Dickson stood up, clearly not afraid and approached him. When I saw Hayden’s shoulders shudder, I couldn’t figure out if he was shaking from the rage flowing through him, or if that noise being torn from the back of his throat indicated too many tears, threatening to drown him in a tsunami.
“Take a breath,” I heard Dickson instruct him as I scampered into the kitchen looking for some paper towels to clean up. Right now I couldn’t help Hayden and I couldn’t undo the pain that keeping a secret had caused, but I could pick up the shards of glass before someone stepped on them.
Giving them a minute, I fussed about in the kitchen, wiping over counters and opening cupboards. This life Hayden was living was only half a life, if you could even call it that. In the drawer was one knife, one fork and one spoon—clearly the guy wasn’t expecting company. He had two coffee mugs, a tumbler and a wine glass. If the rest of his house was as bare as the kitchen, it was no wonder he was on the verge of cracking. Poor guy was not only sad and heartbroken, but he was lonely and miserable too.
When I saw Dickson step back, I went in and bent down, collecting the bigger shards of glass in my palm before setting them down in the empty pizza box.
“I can do that,” Hayden grumbled.
“Please, let me,” I countered as I mopped up the rest of the mess before tossing the soggy towels in the trash.
Once everything was back to normal, Hayden stood awkwardly in the corner of the room. I think he was too embarrassed to meet my eye. He had nothing to worry about. His reaction was why Cass hadn’t told him in the first place. It was what she expected.
“Sit down would you? You’re making me dizzy,” Dickson snapped and I was grateful he was there.
Hayden grabbed a bottle of water and asked if anyone else wanted anything before he returned and sat down. Silence hung around us, and I wanted nothing more than to pull a Dorothy. Click my heels together and be back home, even if home for now was my teenage bedroom in my parents’ house.
When Dickson turned to me, I suddenly felt like I was under interrogation. “Keep going, Skye. What happened?”
I looked over at Hayden who was trying to hide his face and took a breath. If they thought they didn’t like what I’d already told them, then they were going to hate the next part.
“We were a bit freaked,” I admitted.
“As you would be,” Dickson agreed calmly.
“The room didn’t look like we’d been broken into but something was definitely going on. I mean, Cassidy’s laptop had been sitting on the bedside table and wasn’t even looked at. I rang down to the front desk and asked for the manager to be sent up. We assumed it was just some overeager fan who worked at the hotel who had been playing dress-ups in Cass’s closet.”
“You didn’t call the cops, did you?”
My eyes bounced from one cop to the other and back again. “No, we didn’t. We spoke to the manager and told him what happened. At first he tried to convince us that his staff were all trustworthy and wouldn’t do something like that. After a couple of minutes, he conceded that it didn’t look good.”
“Tell me you got your shit and checked out of that hotel without stopping to leave a review,” Hayden pleaded and part of me wished I could put him out of his misery and tell him we’d done just that. But I couldn’t lie to him. I wouldn’t.
“You know she never went anywhere without leaving a review,” I offered him softly with a smile, desperate to replace that worried look even if it was only for a minute.
“Skye…” The underlying tone in Dickson’s voice carried a warning I understood. Hayden was obviously hanging by a very fine thread right now and even though I was trying to help, it wasn’t working.
Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I took a deep breath and told them the truth. “I helped Cass pack up her room and she moved in with me downstairs.”
“You didn’t even leave the hotel?” Bewilderment was etched on Hayden’s face and I felt sorry for him. I understood where he was coming from but at the time, we just thought housekeeping were no more than harmless, overeager fans.
“You’ve got to remember we were kinda on a time crunch. Everyone was in the hotel and moving Cass wasn’t going to be easy. So we packed up her bags and lugged them down to my room and we bunked together.”
“When you say bunked together?” Dickson left the word hanging but there was mischief in his face.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, Dickson,” I chastised him, shaking my head. “Two mature adults can share a bed without it getting dirty,” I reminded him.
“Not in my head they can’t.”
“Then what?” Hayden nudged, ignoring Dickson and my side conversation as though it never happened.
“Then nothing. We set up in my room, got organized, went to the concert, came back and crashed.”
“In bed together,” Dickson added.
Ignoring him, I pressed on. “The next morning we checked out and headed to the next city.”
“That’s it? You just kept going? You didn’t bother to report it to the police? Or tell me? You just kept going?” Hayden clarified. I could tell he was hurt. He’d moved past anger and now he was just hurt.
