“I know.” Michelle swept past him and sat in a high-backed armchair to swap her heels for indoor chanclas. “I wasn’t expecting to share the room with anyone, and with so many of my relatives hanging around in the lobby, it would have looked suspicious if I’d asked to change it.”
Gabe watched her carefully as she bustled around, noting her body language and nonverbal cues. She was doing herla la la, I don’t have a care in the worldact, which meant there was something she wasn’t saying. “Are you okay with that?”
“It’s fine.” Michelle pulled her toiletry bag out of her suitcase.
“I can call downstairs and ask them to book me a separate room if you want privacy.”
“No need.” With a toss of her hair, she carried the toiletry bag to the bathroom at the other end of the room and shut herself inside. The lock clicked behind her.
Huh. That wasn’t convincing.
Gabe closed the hotel room door behind him, then turned to study the bed. It was a king-size mattress with an enormouswooden headboard. Definitely big enough for both of them, and it faced a Victorian-style wood-mantled fireplace. It couldn’t be more romantic if he’d planned it. But as much as he wanted to fall asleep cuddled against her and wake together all warm and cozy before starting the day, Michelle had been clear: she did not sleep in the same bed with sexual partners. He didn’t want her to do something she didn’t want simply because of circumstance, because of a lie he’d told his father. If that was her way of keeping distance between them, he had to respect it. After all, he was leaving in a few days, although he had yet to buy a new return ticket to Los Angeles.
He thought back to what he’d told her at the venue.
It is real. Just for this weekend.
If it was real, did that mean sharing a bed? It seemed strange that this was the line they hadn’t crossed, but nothing was normal about their situation.
Shit, maybe she was letting him stay because she was worried about hurting his feelings or something like that. The thought made his stomach sink, and he crossed the room, raising his voice so she’d hear him through the bathroom door. “I’m just saying, you’ve already gone above and beyond helping me keep the gym a secret from my dad, so if you want me to—”
“I said it’s fine, Gabe! Relax!”
She sounded annoyed, so he let it go and tried to take her advice.
Relax. Okay, he could do that.
He removed the ill-fitting dress shirt—the department store tailors had done the best they could in limited time, buthe missed his own tailor in LA—and the pants that fit better than he’d expected. He hung them up and pulled on a pair of basketball shorts, just in case Michelle changed her mind and kicked him out.
Shopping for his quinceañera attire with Michelle had reminded him of the old days. Sure, he’d tried to coax her into a dressing room with him more than once, which wasn’t something he’d done when they’d been teens wandering around Fordham Road in the Bronx or St. Mark’s Place in Manhattan looking for clothes. But they’d joked around and had a good time.
“Remember the makeover episode ofCelestial Destiny?” she’d asked while he was trying on shirts at Macy’s.
“That chapter wasyouridea,” he’d reminded her from inside the fitting room stall. “During the interminable amnesia story line.”
“Hey, our readers loved the amnesia story line.”
“It lasted forseven episodes. And then you made me end it with a makeover.”
“I’d just gone back-to-school shopping with Jasmine and I thought it would be fun for Zack and Riva.”
“Fun in theory, but you forced me to watch hours of makeover shows on TV before I wrote it.”
“If I recall correctly, you had very strong opinions about pleated pants by the end of it,” she’d teased, and then snuck him a kiss when he’d stepped out to model yet another boxy button-down shirt.
Smiling at the memory, Gabe moved their suitcases closer to the wall, where they wouldn’t risk tripping over them if theygot up during the night. There was something nice about having such an extensive shared history with someone he was... not dating, exactly, but...
Involved with. There. That sounded better thansomeone he was fucking, and even though they were definitely fucking, he’d be an idiot to think that was all that was going on here.
Michelle had been his first love, and while he’d later tried to dismiss those feelings as “just a crush,” they felt strikingly similar to—while also a pale shadow of—what he was experiencing now.
All he could do was stay in the moment with her for however long that moment lasted. And when it ended... well, he’d do what he’d always done. Throw himself back into his work.
While he waited for Michelle to come out, he examined the fireplace and found a remote control to turn it on. The night was cooler here in upstate New York than down in the city. Not cold enough for a fire, but he could leave it on low for atmosphere. The bathroom door opened and Gabe turned to ask Michelle if she wanted to order anything from room service, but the thought flew right out of his head when he saw her.
He didn’t know what to call what she was wearing. Lingerie, probably, but that seemed like too tame a word, evoking images of silk and lace.
Michelle was instead clad in some sort of... contraption. There was lace, yes, little black scraps of it, but the rest was made up of crisscrossing straps and ties that accentuated her curves and somehow cupped and lifted her breasts in a way that was truly magnificent.
