Page 65 of Sunny Goes Cold Turkey
Nope. On my way. Get decent
ANDERS
Or not
There’s a soft knock at the door before the knob turns.
I pull the covers up to my chin out of instinct. Anders doesn’t need to know that I’m sleeping in his sweatshirt—the same one I didn’t really need earlier this evening when he offered it to me. I packed layers. I’m no dummy. But did I accept the ruggedly handsome man’s sweatshirt even though I had one in my bag? Yes. Again: I am no dummy.Sayau revoirto your sweatshirt, buddy.
“Are you seriously knocking right now?” I tighten the blanket around me, just in case.
Instead of answering, he drops onto the bed beside me, lying back and crossing his ankles like he hasn’t just crossed a major boundary.
“Um, hello.” I laugh, scooting over to make room on the narrow mattress. “Welcome to your bed.”
“Hi.” He fluffs his side of the pillow under his head. “This thing is terrible.”
“I don’t care. I’m just happy I’m not at Super 8 tonight.” I whisper, hoping he’ll follow my lead. I don’t want to get caught like this.
“Me too.” His voice is low, thank goodness. He pulls my hand away from the vice grip I have on the blanket under my chin and kisses my palm. He tries to keep my hand in his, but I slip it away.
“Anders, you can’t be like this with me.”
“Why not?”
I groan. “You know what? I understand Oliver more and more the longer I know you.”
He pretends to shudder. “Don’t say that, Sunflower.”
“You know why we can’t do this. You’re making it so hard for me to keep it together.”
“So let things fall apart,” he says through a yawn. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
I hold up my fingers, ticking items off by the dim glow of the plug-in nightlight across the room. “One, we ruin the shoot. Two, you ruin your career. Three, Christopher’s lawyers destroy my family’s resort. Generations of hard work, gone. Poof. Four, we are all destitute. I wind up selling pictures of my feet on the internet to survive. You get by charging middle-aged women for photos at conventions.”
“I could make a decent living doing that.”
“ANDERS.”
He sighs. “I know.”
I can hear a clock ticking in the silence that follows. I peek at him when I feel his eyes on me. His hair is messy and his scruff is longer than I’ve ever seen on him. He really is ridiculously handsome. And good. I’m feeling a little like Elizabeth when she visits Pemberley inPride and Prejudice. If I wasn’t half gone over Anders before we left Utah, I am now after seeing his childhood home and watching him interact with his parents. I can’t believe I ever bought into the trash that gets printed about him online.
“You’re not what I thought.” The words are out before I can stop them.
“How so?”
“Well, there’s the Mariah thing.” I tease to deflect from the truth, because he can’t know what I’m really thinking. He’s already impossible to hold off. “The amount of grief you gave me for one, single Micah Watson poster—”
“One atrocious poster.”
“Um, have you seen these walls?”
“Yep. But that’s not what you meant. I’m not what you thought because?”
He lets the quiet fall around us. I squirm under his plaid comforter.
“I don’t know, I just thought you were like the stuff that goes around online. Different girl every week. Ostentatious. Mega bachelor yacht parties. Dragging Imogen around the world like a toy.”
