Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,209

thought herself disciplined to start only at the point of John Laurens’ departure, but then, of course, she had to go back and see his first scene, and after that, well, all bets were off.

“You still up?” Wes asked when the two of them came in, tip-toeing and whispering.

“Hm yeah.” Taylor took out her earbuds and hit the pause button. Burr was once again refusing to help drive the momentum behind the fledgling Constitution. She would never have guessed she would know the history of it all by heart.

“Studying?” Nelson asked, extracting his coat and hanging it by the door.

“Uh, no.” She yawned, only realizing then what time it was. The stretch felt good. “Watching a movie. How was y’all’s?”

“Oh.” Nelson looked at Wes. “Good.”

“That’s good. Paige and Lauren like it?” she asked.

They looked at each other again.

“Yeah,” Wes said. “Throw in a little guy-likes-girl here and there, and they’re happy campers.”

Taylor smiled at that. “Hopeless romantics.” She nodded. “I understand.” In the silence, she thought of something else, something that had been lurking in her mind all day. “Listen, I was going to tell you guys, thanks for letting me stay here for a while.”

“Oh, sure,” Nelson said.

“Of course,” Wes chimed in.

“No problem.”

She curled her feet under her in the chair. “It’s just that I’m probably going to be getting a room come Monday.”

Their gazes snapped together.

“Monday?” Wes asked.

“Really?” Nelson asked. “Greg never said anything.”

Taylor nodded. “I know. I haven’t told him yet.” She shrugged slightly. “I was afraid he’d want to help, and he’s done so much already.” Glancing over at him, she smiled. “All of you have really. I just… I wanted to be sure you knew how much I appreciate it. Really. I don’t know what I would’ve done if… if you guys weren’t here.” Hot tears stung the backs of her eyes, and she laughed and shook them off. “Sorry. I think it’s late. I should really be getting to bed.”

Closing the laptop, she stood and stepped over to each of them in turn to give them a hug.

“Don’t ever change, okay?” she said, and with that, she went to bed and fell into a deep sleep that never lifted the rest of the night.

Since neither of them had plans on Saturday, Taylor talked Greg into using the day to get ahead with homework and studying. Thankfully, she was caught up in all of her classes, so she could help him. They studied for his certification, and then she went into the kitchen to clean a little while he worked on his next assignment in political science.

With him in the living room, she turned her laptop on but low enough that she thought she was the only one who could really hear it. By now, she had many of the Hamilton songs on loop in her mind so much that she could sing whole parts of them by heart—especially the repeating parts. She was deep into Say No to This when Greg suddenly walked in.

She hadn’t heard him coming, and she was slow dancing along to the song which was a sexy, soulful, R&B jam about Alexander’s affair with Ms. Maria Reynolds. The jerk her heart gave when he was suddenly standing there watching her nearly stopped it altogether. “Oh, my… Jeez. You scared me.”

Stunned. It was the only word Greg could come up with to describe seeing her move like that. He had always known, always suspected that she could be a seductress if she wanted to. But wow. She could’ve set the kitchen on fire with those moves. “Sorry,” he said, tripping over the word and his own two feet the second he realized he shouldn’t be watching like that. “I-I was just going to get something…” He pointed at the refrigerator with no smooth to it.

“Oh, y-yeah,” she said, and she went back to scrubbing the sink.

The truth was, he would give anything to see her dance like that again, but she only glanced at him once before going back to her work like she had something against the sink. He felt bad for intruding on her, but what was done was done, and in his mind, he would relish that sight for the rest of his days.

“So that’s got an hour to cook,” Taylor said, coming out about 30 minutes later. “You want to study some more, or are you working on something?”

“Uh, yeah, maybe in a little bit. I’ve got to finish this,” he said without really looking up. The