Page 32 of Seven Year Itch
My eyes fly wide. “No, I’m not calling your mother a liar. I was just stating something I’d read.”
He continues to stare at me with zero signs of teasing on his face, so I murmur my thanks and quickly drink the ginger ale. It actually does taste really good, and Calder seems mildly appeased once I’ve accepted his offering. God, he’s acting weird.
He walks over to one of his bags and pulls out his laptop, kneeling on the floor as he flips it open on the round bed.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for something for us to watch. I assume you’re not upfor the excursion today, right? I think they’re doing Jet Skis and a food tour in town.”
My stomach heaves. Neither of those sound good at the state I’m currently in. Lying in bed in a palapa with the ocean breeze blowing in from the balcony while I watch a movie sounds divine, though.
“Did you say something forusto watch? Don’t you want to go do the excursion?”
He shrugs. “I don’t want to leave you up here all alone.”
“Are you messing with me?”
I stare at his back in shock, and he stops scrolling on his computer to look over his shoulder at me. “No, I’m not messing with you. I’ve been sick in a foreign country before, and it sucks. It’s like an intense kind of loneliness. Plus, I didn’t sleep the best last night either, so watching a movie sounds good to me. But it might involve me getting some of my musk on your bed. Are you going to be able to handle that?”
I stare at him kneeling in front of me and it reminds me of the club.Again.I inwardly cringe because I need to stop associating Calder with sex. It’s not healthy for my sex-starved brain! Calder Fletcher has been nice to me today, but it doesn’t mean he’s not still the jerk I’ve argued with for years.
Even if he does look incredibly sexy on his knees in front of me.
God, my hangover is really messing with my hormones apparently. I need to be cooler than this.
“It’s fine.” I shrug and pull down his T-shirt currently covering my body. “I think it’s safe to say we’ve evolved past the cooties stage of our hatred.”
A soft smile tugs at the corner of his mouth as he hops up from the floor and makes himself comfortable like a dog who was just invited onto the bed for the first time. He settles in and narrows his gaze at me. “I get to pick the movie.”
“No way,” I snap, joining him on the bed and pulling his T-shirt down as it rides up on my thighs.
His eyes snap from my legs to the screen. “My laptop, my movie choice.”
“I’m the one who’s sick.”
“Self-induced sickness!” There’s a spirited glint in his eyes that feels different than the other times we’ve argued before.
I scowl over at him. “Maybe I was drugged. This is a foreign country, you know.”
“Nobody would dare drug you.”
“Why is that?”
He pins me with a challenging look. “Because you’re far too formidable to mess with.”
“That doesn’t seem to stop you.” I quirk a knowing brow.
“I’m built of stronger stuff than most, Ace.”
He winks, and I roll my eyes and fight the smile spreading across my face. Even when he’s being nice to me, I still want to beat the hell out of him.
“Fine, pick the movie, but if it sucks, I will kick you out of this bed.”
“I would expect nothing less,” Calder replies with a sexy smirk that gives my roiling stomach a fresh injection of butterflies.
I nibble on one of the crackers from his tray as the beginning credits ofThe Call of the Wildbegin. It’s an interesting choice by Calder. It’s been a while since I saw the film, but if I recall, the dog is sort of too big for his own life and seeks adventure outside of it. Not unlike the boisterous man sitting next to me seemingly fumbling through his own life a bit.
I shift down to get comfortable when Calder’s voice stops me in my tracks. “So now that you’re no longer violently ill, are you going to finish your story from last night?”
