Page 53 of Stirring Up Trouble
He shifted his weight, and in that moment Sloane realized that they were standing inches away from each other in a darkened hallway in the middle of the night.
“Thanks to you, she is.”
His whisper caught her with the force of a yell, and she clutched the mugs so tightly that they clanked together. “I don’t know about all that. I mean, I kind of fumbled my way through most of it.”
Gavin refused to relent, cupping his hand beneath hers to take both mugs from her fingers. “No, you didn’t. And I owe you a pretty big apology on top of my thanks.”
“You what?” Despite her effort to control it, Sloane’s pulse jackhammered through her veins as his words sank in.
“After what happened earlier, most people might’ve been tempted to tell me to go to hell, but you came back out here anyway.”
“Well, yeah, but you said Bree wouldn’t talk to you, and you didn’t have anybody else to call. I couldn’t just leave you guys hanging out to dry.”
“Yes, you could’ve. But you didn’t.” Gavin’s eyes glittered over hers in the barely there light filtering in from the living room, and his expression rendered her knees completely useless. “While I’m still not crazy about the hair thing, I shouldn’t have accused you of stirring up trouble. I overreacted when I yelled at you, and I’m sorry.”
“Oh.” Her response came out as little more than a sigh, and she cleared her throat in an effort to get her neurons to do something of value. “Well, all things considered, I screwed up too. I should’ve asked you first. In hindsight, I overstepped my bounds.”
“What do you say we call it a draw, then? Fresh start in the morning?”
Sloane blinked. With everything that had filled the last hour, she’d completely blanked on the notion of Gavin firing her. “Oh. Um, sure. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Sloane, tomorrow is only a handful of hours from now, and you’ve got to be as exhausted as I am. I don’t suppose you’d humor me and just stay in the guest bedroom.” He took a step toward her and gestured to an adjacent doorframe farther down the hallway. Her muscles tightened at the unexpected closeness, sending warmth like a slingshot right between her thighs.
Whoa.
“How would that be humoring you, exactly?” Okay, so she’d been unable to keep the hitch out of her voice on that one, but Lord almighty, had he really just asked her to stay?
Gavin stood so close she could practically feel the dark smile break over his face as he answered, and it did absolutely zip to help her gain her composure.
“We traditional guys tend to feel pretty uneasy at the idea of sleep-deprived friends driving home on dark and twisty roads at two-thirty in the morning.”
A wisp of hushed laughter escaped from her lips without her permission. “It’s ten minutes away. I think I can handle it.”
“That’s where the humor me part comes in. Look, there’s no way Bree is going to wake up before I leave for work. If you stick around, you’ll be able to sleep late rather than having to get up and drive right back out here in a few hours.” Gavin capped his words off with a nonchalant shrug, but Sloane didn’t buy it for a second. She crossed her arms and gave him a hard stare through the dusky light.
“Low blow, using my predilection for uninterrupted slumber against me like that.”
“Guess it’d really be below the belt if I offered to throw in breakfast too, then.”
Her stomach rumbled with awareness. “Doughnuts. Double glazed,” she challenged, her resolve weakening by the second.
He scoffed. “Please. I make an omelet that’ll make you forget baked goods even exist.”
Under normal circumstances, she would be flat-out irritated at being manipulated this way. But, as it stood, she was too busy being turned on like Christmas lights to notice. “I bet you’re going to tell me it’s nice and cozy in there, too, huh? The guest bedroom gets the nice linens, and all that jazz?”
A tiny voice warbled at the back of her mind, screeching at her to march herself down the hall and get the heck out of there. The offer was well-intentioned, sure, but in ten minutes, she could be back at home, in her own bed. Where she belonged.
Gavin grinned. “Ever pick up fifteen hundred thread count sheets when you were in Italy?”
Sloane fought back the moan growing in her throat at the mere inkling, and it shut her inner flight risk right up. Damn it, why did her limbs feel so heavy all of a sudden?
She swallowed hard and wavered. “No.”
“Pity. I highly recommend them. But if you insist on heading back out into the cold…”
“Oh, come on. You know you had me at breakfast.” Sloane made a show of releasing an exaggerated sigh as she padded toward the guest bedroom, but her smile canceled it out. After all, how many chances was she going to get to sleep on sheets that probably cost more than she spent on an entire month’s worth of groceries? In the grander scheme of things, staying in the guest bedroom for just one night wasn’t that big a deal.
“Hey, Sloane?”