Page 56 of Room Serviced
“No,” Max went on. He paused for a moment, then said, “I take it you’re not seeing anyone, either?”
“Nope.”
“Good,” he said, pressed her against the wall, and kissed her.
An hour later, Sloane untangled herself from the mess they’d made of the sheets and each other, and got out of bed. She used the bathroom, then grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen. Max hadn’t done all the dishes while she was in the shower earlier, but he’d organized the mess, at least. There was a window above the sink, and Sloane looked out of it at the streetlights and the building next door. Far too late, she wondered if she should have put a shirt on.
Back in the bedroom, Max was sitting up, shirtless, knees bent, reading a book. His hair was still down around his shoulders. After a moment, he looked at up her.
“Just to be clear,” she started. “When you said crash at my place?—”
“Fuck’s sake,” Max muttered, yanking back the blankets from the other side of the bed. “Yes, I meant Have sex with me and sleep in my bed. It wasn’t a riddle.”
“When I tell people to crash at my place, it’s usually a friend who’s going to sleep on the couch,” Sloane said, getting in. She didn’t bother putting a shirt on.
Max sighed. “The context didn’t help?”
“The context is the only reason I thought I might not be sleeping on the couch.”
“Fine,” Max said, but he was trying not to smile as he put a bookmark in the book and placed it on his nightstand. “Next time, I’ll say Spend the night here so we can fuck before spending a holiday with our families.”
He clicked off his light, and the room went dark, the weight of him sliding in next to her. An arm went around her waist, and Sloane rolled onto her side as Max curled around her.
“Thanks, that’s much clearer,” she said, and drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Seventeen
They’d meant to get on the road to Last Chance in the morning, as soon as rush hour died down, but it hadn’t happened. When they’d woken up, Max had meant to say Good morning. How did you sleep? and instead he’d said Can I eat you out?
It had been another hour before they’d gotten out of bed and then another hour while they drank coffee and hung around in the kitchen, and then they’d gotten distracted by looking at videos of platypuses on Max’s laptop and—they hadn’t left when they’d meant to.
“Are you sure there’s a picnic area there?” Sloane was saying now, her eyes on the winding road in front of them, her sunglasses currently on. In about thirty seconds, Max figured, she’d take them off, then put them back on again a minute later. The burritos were on her back seat, making the whole car smell incredible, and they were climbing the Sierras east of Sacramento on a two-lane road through tall, thick evergreen trees that felt like they were holding up the sky. It was cloudy but bright, and they were in and out of the shade, which was why Sloane was fucking with her glasses so much.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Max said, and nudged the heat up a little. “I stop there all the time.”
“Okay,” Sloane said, and still didn’t sound like she believed him. Max rolled his eyes as Sloane took her sunglasses off again.
“I’ll make you a bet,” he said, instead of pointing out that he came this way once a month at least and, by her own admission, she hadn’t for nearly a year. “If I’m right and there’s a?—”
“I’m not making you more bets. I lost the last one,” she said, making a face at the windshield.
“Did you really lose, though?”
“I came ghost hunting with you!”
“And you had such a terrible time.”
That got him a quick glance and a smile before the road curved again. “Okay, yes, I had a good time, but I still lost the bet,” she said. “I think you had insider knowledge and it was rigged.”
Max hadn’t. He’d been champagne-drunk and trying to devise a way to see Sloane again, this time for longer than a few hours at some wedding.
“That wasn’t,” he admitted. “This time is, though, because I know for a fucking fact that there’s a picnic area at?—”
“I’m not taking your stupid bet because I believe you! Look, there,” she said, at the white-lettered brown sign that appeared around another curve, and slowed the car. “Devil’s Hills Overlook, two miles, and there’s a picnic table symbol next to it.”
“Told you,” Max said, and then laughed when she reached over and lightly shoved his shoulder.
There was a picnic area, and it was exactly where Max had said it would be, because he stopped here all the fucking time. Sloane parked her car in the tiny parking area and then stood, reading the informative plaque about local wildlife and the gold-rush-era general store that had once stood a quarter mile away.
