I got angry.
“Know what? Screw this.”
Shane’s expression went from tired resignation to shock and surprise as I knelt down and scooped up one of the sleeping bags.
/> “You want me to choose? Is that it?” I scoffed, shaking the makeshift bedroll. “That’s pretty funny. Because you didn’t want me to choose last night, when you were both with me.”
I turned and stomped off, in the opposite direction. Toward the staircase leading up, to the second and third floors, rather than down.
“M—Morgan, wait!” Jeremy called after me. “Where are you going?”
“To sleep.”
“But—”
“In a bed,” I reiterated. “Alone.”
I stomped up the stairs, dragging the sleeping bag behind me. The bed would be cold, and frozen, and rock hard… but it would be all mine. I wouldn’t be forced to choose, or feel guilty, or worry about hurting anyone’s ego or feelings.
“Morgan—”
Ignoring their pleas, I continued upward and followed the landing. One slam of a very frozen door later, I was alone in the near pitch-darkness of the icy hotel bedroom.
Well… damn.
The whole place was much darker and colder than I anticipated. Maybe because the last time I was here, I had the benefit of two warm bodies on either side of me.
It’s so lonely.
I told myself I didn’t care. I was still too angry, too warmed up by the fury of these three guys trying to make me feel guilty for being with them. After all, they’d seduced me. They’d been the ones who’d—
Oh stop it, Morgan. Everything you did, you did willingly.
Even the voice in my head was no longer on my side. I wanted to silence it like everything else. Drown it out by pulling the sleeping bag tight over my head and letting sleep finally take me.
The bed was harder than I remembered it. Whatever fun I’d had here last night was definitely over.
Just go to sleep.
It was good advice. I’d do my level best to take it.
Everything always looks better in the morning.
Usually that was true. But in this case, was it? I’d still have the same big dilemma. I’d still be caught between three guys I cared about equally — three beautiful, incredible guys who at some point had each saved my life!
And here I was repaying them by betraying them. Or at least, trying to do the right thing by them.
Maybe you belong with no one, the little voice in the back of my mind chanted. Maybe you don’t deserve any of thes—
“Shut the fuck up!”
My words rang hollowly in the empty room. Great. Now on top of everything else, I was yelling at myself too.
Goodnight Morgan, I told myself firmly.
Still wishing I had a pillow, or a heater, or a companion… I tried drifting off to sleep for the second time that night.
Thirty-Four