Road Trip with a Nerd - Stephanie Street Page 0,24
don’t care. I sleep on my stomach most of the time, anyway, and don’t even use a pillow.” Not necessarily true. But enough, I hoped it would pacify her, and she’d move over to the other sleeping bag.
She watched me without moving as I removed my own shoes and tucked them to the side of our bed—
Holy crap!
My heart was about to beat out of my chest. Not our bed. The bed. I moved around, taking up as much space as I could on my sleeping bag until Mallory was forced to scoot over to the other one.
“I don’t want to take your pillow away from you. You were nice enough to let me tag along without chipping in for gas. You’ve paid for half of my snacks and all the water. And for the campground.”
I’d unzipped my sleeping bag and situated myself inside it without covering myself back up. The night was still warm and the humidity higher than it had been in Utah and Wyoming. Add to that the hot girl sitting beside me, and I felt like a blazing inferno.
“It’s fine. All of it. Don’t worry.” I probably sounded short. I didn’t mean to, but jeez! Talk about an infusion of hormones. That wasn’t Mallory’s fault. It was mine. I just needed a second to get myself under control.
This wasn’t a normal situation for me. I’d never had a girlfriend. I hadn’t even kissed a girl. And now here I was with one about to sleep mere inches away. And not just anyone, Mallory, a girl I’d been secretly crushing on for years.
What a loser, right?
I fell back onto my sleeping bag with a sigh.
Chapter Nine
Mallory
For practically the first time that day, I felt awkward with Grant. Of course, he’d laid back like it was no big deal we were smashed like sardines in the back of his truck. It was kind of a big deal. Or it was to me.
Because my heart raced to have him so close.
And because of how vulnerable a person became when they slept. Allowing myself to sleep beside Grant meant I trusted him completely. Did I trust Grant that way?
I thought maybe I did.
Trying to make myself as small as possible, I slunk down into my sleeping bag. It smelled like a garage and faintly of Grant’s cologne. Laying fully back, my head hit his pillow, and suddenly I was surrounded by his scent. It wasn’t unpleasant. At all. In fact, I could get used to sleeping like this.
Grant had been somewhat short when I brought up how much he’d done for me that day, and I hadn’t even mentioned punching out a homeless man who’d attacked me.
“Your boyfriend isn’t going to, you know, come after me for this, is he?” Grant asked out of the blue.
Gaping, I jerked my head his direction. “What? Why would you think that?”
Grant rolled his eyes a little before they landed on me. “Are you kidding? We’ve been alone all day, and now we’re sleeping in the back of my truck together.” He winced. “I mean, next to each other. Not together. You know what I mean.”
I giggled even though I knew he was perfectly serious. I sobered quickly, however, when I thought about Matt. I still hadn’t told Grant why I’d needed a ride home. In some ways, at this point, I didn’t even care about Matt and Livvy, and that kind of scared me.
It took me a minute to form a reply, and when I did, it came out prefaced by a snort. “I don’t think he’ll care one bit.”
Grant rolled onto his elbow, his gaze intense. “Why do you say that? If you were my girlfriend, I wouldn’t be happy about you spending the night next to some other guy.”
If you were my girlfriend.
My brain got caught up thinking about that and couldn’t move past it. Maybe I didn’t know Grant well enough to know if I wanted to be his girlfriend. But I’d learned enough I knew I wouldn’t mind exploring the idea. I’d had more fun with him in one day than I’d had with Matt in months.
Matt.
Glancing up through my lashes, I found Grant still watching me, his head propped in his hand as he laid on his side.
“I got a text this morning.” Digging in the blankets, my hand closed around my phone. I pulled up the picture of Matt and Livvy, holding it out for him to see.
“Whoa.” Grant frowned at the screen, its light illuminating his