Page 16 of Fall For Me
“Oh, um, hello.”
“Hi?” She sounds more awake at hearing a woman’s voice instead of his deep baritone.
“Hi. I am, mmm, with Liam, and he’s passed out and told me to call you and not a doctor. So, err, sorry for waking you up.”
I hear scuffing, and when she speaks again, she sounds fully alert. “Why is he out? Where are you? And who are you?”
“I—err—he fell off his bike earlier and hurt his leg. Then he came to my room, I don’t know why, acting delirious, and hit his shin against a low table and dropped like a stone. We’re in the honeymoon suite at the Rockwood Resort. And I’m Peyton.” I rattle out answers to her questions.
A sigh that sounds more competent than spooked. “Alright, Peyton. Any other symptoms?”
“He’s burning up, sweaty, and a little pasty.”
“Put a wet cloth on his forehead. I’ll be there in ten.”
She hangs up before I reply. I do as she said with the cold compress and wait by the door.
A knock comes fifteen minutes later.
I hurry to open up, ready to explain I don’t know why I have a comatose man on my floor, but the redhead from the phone photo greets me with a tired smile. She doesn’t look like she needs explanations. She looks like she needs coffee. She’sdrowning in gray sweatpants and an oversized hoodie, her long hair piled in a haphazard ponytail. She has a black duffel bag slung over her shoulder and is carrying a plastic pedicure basin.
“Hi.” Her voice is surprisingly chipper for two in the morning. “Peyton?”
“Yeah.” I nod, stepping back to let her in.
“Where is my favorite idiot?”
A flicker of discomfort twists in my chest. Why is he her favorite? Is she his girlfriend? Does she find it weird that Liam is in my room? Why isn’t she mad?
I point to the floor. “I tried to move him, but he’s heavy.”
“Yeah, he’s got a thick skull. Adds weight.” Lila peers over my shoulder, her expression shifting to exasperated affection. She drops her supplies on the console table and brushes past me, bringing in the scent of rain. “We need to move him onto the bed.”
I eye the expanse of tuxedo-clad muscle. “He’s got to be two hundred pounds of dead weight.”
“We have to try.” She crouches by his feet, rolling up her hoodie sleeves. “Grab his shoulders. I’ll take his ankles.”
I kneel behind him, my robe bunching awkwardly around my thighs. His face is slack, flushed with fever while also pasty, but even unconscious, the sharp cut of his jaw and the dark sweep of his lashes against his cheeks are annoyingly compelling. I remove the wet towel from his forehead and slip my hands under his armpits, where heat radiates off him like a furnace.
“Which leg is injured?” Lila asks.
“His left.”
She nods, adjusting her grip on his ankle. “On three. One, two?—”
We heave. We grunt, strain, try again. My arms burn, and sweat prickles along my hairline. We manage to nudge himmaybe a foot before Lila gently lowers his legs with a huff, and I ease his shoulders back against the carpet.
“This is why I could never kill someone,” Lila mutters matter-of-factly. “I’d never be able to get rid of the body.”
A startled snort escapes me. “Yeah, that’s the main reason.”
She grins, and it feels strangely easy. Like I’m moving a body with my oldest friend and not a stranger I just met. “Right? They make it look too simple in movies and books.”
We both stare at the immovable lump of a man between us.
Lila sighs. Then, without warning, she kneels down and slaps him across the face.
The smack echoes through the suite.
