Neither of us can finish our sentence before someone shoves Cole from behind. He stumbles forward, his arms coming to rest on either side of me as he braces himself against the wall.
“The fuck?” he demands. He doesn’t even have time to turn around before the door slams shut. “JP, what are you doing?”
A gleeful laugh rings out behind the door. “Save water—shower together!”
Cole groans and starts pounding on the wood. “Damn. The fucker put something against the door. Come on, man, let us out!”
“Seriously, JP!” I join in. “We have a show to play!”
“In like two hours,” he protests. “Enjoy your alone time,mes amies!”
“JP!” I shout back. “Let us out!”
Cole starts banging on the door again, but all JP does is give a few quick knocks to the other side of it before we hear him walking away. Cole turns around to face me. The bathroom is so small we’re just a few inches shy of being chest to chest. His Adam’s apple bobs as looks at me and swallows.
“Well, shit,” he summarizes.
“Yeah,” I agree. “Shit. What the hell kind of game is he playing, anyway?”
Cole shifts his weight from foot to foot, and I realize he’s not as surprised about this as I am.
“Byrne.” I narrow my eyes. “What’s he playing at?”
“Well, the, uh, the guys in the band have this kind of...plot.”
“Aplot?”
“Yeah. They want us to get back together.”
“Theywant us to get back together?”
He shrugs and almost bangs his shoulder on a towel hook. His head barely clears the ceiling in here. I’m squished flat against the wall to avoid leaning against him.
“Yeah, they do.”
“So your chart-topping alternative rock band has decided toParent Trapus into dating again?”
He smirks. “Think of who you’re talking about, Roxy. It’s JP, Matt, and Ace. They’re not aboveParent Trap-ing people.”
He has a point. I let out a sigh.
“Just tell me you didn’t know JP was going to shove you in here with me.”
Cole shifts on his feet again. “I mean, he mentioned he was thinking about it; I just didn’t know exactlywhenhe was going to try it...”
I raise my eyes to the ceiling. “So you’re just letting them go ahead with this plan?”
“I told them to stay out of it, but you know the guys. They...like you. They want to see us together. They think we...work.”
I roll my eyes. “Well if yourbandthinks we work, who are we to say otherwise? It’s not like we’d know better.”
“What if we don’t?”
His voice drops an octave at the same time the tension kicks up a few notches. If the room was small before, it’s suffocating now.
“Cole...” I sound like I’m begging, but I don’t know if it’s for his sake or mine. “You promised this wouldn’t be about getting back together.”
He lets out a heavy breath. I can feel how hard he’s struggling not to touch me.
