Page 31 of Slapshot Kiss

I get to my room, dump my bag by the door, and kick off my shoes without bothering to turn on more than the lamp beside the bed.

The room is exactly like every other hotel room we stay in. Too much beige, aggressively crisp sheets, one armchair nobody will ever sit in, and a framed print on the wall that looks like someone took a picture of absolutely nothing and charged three hundred bucks for it.

I should shower.

I should sleep.

Instead, I stretch out on top of the covers in my travel clothes and check my phone for what has to be the fifteenth time since we landed.

Nothing.

I toss it onto the mattress beside me.

Pick it back up thirty seconds later.

Still nothing.

Jesus Christ. I’m a mess.

The funny thing is, none of this was planned.

When I asked Quinn to watch Pickles, I really did need someone to watch my dog. I wasn’t sitting there rubbing my hands together like some cartoon villain, plotting a way to get Quinn Brennan alone in my apartment.

But completely by accident, Pickles has handed me the perfect opening.

When I get home, I’ll have a reason to text her. A reason to thank her. A reason to see her again.

And I’m sure as hell not above taking advantage of a lucky break when one drops right into my lap.

If Pickles helps me sneak my way a little further into Quinn Brennan’s life while I’m at it?

Good boy.

Her message comes in around eleven, my time.

No text first. Just a photo.

Pickles, flat on his back in the middle of my living room floor, legs straight up like he’s been shot out of a cannon, tongue hanging sideways out of his mouth.

Quinn:

He does this every forty-five minutes. Is that normal?

I laugh out loud, alone in my hotel room like a complete idiot.

I go to type something back, and that’s when I look at the photo more closely.

There’s my coffee table in frame, the corner of the couch, and at the very edge, barely there, the sleeve of the hoodie I left thrown over the armchair.

She’s just there.

In my apartment.

Surrounded by my stuff, casual as anything, texting me about my own dog from my own couch like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

I expect it to feel like an invasion. I don’t let people into that part of my life for a reason. Strangely it doesn’t feel like an invasion.

Me: