Series: Fever Falls Series by Riley Hart
Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
I couldn’t help but laugh. Dax would hate to know the guy called him Donnie Gibson—his childhood star persona. Although, the other guys would have gotten a kick out of the fact that someone thought it was a big deal they were staying at the lodge.
Sawyer smiled but closed his eyes, as if slightly embarrassed by the notoriety of our company. “Yes, that would be our crew.”
“Quite the celebrity squad.”
Sawyer mitigated the usual excitement that came along with someone discovering our connection with the gang, and then Bert checked our reservation. “So you guys have actually been upgraded to the chalet. We’ll just need a card.”
“A chalet?” Sawyer asked. “No. We had seven rooms.”
“Yes, there will be seven in the chalet we have for you, so that should be fine, yes?”
“An upgrade sounds fabulous,” I insisted. “Where is it located?”
“It’ll be outside the lodge. You’ll need to drive down the road a bit to get to it, but you’ll be able to move back and forth to the lodge easily. It has a great view of the village.”
“Well, if we must endure these extravagances,” I said in jest.
“I’ll make your keys for you to get into your chalet, and if there are any issues with it, we can move you into rooms over here. How’s that? We’ve had several cancellations, so there’s plenty of space. But you should swing by the bar and have a couple of drinks before you get situated. It looks like both of you could use something to help you relax.”
“Yeah, a drink will do us good.” I rested my hand on Sawyer’s shoulder, but he shifted, pulling his shoulder back, and I froze.
I just wanted to soothe him, help him ease up after the stress of the drive, but with such a simple gesture, he’d made it perfectly clear he didn’t want comfort from me. Not in that moment.
I stood there, my hand still midair for an instant as he watched me pull it away.
“Yeah, I could use a drink right about now,” Sawyer said, taking a breath, like he realized that perhaps he was far too on edge.
Although this time, I had a feeling it didn’t have much to do with the drive. Since I’d started spending more time in Fever Falls to help out Dax, my boss, Sawyer and I had never really hit it off. If anything, he was cordial with me, tolerated me despite his indifference. And I had to admit, it was the part of him that intrigued me most. Yet even the limited regard he did have for me from the get-go seemed to disappear that night at the club when he caught me with a dick in my mouth. Now it was like he didn’t want to have anything to do with me, even when we were hanging out with all of the guys.
After we finished checking in, we left our things at the registration desk and went to get a drink. I slipped onto a barstool and checked the weather report on my phone while Serious Sawyer stepped out to message his brother. A few minutes later, Sawyer returned. He removed his fur-hooded coat and draped it over the back of the bar-high chair beside me. The bright-red sweater he had on highlighted the pink in his cheeks and the red in his auburn hair.
“And here I figured you might grab your bag and head to the chalet without me,” I remarked.
He slid onto the barstool and removed his round, thick-rimmed glasses, then retrieved a black cloth from his pocket and wiped the lenses. “I was Facebook-messaging with Cam. Just hope the roads are okay when they get here. I wouldn’t want the guys driving if it’s anything worse than what we experienced.”
I was glad Sawyer was comfortable driving in the snow. Apparently, Georgia got a lot more snow than I realized during my relatively short span of time in the Falls. And outside of traveling, Los Angeles hadn’t exactly provided me with many opportunities to deal with driving through snowfall.
“Oh, well,” I said. “Looks like you might be stuck with just me for a few days.”
He’d put his glasses on just as I finished saying the words, and judging by the way he was eyeing me—practically cringing—I wasn’t planning on making that joke again anytime soon. Fortunately, the awkward moment was broken when the bartender slid two napkins in front of us.
“A dirty martini,” I said. “And he’ll have a strawberry mojito.”
I’d hardly thought twice about it, but I noticed Sawyer still looking at me as soon as the bartender headed off to fix our drinks.
“What? I know your favorite drink by now.”
“Yes, I see that. Are you trying to give me a hard time by making it look like we’re a couple?”
“I think we’d be a cute couple,” I insisted, finally evoking the sort of annoyed expression I was more accustomed to from Sawyer. “Relax. I was simply trying to be nice because you braved the snow for us. This round’s on me.”