A Thin Line- by DL White

Author:DL White
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DL White

25

Deep slumber is interrupted by the click of the door lock. I’d left Preston at the bar regaling our friends with stories and jokes. I was exhausted and had passed out minutes after tucking myself into bed.

I sit straight up in bed and yelp, "Who's there?" while blindly flailing my arms about, searching for a lamp.

"Who else would it be, Angie?”

Soft light floods the room. Preston stands next to the bed, gazing down at me while the corners of his mouth twitch with the effort not to laugh. He's wearing the hotel bathrobe again, so he'd gone to his room first and changed.

"Do you want me in here, or should I go back to my room?"

I lay a hand over my heart, which may gallop out of the left side of my chest. "I forgot I gave you a key." Reaching across the bed, I pull the covers down, making an opening for him. "I want you here."

"Good," he said, untying the robe and kicking off the flip flops he'd worn from his room to mine. "Because I wasn't leaving."

"Then why ask?" I say, grumbling as I scoot over and make room for him. Clad only in boxer briefs, he slips under the covers with me and reaches to snap off the lamp before he lies down, wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me to him. This gesture makes me smile. I'm snug up against him, his chest hair and beard stubble molding me to him.

"Common courtesy," he answers. "Ever hear of it?"

"Sure, I have. Surprised you know the meaning of it, though."

"If I don't surprise you once a day, I'm not on my job."

"Well, you're on your job," I mumble. My eyes drift shut, and I am on my way back to sleep.

"Did I do okay, tonight? I mean, did I play the role okay?"

I nod, my forehead swishing against the crisp fabric of the pillow. "Perfect. I was annoyed with you."

His head lifts from the pillow. "What? When?"

"When you sat down next to me on the bench outside the bar, practically pushing me off of it, dropped a sloppy wet kiss on my cheek and yelled, ‘what's up, roomie!' loud enough for most of the island to hear. You're irritating when you want to be."

"It's a gift. But you're not mad at me right now, right?"

I snuggle even closer to him and lay my hand over his, draped across my thigh. "Not a bit."

A few hours later, the fiery orange glow of the sun rises over the island. We didn't think to close the drapes over the windows nor the French doors, so as soon as the first rays break the horizon, the room is a pink glow. Shards of sunlight poke at my eyelids until I force them open.

All is quiet, save the muted sounds of the ocean running over the sand at the shore: that, and Preston's snore. During the night, he'd rolled away from me. My view is his back and the tight curls in a mess all over his head.

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