeth scored my earlobe. “Be careful what you say, else you just might—” He was cut off by my ringtone, blaring one of My Chemical Romance’s screamiest hits.
Abby.
“Wait, wait.” I gently pushed Dane away and climbed out of the tub, drying off my hands on my t-shirt since neither of us had bothered to grab towels. “I gotta take this.”
Abby never called. Ever. She had a terrible phone phobia and if she was calling me, that meant something was wrong. I picked up on the fourth ring. “Abby?”
I could hear nothing but slurred speech and noisy sobbing. The anxiety that had fled my body only moments ago slammed back in full-force. “Abby? Abigail, what’s wrong? What happened?” I couldn’t understand a thing she was saying. “Slow down. I don’t understand. What about your ex?”
She hiccuped. “S-She hit me. Just fucking punched me in the face, big-as-you-please, just like she used to do. She’s such a fucking b-bitch. God! I hate her so much. So much.”
“What? What happened?”
“I don’t know. We had this huge fight over something so fucking stupid, and she started screaming at me, so of course, I screamed back. It’s me, you know I can’t help it. She pissed me off, and she wasn’t listening to anything I was saying, and then she hit me.” She dissolved into tears once more. I’d never once in my life heard Abby cry like this. Sure, angry tears were one thing, but this?
“Abby? Where are you?”
“W-Walking. She kicked me out.”
