Page 36 of Heart Like Yours
I lean in, lowering my voice so only she can hear. “Oh yeah? Have a Jedi fantasy I should know about?”
Her cheeks bloom with a beautiful pink blush and I step away to greet the older woman sitting behind the reception desk.
“Good afternoon. We’re hoping to check into our rooms.”
“Yes! Hello, welcome to the Cloud Hill Inn. My name is Ann!” She greets us with a wide grin, glancing between me and Paige. “Let’s see, what’s the reservation under?”
“Walker.”
She taps away on her screen, humming an old country song while she waits for it to load.
“Ah, yes, here we are. Lake view room with a king bed.” She reaches for the stack of new room key cards. “You’ll be in room?—”
“Wait, what?” Paige interrupts, stepping up beside me at the desk. “Lakeroom? As in one single room with one single bed?”
“Well, technically, it’s one king bed.” Ann winks at me as if I’m in on some joke.
“No, that’s not right,” Paige protests. She grabs her phone and I look over as she pulls up the confirmation email Gwen sent us. “The reservation was for two rooms with two separate beds.”
I bite my tongue and let Paige handle this.
“Oh dear.” Ann looks over the details on Paige’s phone before clicking quickly on her computer. After a minute of silence, she finally looks up. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any other rooms. We’re fully booked out thanks to the spillover from the Fall Festival in the neighboring town.”
“But…we can’t…we work together,” Paige stutters, finally staring up at me with wide, frantic eyes.
I shrug, not in the least bit opposed to sharing a bed with Paige. However, if it makes her uncomfortable…
“I can sleep on the couch,” I assure her.
Paige worries her bottom lip between her teeth as she watches me, and I focus on getting us checked in and out of the lobby. I’d prefer that Ann wasn’t a wallflower during this conversation.
“We’ll figure it out. It’s not like we can make a room appear out of thin air.”
Ann apologizes profusely, offering us complimentary snacks and even discounted room service. I have to refrain from assuring her that this is perfectly fine, considering I don’t know if Paige feels the same way.
Paige doesn’t say a single word as we cross the lobby, nor does she speak when we step onto the elevator and head up to our floor. When she steps out, her nerves are practically palpable and setting off my own.
Still, I wait until we’re in the room to say anything. She stands in the middle of the simple hotel room, staring at the bed like it’s about to pop to life and snatch her up.
“Paige,” I say gently and wait until she looks at me. When her bright blue eyes meet mine, I continue, “I meant what I said downstairs. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
She visibly swallows, glancing at the furniture in question. “That seems like a back ache waiting to happen.”
“I’m not worried about that.” I shrug, stepping forward to set our bags down. “My only concern is you.”
“I just,” Paige starts before shaking her head and glancing back at the bed. “I don’t know?—”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I haven’t kept my feelings or my intentions a secret, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to force anything on you. You wanting your own bed is not going to change how I feel.”
She opens her mouth to respond, but I shake my head. “How about you freshen up or change while I go run down to the convenience store. I know you planned to go catch up with some people, but we didn’t get to finish lunch, so I can grab a couple snacks.”
Paige nods slowly, pausing once she processes. “The whole reason I planned to come here was to see my dad.” Her voice is so quiet, so unlike her, that it takes every ounce of my barelythere restraint not to cross over to her and scoop her up in my arms.
“Well, in that case, I’ll grab us a bottle of wine while I’m at it and we can find some old movies on TV and just relax. We’ve had a long week and can turn this into an actual night off.”
She finally laughs, the tension visibly leaving her body as she moves to where I placed her bag down. “Do either of us actually know how to do that?”
“Only one way to find out,” I tease and grab one of the room keys, then leave her to get settled.