“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Maya said you weren’t even a resort employee, so what are you doing in theresort?” I mimicked the way he’d said the word at the airport, just to mess with him.
“Yes, as everyone keeps reminding me.” Noah walked over to a clearance display outside the clothing boutique, grabbed a t-shirt off the rack. “I’m just here to pick up a tour group.” He pulled the t-shirt over his head, but it looked at least a size too small. The lines of his arms and shoulder stretched the cotton to its limit.
I held my hand to my face, trying to muffle a giggle.
“What’s so funny?” Noah glared.
“Nothing.” My eyes flicked back to his shirt. It read “Mountain Man” in bold font across the chest. I suppressed another giggle. “What kind of tour?” I asked, not really interested, but looking for a distraction.
“Hiking tour.”
“That sounds … horrible.”
We did our whole glaring and glowering thing.
“I thought you said you had a Zoom call,” said Noah,clearly done with our conversation. “You need help getting there or something?”
“Is that a question or an offer?” The words tumbled out before my brain could stop them, landing between us with all the subtlety of a falling piano. They seemed to surprise him even more than me.
“Um …” Noah’s eyebrows shot up. His cheeks were now as red as his scalded chest.
“Actually, it’s fine. I’m sure I can find it all by myself.” Before he could respond, I brushed forcefully past him, ignoring the electric sensation when my arm accidentally grazed his bare skin. I dumped the now-empty cups in the nearest bin and marched down the hall, refusing to look back even as I felt his eyes boring into the back of my skull.
As I passed under the elk head wearing the beanie, not its scarf-wearing cousin, the frozen smirk on its taxidermied lips seemed to be laughing at me.
I spotted a sign with an arrow that said “Business Center” and nearly broke into a run. I was actually looking forward to the Zoom call now. Anything to distract me from what I’d just done. Taking the steps two at a time, I clung to one last desperate hope: that I would never see Mr. Mountain Shirt Grumpy Muscles ever again.
Chapter Eleven
“Hello? Hello? Can you hear us?” Maya shouted toward the gigantic black screen on the wall, then pressed a button on and off again, for the hundredth time. “How about now?”
Recessed lighting cast a muted glow over the polished mahogany table, where a silver speakerphone sat like a metallic spaceship. Maya fiddled with more settings on a control pad. I wouldn’t have been surprised if somewhere, rockets launched into space.
After a swift smack of the remote control on the table, the massive wall-mounted screen flickered to life, splitting into three empty rectangles.
“Can you hear me now?” called a disembodied voice from one of the voids.
In another, a close-up of someone’s nostrils appeared. The third remained stubbornly dark. Like a black hole consuming the universe.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” Marcus’s voice crackled from the speakerphone, though his face was nowhere to be seen.
“We can hear you, Marcus, but we can’t see you.” Maya leaned forward and yelled into the box.
A harsh static blared from the speakerphone as a fourth square appeared, showing Victoria’s face frozen in an unflattering mid-blink, her mouth open mid-word, one that looked like it rhymed with “luck.” Eventually, her lips started moving, but no sound emerged.
“Victoria, you need to unmute yourself,” Marcus shouted, as if the increased volume of his voice could somehow solve a mute button problem.
After another fifteen minutes of technological incompetence, a couple of IT guys intervened and our Zoom call got underway.
“Finally,” said Victoria, smoothing her perfectly coiffed hair as if the technical difficulties had somehow physically mussed it. “Shall we begin?”
Maya cleared her throat. “While we have everyone here, I just want to mention how awesome Sam’s content has been performing. I think she’s really outdone herself.”
I gave her a quick smile of gratitude. It was nice knowing at least someone had my back.
“Her shots of the grotto bar alone generated more buzz than our entire spring campaign. And don’t even get me started on her Instagram stories from the spa tour,” Maya continued. “We’ve already had three booking inquiries just this morning.”
“Only three?” asked Marcus.
