“Maddie!” Lauren hissed. “This is really, really bad.”
“What’s wrong?” Maddie’s teasing tone changed.
She put Maddie on speaker and paced the length of the room. “I am stuck in a hotel room for the night. With Will. Alone. In a hotel room. We made a detour to see a player of his—an injured kid with a lot of issues, and Will was. . .well, he was actually really sweet and good with him. Even the kid’s mom was talking about him like he was a saint or something. I mean, he’s no saint, Maddie. I know this from personal experience, but watching him with Jackson, the way he so obviously cared what happened to him—I don’t know, it was different. Different than the picture I had in my head anyway. But now, we’re stuck here, in this tiny hotel room with one bed, and he said he’d sleep on the love seat, but he’s still in the room, you know? In my room. Feet away from where I’m sleeping, and right now he’s taking a shower, and I daydreamed that I shoved him and the mirror is all fogged and I don’t know what to do!”
A pause.
“Maddie!?”
“Calm down, you spaz. I’m still waiting for you to tell me what the problem is.”
“Maddie, I am trying really hard to hate this man,” Lauren whispered.
“Why?”
“Because he is a recipe for disaster. A literal recipe. Two cups of charm, three ounces of inappropriate flirting, and a dash of dimples make for a very, very broken heart.” She knew this from experience. Did she really want to put herself in that situation again?
Why wasn’t her heart （or her pulse） getting the message?
“You’re overreacting,” Maddie said dryly.
“I promise you I’m not.”
“You’re doing the rambling thing you do when you’re nervous,” Maddie said. “And when you’re trying to talk yourself into something.”
Lauren thought about the fact that Will had changed his entire schedule, which whether he admitted it or not, was pretty important to him, just to connect with one of his players. To make sure he was okay. She was lying to herself about what a horrible person he was because admitting it messed with her resolve.
“Oh, no. Maddie. I think. . .I think he’s actually a really good guy,” she conceded with a sigh.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing!”
“It is,” she said. “Believe me it is. You just. . .you just don’t know everything.”
It embarrassed her to think of how horribly she’d reacted to what had happened between them all those years ago. How long it took her to recover. It wasn’t something she talked about—ever. Not even with Maddie. Lauren had eventually moved on. Put it in her rearview mirror and forgot about it. Forgot about him.
Until now.
Because it was hard to forget someone who was standing right in front of you.
“Being stuck in a hotel room with a guy who looks like a superhero and who happens to be a really decent guy,” Maddie said wryly. “Yeah, that sucks.”
The sound of the bathroom door behind her caught her attention and when she turned around, she saw Will standing half in and half out of the bathroom in a towel.
Her jaw went slack at the sight of his abs, and she whipped her head away as if he were totally naked. Unfortunately, it was as if she accidentally stared right at the sun, because that image was burned in her eyes.
“Sorry.” He sounded embarrassed. “Forgot my clothes. Could you hand me that bag on the chair?”
Lauren quickly took Maddie off speaker just as her best friend hissed a low “Oh my gosh. . .” into her ear.
Was he aware of the effect of his dripping wet body on her pulse?
Lauren continued averting her eyes as she walked over to the chair, then backwards toward the bathroom, holding the bag out in his general direction.
He grabbed the clothes from her, but she didn’t turn around. “I’ll change in here so you can keep talking about me.”
She spun around to find him mostly hidden behind the door.
He grinned. “Say hi to Maddie for me.”
Lauren’s cheeks flushed. Hard. This was a nightmare.
How much had he heard?
Had she been so wrapped up in lamenting her changing feelings that she hadn’t heard the shower turn off? Or did Will just have superhero hearing that matched his superhero abs?
She groaned.
“I. Am. So. Jealous.” Maddie said.
“And I. Am. In So. Much. Trouble.” Lauren replied.
Chapter 12
Road Trip—Day Three