Page 62 of The Hopelessly Bromantic Duet

This is not my bed.

Which means I’m not near my alarm.

Which also means I conked out with Jude.

He’s parked on his side, the sheets riding low on his back, his hair sticking up as he sleeps.

My heart gives a kick. I could get used to this view.

That’s the trouble. Rubbing my eyes, I sit up and look around for a clock, but there isn’t one.

I really hope I didn’t sleep past seven-thirty. I need to be in the office by eight-thirty.

Quietly, I swing my feet out of bed, but the floorboards creak. I freeze in my birthday suit, stealing a backward glance. Jude rustles, flipping over to his back, and I stifle a groan.

He’s hard, his morning wood tenting the sheets.

He sighs, stretches, and I’m sure he’s going to open his eyes, push up on his elbows, and then suggest I take care of matters south of the border.

I would.

But he stays asleep.

Maybe that’s for the best. We might have to talk if he got up, and I still don’t know what to say to him.

I pad out of his room, carefully snicking the door shut behind me.

I hunt for my phone, finding it in the living room on the coffee table. In three, two, one seconds, it will blast off.

But I catch the alarm in time, silencing it.

Good. Don’t want to wake up Jude.

Though to be fair, my alarm beeps every weekday, and I don’t worry about waking him. Today though? I definitely don’t want him up because I don’t know what to say about last night.

Hey, so that was amazing, and I want to sleep with you ten million more times. What do you say we bang our way through the next fifty weeks, seven nights a week, and in the mornings too?

Oh sure, I know it’s a terrible, risky idea, and no way would it work out, but I’m insanely into you, and I promise I won’t develop a smidge of feelings for you.

Well, nothing more than the smidge AND A TON AND A HALF I have right now.

Yeah, this won’t be an easy convo, and we didn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole last night.

After sex, we cleaned up, then when I stood in the hall, pondering where to go—because that’s what I fucking do, I overthink everything—he just rolled his eyes, tipped his forehead to his room, and said, “Come on. I might want to suck you off in the middle of the night.”

Well, I didn’t turn that down. But he didn’t blow me either. We both slept straight through.

And now it’s tomorrow.

Talking about last night is inevitable, but the thought churns my gut.

I gather my clothes from last night, hang the still-damp ones to dry, then jam the rest into the hamper in my room before I head to the shower. Under the water, I try to make sense of what’s next. I try to brace for whatever Jude will say.That was fun, but let’s move on now that we’ve got that out of our systems, shall we?

My chest is a little hollow, knowing that once is probably all we’ll have.

One time can be explained as a mistake. Or a necessity, what with hormones and all.

Anything more is deliberate. As deliberate as playing with fire and thinking you won’t get burned.