Somewhere Along The Line: A Strangers to Lovers Fake Dating Romance by Mallory Thomas

Author:Mallory Thomas [Thomas, Mallory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Books
Published: 2024-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

Light pours into the room, and I’m aware of two things upon waking. One, I can barely rotate my neck after sleeping on this couch, and two, Piper is still here, curled up between my arms and legs, the two of us sharing a space smaller than a twin bed and touching absolutely everywhere.

I also realize I’m hard, which isn’t surprising and shouldn’t be embarrassing after last night… but it still feels awkward given the zero centimeters of space between us.

I extricate myself from her—a herculean effort both physically and emotionally—and pull on my pants before heading to the kitchen for a drink. Glancing back to the living room, Piper looks so small and so peaceful, like everything in the world is exactly right.

Maybe it is.

Scanning the counter, I find my phone, which was happily abandoned to die overnight. It’s so bright, too bright as it powers up; 8:17 a.m. flashes on the home screen before I can even swipe in. I blink and then blink again. No, that can’t be right. The microwave reads 8:18.

Whatever bubble of oxytocin I’d been living in breaks open.

“Shit! Ahhh. Shit, okay. Okay.” I rush over to Piper, pushing gently on her shoulder in an attempt to wake her up before I move on to saying her name and then shouting it. She comes alive with a jolt, and it’s clear that she has no idea where she is or what’s happening.

“P, hey, it’s me. You’ve gotta get up. We overslept. I’m so sorry. It’s 8:20.”

Her eyes grow wide and she sits straight up before diving to grab her clothes and throwing them on.

“No, no, no… it’s not… it can’t be, right?” She stares at me wildly as she hauls her skirt up to her waist, desperate for me to change the answer to the question, to tell her what she knows isn’t true.

“It is. I’m so sorry. What can I do? Can I bring you to your house to change? Drive you to work? What do you need?”

I liked that question a hell of a lot more last night.

“Shit, is it Tuesday? I think it’s Tuesday. Damn it.” Piper starts palming at her clothes, at the couch, lifting the cushions to look for her phone. “I have a donor meeting on Tuesday at 8:30. It’s a referral from the man who committed to the scholarship fund. I should’ve been at the office ten minutes ago.”

She’s a tornado as she moves, hopping on one foot as she puts on a shoe, wrapping her hair up in a bun with the tie she keeps on her wrist, locating her things and throwing them in her bag before sprinting for the door.

“Please, let me drop you off.” I hobble after Piper, ignoring the guilt seeping into my chest and my rational desire to grab shoes before leaving. “I can get there quickly; I’ll speed if I have to.”

I grab my keys from the hook and we race to the car, throwing open the doors and peeling out before we even pull them closed.

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