The Worst Wedding Date

A noise pulls me out of a sleep so hard and deep that I barely remember lying down at all or where I am.

“I fixed the naked man!” I gasp.

“Must’ve been a sight,” a deep voice replies.

Hawaii.

Emma’s wedding.

And Theo. Looming in the doorframe, backlit by the soft glow of a night-light somewhere beyond my room, shirtless, pants-less, and definitely broader and harder than I remember him.

More tattooed too, though I can’t see them in the dark. It’s just the memory of the ink all over his chest and stomach and arms.

And what the hell am I doing, thinking about Theo’s body and tats?

“A large corporation ordered three thousand mugs with their logo and the artwork got switched and they were sent three thousand mugs of a guy with a Santa hat covering his—” Shut up, Laney. He doesn’t care why you were delayed getting here. Or that you’re dreaming about work. Or rambling because your baser instincts are overruling your better sense. I clear my throat. “What are you doing?”

“Scoot over,” he replies.

“Scoot…what?”

“Over. I get this side.”

“You…huh?” I am one hundred percent fully awake now, but his orders have scrambled my brain and made actual sentences impossible.

“The fucking couch broke. It’s a king-size bed. Scoot. Over. Or go sleep on the floor.”

No is on the tip of my tongue, but it won’t come out. “I’ll fix the couch,” I stutter.

“Knock yourself out.”

His answer puts my teeth on edge.

I’m trying so hard to be nice to him. And he’s being an utter ass.

I should be glad he’s being an ass. His personality should compensate for my hormonal reaction to his body and his voice.

Except it doesn’t.

My nipples are hard and there’s a frantic anticipation deep in my belly at the idea that I might have to sleep in the same bed as Theo.

It’s been over a year since I broke my parents’ hearts when I declined Christopher’s proposal, which means it’s been over a year since I’ve realized that their image of what my life should be and what I want for my life don’t line up.

Work is fine. Work is great, in fact. I’m fully in step with what they want for the company professionally, and honestly honored that they’re letting me prove I can do what it takes to run things when they retire.

Not because I want to please them with what I think, but because I believe they’re taking it in the right direction to continue growing and thriving.

It’s outside work hours that things get tense. They really want me to get back into the dating world with someone safe. Someone respectable. Someone with good genes for making the next generation of Kingston babies, preferably two or three in case the first one isn’t a perfect clone of me.

So, basically, they want me to live a gender-reversed Victorian-era dream.

Instead, I’m nearly thirty and finally hitting my teenage rebellion stage.

Which is a bad time to have my hormones reacting to Theo Monroe.

There’s a difference between dating someone I meet at a bar and become infatuated with and telling my parents that I’ve been sleeping in the same bed as Theo.

I flop out of bed, realize I’m only in my tank top and panties, squeak, and lunge for the neatly folded pajama shorts I left on the nightstand. “Turn around.”

“Seen naked women before, Laney.”

“Turn. Around.”

You know what’s most aggravating about Theo Monroe?

When we both surfaced in the pool, he was wearing the biggest grin known to man. I remember that from high school. He was always smiling. He was always having fun. Even when he was in trouble, he’d find a reason to smile about it. Clearly still does. Which must be really nice.

But he never smiles at me.

Not then.

And only briefly today before he realized my job here is to make him miserable.

Or at least, that’s how I assume he classifies my task of being a buffer between him and Chandler.

I hide behind the bed and yank my pajama shorts on. “I am doing my very damn best to make the most of this situation. Would it utterly kill you to acknowledge that I’m doing your sister a favor, and you too for that matter? That I’m not trying to make your life hell? Is it that hard to be as pleasant as you can be about this too?”

He doesn’t answer, and instead, flings himself onto the left side of the bed, face down in the pillow, and mutters something.

I take a deep breath and sigh loudly out of my nose.

He mutters something else in his pillow.

Forget this.

I march out to the living room. If I can’t sleep, I might as well sleep on the couch.

He’s left the folded bedframe half out of the couch, sticking up at a weird angle.

I roll my eyes and tug on the bar at the top, but it doesn’t budge.

I tug harder.

Still not a bit of movement. “C’mon. You can do it. Good couch,” I murmur supportively.

Shockingly, that doesn’t work either.

I tug. I pull. I try different bars on the contraption. I push. I tug and pull and heft all of my weight into it, but the only thing I succeed in doing is making the couch thump and bump across the floor.

And now I’m sweating.

I eyeball the closed bedroom door for the second bedroom.

Something hisses inside.

So that’s a nope. And also a problem for tomorrow.

I can’t get the couch fully open into the hide-a-bed, or fully closed so I can sleep on it. I don’t have the tools to take the hinges apart and investigate this further.

And I need to sleep so that I can be on top of my game for doing everything in my power to keep Theo separated from Chandler for the next few days, which is honestly obnoxious when I consider that I’m positive they were friends in high school.

Crap.

Dammit.

Best way to keep an eye on Theo?

Share a damn bed with him.

I won’t sleep well, but at least I’ll know if he tries to get up in the middle of the night.

Deep breath, Delaney. Deep, deep breath.

This will be okay.

I can do this.

It’s only for a couple nights. Just until Chandler is back in his happy place and Theo’s so tired of me that he finds a way to voluntarily avoid Chandler on his own.

I trudge back to the bedroom. Don’t look at the Theo-shaped lump on the left side of the bed. Climb delicately into the right side of the bed, leaving my shorts on.

Close my eyes.

And immediately wonder if I snore and don’t know it. Or if Theo snores. Or if he sneezes in his sleep. Or if he’s a thrasher.

I know I don’t toss and turn in my sleep. I lay down on my back, close my eyes, fall asleep, and wake up in the morning on my back.

The only time my covers are a mess is when I’m sick.

God, I’m boring.

I clear my throat. “Good night.”

He grunts.

“We’ll call maintenance tomorrow about the couch. If they can’t fix it, they can probably—”

“Good night, Delaney.”

Well.

That was a very direct and pointed shut up if I’ve ever heard one.

I sigh again.

Scoot closer to the edge of the bed. Just in case.

Readjust my pillow.

Close my eyes.

And I feel someone staring at me.

Nope. He’s definitely not staring at me. Definitely not. He’s completely uninterested in anything I’m doing, and it’s all a figment of my imagination that I feel the weight of his gaze on me.

If I open my eyes and glance at his side of the bed, I’ll see that his head is still buried in his pillow and he’s not staring at me and my imagination is running wild because Sabrina has snuck me one too many romance novels that my mother doesn’t know I read with a very similar but entirely different situation here.

Those always involve two people who secretly like each other.

I do not like my best friend’s brother.

And he most definitely does not like me. He’s made that abundantly clear.

Dammit.

I can’t fall asleep.

Brain. Will. Not. Shut. Off.

I need to turn on a meditation app or something, but I don’t want to hear about it from Theo.

I pop one eye open.

Aim it in his direction.

Crap.

It’s just bright enough in here thanks to the moonlight streaming in the window that I can see him. And he is totally staring at me.

I roll onto my side and face the wall.

Tell yourself a story, Laney. Tell yourself a story.

As if that’s going to work.

This is going to be a very, very, very long night.