Page 16 of Looks Real Good Now
“This bed fits three grown men in it. Trust me, we checked, although I don’t remember why. One minute, we were putting the mattress on, next thing, Dad was measuring the width of the bed with his own body. Fortunately, I am narrower than my father and even with that hockey physique of yours, you’re not that wide. We’ll be fine.”
I laughed at that image of Rob measuring the bed and sat on the edge.
“Noted. And now I owe you breakfast. Aren’t you lucky?”
Lenny rolled her eyes at me and as she walked to her suitcase, she mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like, “You’re an idiot.”
I’d never felt more at home.
15
Alana
Icouldn’t sleep.
I had been trying for the last ninety minutes and was still trying to create pictures out of the shadows on the ceiling.
I was lying to myself. I told myself the problem was that I was trying to fall asleep much earlier than my body was used to. But I knew that the real problem was the body lying next to me.
Liam slept on his back, which was fine. Except with him lying in that position, the pictures I was making on the ceiling were anything but innocent and that was making sleep feel all the more elusive. Under the cover of night, I could finally admit to myself that he was still painfully attractive to me. In fact, he was more attractive now than when we were teenagers. It was rude of him.
“I can hear you thinking.” Liam’s voice was thick and gravelly. The tone vibrated through me and settled in between my legs. Great.
“I’m not thinking,” I replied.
“It was so loud it woke me up.” I felt the bed dip and I knew when I turned my head that I would be met with his face. Idid not need to know what the moonlight slipping through the edges of the curtains was going to do to his bone structure.
“I highly doubt that,” I laughed quietly.
“You don’t sound like you’ve been sleeping. What’s up?”
I rolled onto my side to face him, accepting that it would be weird for me to have a full conversation with him—as it seemed to be where this was heading—with me staring at the ceiling.
Fuck the moonlight and fuck Liam Mulligan’s bone structure for managing to look better in the half-darkness. Men didn’t need cheekbones like that or eyes that damn near twinkled in the moon’s glow.
“I don’t remember the last time I was in bed before midnight and apparently my body has zero desire to go to sleep, so I’m just kind of lying here.”
“Why did you come to bed so early?”
Now that was the question.
“I dunno. I got swept up in everything, and everyone was talking about going to bed and then we had that discussion about the bed, and I thought I was tired. Today has been long, so I should be tired, but it seems like I’m not, so here I am. Wide awake.”
“Okay, why didn’t you get out of bed or read a book or something?”
Another perfectly reasonable question that I didn’t have an answer to.
“You were sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you up. Just figured it would be annoying if I left only to crawl back in at close to one or two a.m. or something.”
“It wouldn’t be annoying.”
“You’re that deep a sleeper?”
“What the hell would you be doing other than getting into bed?”
“Nothing. Just, don’t worry about it, go to sleep. I’ll be fine. My body will get the memo.” I wasn’t so sure that it would, which meant I was also probably going to wake up at five a.m. like clockwork, too.
“No, I’m awake now. We’re having this conversation. Why won’t you do what you usually do?” He shifted his arm to bring it under his head. I watched his muscles flex in the moonlight.
