CHAPTER EIGHT
“He’s my best friend.” Remi taps a single knuckle on the back of the cab’s leather seat.
I hang my head like a small child caught doing something bad. “I know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I’m your brother. You can trust me.”
“I know.” Snow-covered trees slide by the side window as the cab Remi and I are in heads back to the hotel.
Marley opted to stay behind and not witnessRemi’s freak out. She said we had to handle it on our own. Some friend.
“I want you to go straight to your room and stay there the rest of the day. At least until I figure this out.”
What? “You’re sending me to my room? I’m not a child, Remi.”
“Then stop acting like one!”
I have no idea how Marley puts up with this man. The cab climbs the steep hill to the hotel while I sit in the seat nextto Remi and plot my revenge. The vehicles comes to a halt and Remi pulls out his wallet to use an athlete voucher to pay the fare. It’s the number one reason I agreed to share a cab with him in the first place. I slam the car door, making sure he knows it is for emphasis, and with heavy steps stomp up to the hotel.
Like a child.
But that is beside the point.
I make it all the way to the elevatorbank completely ignoring Remi. For once, luck is on my side and the door is already open. So I run inside and press the button for my floor. He walks into the lobby front door and puts his hands up in the air like I’m supposed to hold this elevator for him. But he apparently forgot he told me to go to my room like he’s my father. If I needed my father to yell at me he’s a few doors down frommy own room. I could go find him myself. There’s no way in hell I’m holding one open for Remi.
My smirk is one hundred percent a little sister smile, with one side of my lips tipped up, one eyebrow cocked, and a shoulder to my ear in a “who, me?” shrug.
“Oops,” I yell out the sliver of a door opening right before it closes.
Even though Remi isn’t on the floor when the elevator comes to a stop,I still stomp the entire way to my hotel room. I let myself in mumbling harsh swearwords under my breath. I’ll never know what makes that man so bossy. Or why our family listens to him.
That’s the problem. We all reinforce his delusion of being able to boss us around by letting him boss us around. It needs to stop.
I’m part of the problem. I’ll admit it.
I drape myself over the still perfectlymade bed — I wonder what the housekeeping staff thought of that — and stare at the ceiling. Overall it’s a clean hotel, except for the long black streak next to the light that mars the pristine whiteness of the ceiling in general. Maybe the light became too hot and some small bug had to crawl for a few inches to a certain death leaving black scorch marks behind.
Hey, it’s better than all theother ideas that come to mind.
At least it’s not a chunk of hair. I can’t tell you the number of hotel rooms I’ve stayed in for one of Remi’s events where there is a hair in the bathtub. I list all the rooms that have had questionable substances or splotches on a wall until Remi knocks on the door.
I half sit up, my feet hitting the floor not nearly as loud as I’d like.
He knocks again.
“What,Remi!” I stomp my way all the way to the door. Hopefully the people below me aren’t late sleepers. “I’m in my room. Just like you told…”
Except it’s not Remi on the other side of the door when I open it, but my ex-boyfriend Jake.
“Jake?” What the heck is he doing in here?
He takes a step inside my room. “Reagan, I had to come talk to you.”
“You could have picked up a phone not flown acrossan ocean.” I take a few steps back in the room, giving him space to enter, and then close the door behind him.
Jake, who has never been one for the cold, unzips a ridiculously large winter coat and pulls off a long ear flap hat. His messy hair is going every which direction underneath it. “It couldn’t do this over the phone.”
“Why not?” It’s a stressful day, but not so stressful I forget hecheated…again.
