Page 50 of Tangled Up In You
“That’s not the problem. I know how big they are.”
Oh. Right. “Duh. I bet you have one.”
He didn’t answer, and it meant that the pounding echo—king bed king bed king bed—returned full force inside her cranium. Actually, she decided, she would sleep on the floor. And if he didn’t let her, then too bad. She would insist.
“Maybe I’ll go sleep in Max,” he blurted once they were sealed up in the elevator car.
“What? No! If anyone sleeps in Max, it’s me.”
Fitz shook his head. “You’re not doing that.”
She hated returning to this conversation. It signified all the ways they were going backward; no matter what she suggested, he would say no to anything but her being in the bed, and she would say no to anything but him being in the bed, and they’d be at an impasse.
Which meant this: Ren was possibly, probably, maybe going to be sleeping in the same bed as Fitz. She might be sharing a bed with him, and his basketball shorts and those strong thighs she tried her very hardest not to look at when he walked to and from the bathroom.
“Okay, then it’s settled,” Ren said. “If there’s a couch, it’s an easy solution. If there’s space on the floor, it’s my turn for a floor bed. If not, I bet we’ll be farther apart than we were last night in the twin beds. It’s fine.” It was so not fine. “This is our fourth night sharing a room. We’re practically pros by this point. It’s just a sleepover. We can—”
“Ren,” he cut in, gently. “Breathe.”
She took a deep, steadying breath as the elevator dinged on the twelfth floor. Why did this suddenly feel so different? They’d shared a room for three nights now, and approaching each of those had never felt like they were heading toward a room that might catch fire the second they walked in.
Fitz swiped his key at the door, gesturing her inside, and Ren swore they deflated in unison: no couch, just a chair and a desk, and a bed that seemed to eat up more of the floor every second she continued to stare at it. Truly, it swallowed the entire floorplan. They set their things down and looked at each other across the expanse of the mattress.
Ren tried to smile. “It’s very nice.”
Fitz shrugged stiffly. “It’s just a bed.”
“I know it’s just a bed,” she said. “I’m just saying it’s a nice one.”
“Doesn’t matter if it’s nice, it’s just for sleeping.”
“Of course it is.”
Silence yawned between them.
He reached up, scratching the back of his neck. “Should we get some dinn—”
“Yes, absolutely, let’s get dinner.”
They made the short walk through downtown, stopping at a white brick Art Deco building with a large sign proclaiming it to be Winstead’s Steakburger. Fitz had barely spoken the entire walk over, and the silence was starting to feel like a third person on the sidewalk between them.
“Is it a steak or is it a burger?” Ren joked, expecting Fitz to give her the standard smile-fighting, eye-rolling routine.
But instead, he didn’t say anything at all, walking toward the door and holding it open for her. So distant, so formal.
Ren came to a full stop just inside, forgetting about Fitz’s mood as she gaped at the room around them. With pink neon on the ceiling, pink tables, turquoise booths, and a jukebox in the corner, Winstead’s Steakburger looked like a diner right out of Grease.
The hostess led them to their table and Ren sat down, unable to stop staring at the decor. “Holy cow. I bet I could order almost the same thing Danny orders at the Frosty Palace.”
Fitz glanced up from his menu perusal. “Should I know what that is?”
“Hello, Just Fitz! It’s the malt shop in Grease! He orders a double polar burger with a cherry soda and chocolate ice cream.”
“Exactly how many times have you seen that movie?”
“At least a hundred.”
He looked at her, baffled. “It’s funny, because your parents don’t really sound like the park-your-kids-in-front-of-the-television types.”