I Think We Missed Our Turn - L.A. Witt Page 0,18

stressed about it, and if I started talking about it, then I would get stressed. Maybe start second-guessing myself. Maybe wondering if I should’ve gone through with it. Or just kicking myself for taking so fucking long to cut Tanya and me loose from all the misery we’d been putting ourselves and each other through.

And, I mean, as we’d ground through traffic in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, I hadn’t been thinking about Tanya. I hadn’t been stewing over any of our fights, or over our breakup, or anything like that.

No, I’d been thinking about the man beside me.

“Oh my God,” I whispered, rubbing my tired eyes. “I’m losing it.” Of course I’d been thinking about Marques. I’d already been—once I’d finally woken up—itching to jump on Tinder and start looking for some Welcome-back-to-the-land-of-the-living sex, and the hottest man I knew had been sitting right next to me. It was a wonder I didn’t run off the road when I was driving. Whenever he was driving, I’d just tried to be slick about stealing glances.

Because goddamn—what wasn’t to want about someone as sweet and gorgeous as him? If I could’ve gotten away with it, I’d have just stared at him. For ages. He’d always been hot, and he just kept getting hotter with time. When I’d first met him, he’d had braids that extended just past his shoulders, though these days, he went with something closer to a buzz cut. Both looked great on him. I couldn’t think of many things that wouldn’t look great on him. Sometimes he had a short goatee. Sometimes he was clean-shaven. Sometimes he went for the “eh, I don’t feel like shaving” sort-of-beard, which was what he had now. Yep, those all looked perfect on him too.

Whatever he was wearing, however he’d styled his hair, he still gave me that same fluttery “God, I want you” feeling I’d had for Daisy McAllister, who’d sat next to me in freshman English, and for my high school’s quarterback when I’d been a junior, and for Tanya when we’d first met. The same kind of feeling, but way more intense, and it had lasted for years, and now that I was unattached…fuck.

You look amazing. What would it take for you to look at me?

Right then, someone tapped on my door, startling me.

I glanced through the peephole, and I wasn’t at all surprised to see Marques standing outside. I sure got a little thrill, though, because I was impossibly stupid and, Armin, he has a boyfriend, remember?

I put on a neutral but pleasant expression and opened the door. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Hey. I was going to order some food.” He held up his phone. “You want me to get something for you too?”

Oh man. Now that he mentioned it, I was hungry.

“Yeah, sure.” I stood aside so he could come in. “What do they have on GrubHub?”

“The usual. Pizza, a few sandwich places, things like that. What are you in the mood for?”

You.

My teeth snapped shut, and for a split second, I was afraid I’d actually said it out loud. Good God, where did that come from?

I cleared my throat. “Just food. Whatever’s available.”

We settled on a sandwich shop that was nearby, wouldn’t take five hundred years to get here, and had some options that didn’t sound too heavy. Since we had in-room fridges, we each got an extra sandwich to take with us tomorrow—after all, Cass had told us from her last trip to Maine that there were some stretches of absolutely nothing that went on for miles, and maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have food handy.

After I’d finished entering what I wanted, I handed back his phone. “If you want to have them deliver it to my room, we can just eat in here.” I paused. “You know, and hang out. Watch a movie or TV. Something.”

He gave me an odd look, but then he shrugged. “Works for me.” He tapped the screen a few more times, entered the address, and submitted the order. “Okay.” Putting the phone aside, he smiled. “Forty-five minutes, and we’ve got food.” His smile faltered a little. “You, uh, sure you want me hanging around?” He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “I can go back to my room when the food gets here if—”

“Nah, it’s fine!” I said quickly. Did I sound too desperate? Crap. “Honestly, I don’t mind the company.”

He watched me dubiously. “Not even after we’ve been stuck together all day?”

“Of course not.” I hesitated.