The sound of knocking resonated inside my head and startled my eyes open. The room was blurry, and I had to blink several times to recognize my surroundings.
A framed map of Tahiti hanging on the wall beside the TV jogged my memory, and instantly, I knew I was in my hotel room.
What time was it?
How long had I been asleep?
I had no idea.
I turned on my side and glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand.
8:15, it read.
As in, in the freaking morning of the following day…
“Thanks, mate.” Ollie’s voice filled my ears, and the sound of the door clicking shut followed.
I sat up in bed just as he made his way into the bedroom area of my room with a tray of food held tightly in hands. “Mornin’,” he said when his eyes met mine. “How are you feeling?”
“Uh…better,” I answered. “How long have I been asleep?”
He grinned. “Only about twenty hours or so.”
My eyes popped wide in surprise. “Seriously?”
[laughs softly]
Apparently, dehydration encourages partial comas.
A word of advice? Drink plenty of fluids, especially when you agree to go on a five-mile hike up a mountain to see a damn waterfall, and then follow it up by letting a handsome man with a pink surfboard show you how to surf beneath the blazing morning sun…
Ollie simply grinned and nodded at my overall surprise as he set the tray down between us and proceeded to climb in bed beside me. My body was still under the plush white comforter and his above it.
“So…you’ve been here the whole time?” I asked, and he nodded again.
“Yep.” He lifted the silver domes off of the plates to reveal a spread of pancakes and waffles and eggs and bacon and fruit and pretty much every breakfast item you could imagine.
“Why did you stay?” I asked. “You didn’t need to do that.”
He flashed a knowing look. “There was no way I was going to leave you by yourself like that.”
“So, you, uh, slept here? All night?” I asked, and he grinned at my question.
“Yes.” He pointed toward the sofa in the corner of the room where two pillows and a few blankets still lay. “Right over there.”
The man had stayed in my hotel room for twenty hours straight to make sure I was okay. And not only that, but as the memories of yesterday started to fill my head, I realized he’d also had to deal with my stubborn ass.
If I just went by his behavior over the last twenty-four hours, he seemed more saint than jerk, that was for damn sure.
I mean, I’d bitched. I’d complained. I’d all but refused a doctor.
And who knows how I would’ve been feeling that morning if he hadn’t stepped up and been the logical one out of the two of us.
[audible pause]
He’d basically been my own personal knight in shining armor, only replace the horse with a pink surfboard and the whole suit of armor with six-pack abs and board shorts.
I couldn’t see him as anything but a good guy in that moment.
“Wow… Thank you, Ollie,” I said quietly and met his brown gaze. “Thank you for taking care of me. I know I wasn’t the easiest to deal with yesterday.”
“No big deal. I’m just glad you’re okay.” He reached forward and handed me a fork from the tray. “Hungry?”
“Starved.” I took the fork from his hands, but before I could gorge myself on pancakes, my bladder screamed for relief. “But first, I’m going to make a quick stop in the bathroom.”
Ollie nodded and proceeded to dig into the food while I went into the bathroom and peed. When I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror as I washed my hands, I cringed.
My eyes were puffy, and my hair had definitely seen better days.
But surely, it couldn’t have looked worse than I’d looked after I’d passed out on the beach. Pale and sweaty didn’t look good on anyone, no matter who in the hell they were.
I brushed my teeth. Washed my face. And tossed my red locks into a messy bun on top of my head before I made my way back into the room and climbed up on the bed beside him.
It was surreal seeing him sitting there, on the hotel bed, my hotel bed, still dressed in his swim trunks and white T-shirt, and eating pancakes beside me.
Like, how in the hell had we managed to reach this point?
And what in the hell did it all mean?
“You okay?” he asked.
“Just peachy,” I lied.
I wasn’t just peachy. I was confused beyond belief.
But I didn’t know any other way to deal with it besides picking up my fork and taking a hearty bite of pancakes, aka avoiding it all together.
“Allie called your phone last night,” he said after he took a sip of coffee from one of the white porcelain mugs. “I hope you don’t mind, but I answered and let her know what was going on and that you were doing okay. I told her you’d call her when you woke up.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll make sure I call her in a little bit.”
“And, uh, Jordy stopped by your room…” He paused, and I turned to meet his gaze.
“He did?” I asked and noted the way his brown eyes appeared to narrow at the corners. “When?”
“Last night around eight or so.”
“Oh, was he okay?” I asked, and Ollie offered a curt nod.
“He said he was just seeing if you wanted to grab dinner,” he answered. “I let him know you had a pretty rough day and would be out of commission for the night.”
“Oh, okay.” I nodded and focused my attention back on the pancakes. “I guess I’ll have to call him later today.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” he said, his voice quiet but stiff, and then added, “I didn’t know you two were close…”
“Who?” I asked. “Me and Jordy?”
Ollie nodded, and I didn’t miss the awkward tension that spread between us.
But I didn’t understand where it was coming from.
So, I just shrugged it off with my shoulders and my words. “I guess you could say we’re good buddies.”
He didn’t say much after that, and I wasn’t too sure what he was trying to get at.
Was he asking if Jordy and I were friends? Dating? Fucking?
Oh God, just the thought of that made me cringe.
Jordy was more brother than anything else to me.
But I wasn’t sure if that was what Ollie was asking me in the first place, so I kept my mouth shut on the subject and reached for the TV remote on the nightstand.
“You mind if I change this?” I asked. “I’m all for staying up to date on the news, but sometimes, I need a little something else to watch while I’m eating breakfast.”
Ollie chuckled. “Have at it.”
I scrolled through the channels until I stopped on a rerun of Teen Mom on MTV.
“Shit,” he muttered beside me with a mouthful of waffles. “Janelle is crazy.”
My eyes went wide, and I turned to meet his gaze. “Seriously? You watch Teen Mom?” I asked and he shrugged.
“What can I say? I like reality shows.”
“Holy shit.” I giggled. “I can’t believe you watch Teen Mom.”
Ollie just laughed it off and continued eating his breakfast while his eyes stayed fixated on the screen.
A handsome surfer who had a penchant for wearing flip-flops and threadbare cargo shorts, yet he also happened to be a crazy successful businessman.
The man I’d thought was the biggest jerk on the planet when he’d picked me up from the Sydney airport, yet he had taught me how to swim and taken care of me for the last twenty hours or so after I’d fainted on the beach.
Not to mention, he was apparently an avid watcher of Teen Mom.
He was a conundrum.
And hell if that hadn’t made me more intrigued.
While Janelle and her mom argued about God only knows what, Ollie and I continued to eat breakfast together, sitting side by side on the bed, sharing bites of our food, and keeping up a steady stream of our own commentary on the show.
The conversation just flowed between us. Easy. Laid-back. Endlessly entertaining.
And the more time I spent with Ollie, the more I questioned my original first impression of him.
Was he really a jerk? I didn’t know the answer to that.
[silent pause]
But in that moment, all signs pointed toward the opposite…