Letting her make the move, she realized. So she led him upstairs, her heart pounding in her chest and in her ears. Incredibly aware of him at her back, she brought him inside her room.
He shut the door, walked to her bed, and pulled back her covers, gesturing for her to get in. “You’re cold,” he murmured, “wearing only that stolen shirt.”
“Borrowed.”
“What’s mine is yours. Besides, I love the way you look in it.” He pulled the covers up to her chin, planted a hand on either side of her head and leaned in to kiss her softly. “’Night.”
Then he unrolled his sleeping bag and slid into it. On the floor.
She stared up at the ceiling, waiting for the familiar panic. Or at least unease.
Neither came.
She let out a breath and dropped a hand over the side of the bed.
Reaching up, he slipped his into hers. “Sweet dreams, Charlotte.”
For a beat, she lay there, taking in the room. Quiet. Warm. Dark. She could hear Mateo’s steady breathing from the floor.
Hers wasn’t steady. In fact, she might not be breathing at all. Because it was decision time. Right here, right now. If she was going to face her fears, there was no better man to do that with than Mateo. She knew this because every time she was anywhere in his proximity, she felt a calm wash over her, as well as a sense of anticipation. The very best kind of anticipation. It was like her body recognized him as a soulmate.
Even as her brain pretended such a thing didn’t exist.
She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to give one horrific memory the power to steal away the hope of a happy future. She wanted to reach out and grab what was hers for the taking.
She was scared. Terrified, actually. But she was also a hundred percent positive she was doing the right thing. “Mateo?”
“Yeah?”
She slid out of her bed. “Move over?”
He scooted and made room for her, and she crawled into his sleeping bag.
Chapter 25
The next day Jane grabbed her lunch bag from the Homeward resort’s staff fridge where she’d stashed it and headed outside. The temp was a brisk thirty-two degrees, but in the sun at high altitude, it would feel warm and glorious. And after five hours in the packed urgent care, she needed some warm and glorious.
But even working as hard as she did in Tahoe, she enjoyed the work. For one thing, she didn’t see the death and gore up here as she did for the rest of the year.
But the biggie, the thing that kept her coming back, was the connections she’d made in spite of herself. She’d grown roots here. Her relationship with Charlotte. Mateo. Even Cat. Her grandpa . . . And she knew the list wasn’t complete without Levi on it, no matter how temporary they were.
Temporary.
She’d always considered that word to be a part of her personality.
And now that she’d fulfilled her promise to be his pretend girlfriend for his parents’ anniversary dinner— She froze halfway to a table. She’d fulfilled her promise to be his pretend girlfriend.
There was no need for Levi to see her anymore.
Little black dots danced in front of her eyes and she realized she wasn’t breathing. Gulping in air, she put a hand to her aching chest. For the first time in her life, she’d begun to settle, feeling things that were the very opposite of temporary.
And it was over anyway by her own decree when she’d extracted that ridiculous promise from Levi in the very beginning.
The snow crunched beneath her feet as she began walking again, making her way through the maze of skiers to a small, empty table.