Parting Chances (Fighting Chance #1) (8 page)

I let out a groan, remembering the movie night planned tonight at the boys’ house. We hadn’t all hung out as a group since classes started, and with the upcoming midterms, a break was needed. However, today had been the longest day in the history of ever, and I just wanted to go home and crawl into bed. Maybe get a whole eight hours of sleep. That would be nice. Instead, I responded to her text.

Me: I’ll be there in a few.

The drive over felt longer than the fifteen minutes it typically took, and there was more than one time I wanted to turn in the opposite direction and drive to my apartment instead. But eventually, I pulled up in front of the house and slowly made my way inside.

Once I kicked off my shoes, I made my way into the empty living room and sprawled out on the couch. My legs spread out as far as they could, one arm behind my head, the other taking up the rest of the couch. My eyes closed the instant I was settled.

I heard Noah and Kyler, and the air filled with the smell of popcorn, making me salivate. My eyes popped open to see them getting comfortable on the loveseat. I would have felt bad about not giving them the larger sofa, but Kyler was the one who forced me to be here tonight, even after I had mentioned the super long day. They would just have to deal with the close quarters. Not that they would mind, considering they were currently feeding each other popcorn.

Eli walked into the living room with his own bowl of popcorn and stopped right by my head. “Move over.” He looked down at me.

“Why? Sit in the recliner.” I complained. I really did not want to move right now.

“If you knew what those two did in the recliner the other night, you wouldn’t want to sit there either.” Eli mentioned in a low voice.

“Oh. Ew.” I slid my butt down further, moving my head completely on the middle cushion and my feet were now dangling over the armrest. Eli was just going to have to deal with the one cushion because I was not sitting up.

He leaned down and moved some of my hair before sitting. I turned toward the TV where Noah had clicked play on some action movie.

Yeah, great. Totally in the mood for that.
I started to close my eyes again when Eli’s hand came in view of my face with a piece of popcorn.

“Want some?” he asked.

I opened my mouth, and he placed the kernel inside. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth as he watched me chew. Damn, that gaze… My tongue darted out to wet my lips, and his eyes darkened.

Well, hell. That was a lot sexier than it should have been.

I couldn’t let him do it again, so I leaned on my elbow and grabbed a handful of popcorn, feeding it to myself. The effort to stay propped up was too much for my lazy body, and after the first handful of popcorn, I went back to laying down. My arm curled under my head rested against Eli’s thigh. I tossed my other arm slightly over my head, and my fingers, having a mind of their own, decided to rest on
top
of his thigh.

Eli didn’t move his leg or my fingers, so I figured he wasn't having an issue with it. We were friends after all, right? My gaze met Kyler’s, who was giving me an arched eyebrow and looking down at my fingers. I gave her a small smirk and closed my eyes.

This action movie that should have kept me awake just wasn’t doing it for me tonight. I should have just gone home after work, but hanging out with my friends always came above sleep. And let’s face it, I wasn’t about to leave now—not when I had an excuse to be this close to Eli. And I knew it was probably a stupid idea, but in my exhausted state, I was tempted to just throw my plan of not dating anyone out the window. Especially since it was only getting harder and harder to deny my feelings the more time we spent together.

***

The room was dark when I woke up, only the TV giving off any light. I rolled to my side and repositioned my head on my pillow. It was the most uncomfortable pillow I had ever slept on. I moved my hands up to adjust it and felt strong, muscular legs. I bolted upright and stared into the amused eyes of Eli’s.

“Um…” Words failed me.

“You were out before the movie started. Kyler told me not to wake you up.” He smirked. “You’re a wild sleeper.” He nodded to the leg I’d claimed as a pillow and I felt heat rush through my face.

This had to be in the top five of awkward and embarrassing things to ever happen to me. Thankfully, I hadn’t drooled.

Or had I?

I scanned his leg, looking for any drool spots. I didn’t see any and relaxed…slightly.

“I should get going.” I stood, stretched my arms over my head and yawned.

“You can crash here. It’s really late. Or…early,” he said after glancing at the clock.

“The couch? That’s okay. No one else needs to see how I sleep.” Even though I knew both Kyler and Noah had seen me sleeping before.

“We have the guest room.”

The idea of just climbing the stairs and going to sleep was very tempting to me.

“I should just go home. I don’t have any clothes to sleep in. These smell like coffee.” I had just realized that I was still in my gross work clothes. Coffee and pie stains along with the smell, yeah, I was a pretty sight.

“Go upstairs. You’re exhausted. Take a shower, Kyler has some stuff in the bathroom you can use. I’ll get you some clothes.” He grabbed my hand, sending fire through my veins, and pulled me up the stairs, pausing outside the bathroom door. He opened the linen closet and handed me two towels. “Go. Shower. Relax.” He pushed me into the bathroom and closed the door behind me.

He didn’t have to tell me twice, I stripped my clothes off and stepped into the shower. The hot water pounded on my back, instantly relaxing me. The idea of leaving the shower seemed really unappealing, but I was sure they didn’t have an unlimited supply of hot water. Kyler’s bath products were easy to spot, since they took up the entire shower caddy hanging above the shower. As I was lathering my hair the bathroom door opened, letting in a gust of cool air. My arms wrapped around my body in instinct as I waited for the intruder to say something, but a few moments later, the door shut again, the bathroom remaining silent. I peeked around the curtain, praying no one was propped on the toilet. The room was empty, but there was a pile of clothes sitting on the counter. I eyed the thin curtain, hoping it wasn’t see-through. If Kyler had been the one to drop them off, she would have said something. So that had me believing Eli had left them, and I really hoped he didn’t get an eyeful.

I finished my shower and came out smelling like some fruity drink—fuzzy navel, pina colada, bahama mama? Something with peach and coconut, which was completely different from my usual mixture of lavender and honey. When I was fully dry, I slipped into the sweatpants that Eli had set on the counter. It took me a moment, after I had to tighten and roll the waist down so they would somewhat fit, to realize that these were Eli’s sweats. The shirt was his too. If it wasn’t the size that gave it away, it was definitely the smell. The crisp citrus and woodsy smell that was uniquely Eli overwhelmed me. I gathered my work clothes and hurried to the guest bedroom. A queen-size bed sat in the middle of the room with an old quilt comforter over the top. An antique dresser placed against one wall completed the room. It was simple, yet very homey and comforting. The only issue was now I was wide awake.

I sat on the middle of the mattress and checked through Facebook on my phone. If I’d known I was going to be staying over, I would’ve brought something to occupy my time with. My phone beeped, the red exclamation point in the battery picture at the top of my phone indicated just how badly it needed to be charged. Not wanting to wake Kyler and Noah, or walk in on them in a compromising position, I hopped off the bed and padded down the hall to Eli’s room. His door was cracked open with light spilling out into the hallway. I tapped lightly and waited for a response. The door cracked open further, and Eli stood there looking especially attractive in his green athletic shorts and white shirt. His hair was even messier than usual, my fingers twitched in the need to run them through that mop.

“Hey,” he said, holding back a grin from my obvious stare.

“Hey, um…do you have a phone charger I can borrow? My phone is almost dead.” I held it up to prove that I wasn’t just coming over here to ogle him.

“My phone’s on it right now, but I have a double charger. Just let me find another cord.”

My eyes followed him as he bent over his desk and started rummaging through a drawer. Yep, I was checking out his amazing ass. I turned my head to take in the rest of his room. A bed…and
now
I was thinking about him sleeping there. A dresser…shit, he probably has boxers in there. Or maybe briefs. Oh dear lord, maybe he’s a commando guy. At that thought, my eyes flicked back to his butt. Yeah, this
so
wasn’t helping. Ugh! Haley, find something not attractive about this room!

The walls were covered in framed photos. Good, focus on the wood, Haley. The wood on the
frames
. Oh jeez.

“Here we go.” He broke me out of my dirty thoughts, and heat rushed to my face. His lips tugged up in the corners as he took in my face, but thankfully he only held up a cord and walked over to his bed to plug it into the charger.

“Thanks.” I handed my phone to him and he plugged it in and set it next to his on the nightstand. Now that I was without a phone, I really had nothing to do.

“The clothes fit all right?” Eli asked while his eyes scanned my body. I’m going to assume from the look on his face he thought they fit well, or he just really enjoyed me in his clothes.

“Yeah. Thanks.” I resisted the urge to take a sniff of his shirt again. That wouldn’t seem creepy or anything. Plus I was in his room; his presence was overwhelming in itself. “So, um, I should probably go…stare at the ceiling.”

Eli let out a laugh. “I take it the shower woke you up?”

“I should have known it would. Showers
always
wake me up. I guess I just really didn’t want to smell like rotten coffee and pie so I overlooked that.”

“Want to play?” He pointed to his TV, which had a video game on pause.

“I would be horrible at that. I’m pretty much useless when it comes to game controllers. I just hit every button hoping something works.”

“I’m sure I have something that doesn’t require that much control work.” Eli laughed and walked over to a tote next to his TV and started looking through it. I stood rooted in my spot, unsure of what to do with myself. “Ah ha!” Eli exclaimed holding a game up. “I think you can manage this one.” He set the game up and patted the spot next to him. I lost control of my butt and it settled right up against his hip on the cushy mattress. He smiled but didn’t mention our proximity.

“I still think I’m just going to be pushing random buttons,” I said as the game loaded.

Eli nudged my shoulder with his. “I think you’ll be fine.” We turned back to the TV in time to see the Jeopardy logo appear on the screen.

“Really? There’s a Jeopardy game?” I wiggled my butt and straightened my back because I was going to
own
this thing. Though, I didn’t know how hard the questions were, or if I was going to end up looking like an idiot in front of Eli. That brought me down a notch.

“All you have to do is hit the X button to buzz in. Then just arrow over to type in your answer. No crazy mass panic button-mashing here.” He helped me set up a profile , then asked, “You ready?”

The Jeopardy board appeared on the screen.

“Guess so.” My palms were already sweating in fear of making a fool out of myself. Great, now Eli could see how dumb I really was.

“Player one goes first,” Eli said as he selected a category. “U.S. Presidents for 400, please, Alex,” he muttered to the TV.

I could barely hold back my grin at how serious he took this game, when a semi-robotic Alex Trebek voice started talking. “He was President during the War of 1812.” I hit the X on my controller only to receive a vibrating buzz.

“What the…?” I hit the X again, but it was too late, Eli had already gotten in. The screen flicked over to show “Who is” followed by a blank line.

“You have to hit the X right when he finishes talking otherwise you’re going to get locked out and will have to wait a few seconds. Probably should have told you that before.” He gave me a grin and a wink as he quickly typed in “James Madison” as his answer.

“That is correct,” the voice from the TV confirmed his answer, and he got to pick again.

“Literary Characters for 200, Alex.” He didn’t even seem to realize he was speaking it out loud. This time, I couldn’t stop the laugh.

“Do you do that every time?” I asked. A blush crept up his neck as his thumb hovered over the X button.

“I guess I’ve been playing this for so long that I completely forget I even do it. Plus, I usually only play with Noah, and he does the same thing.” He hit the X, and we waited for the answer.

“In
Great Expectations
, this aged lady still wears her wedding dress.”

My thumb slammed down on the X right as the clue ended and my name flashed on the TV bringing up the answer keyboard. “Yes!” I exclaimed as I quickly typed the answer out. “M-I-S-S space H-A-V-I-S-H-A-M,” I muttered the letters as I clicked on them, then hit enter.