He’s off-limits.
A project.
A chance for me to put the same good out into the world that Bea once put into me.
Nothing else.
I swallow twice before I trust myself to speak. “You gonna be okay to drive, or are you gonna be too drunk on fish and hush puppies?”
“Shut up and let me have this,” he grumbles.
Whatever that means—at least he’s happy.
9
WHO GETS THE BED?
Oliver
While I checkinto the Carter Pillars Hotel in West Virginia’s largest town, Daphne runs to the bathroom off the lobby with two ValuKart sacks dangling from her hands. She’s back at my side by the time the clerk is handing me the single key card into the room.
And she hasn’t said a single word about menotpicking the Aurora Gardens hotel across the street.
I’d have to be truly dead to miss the fact that she doesn’t like her parents much.
Not that she should. I don’t particularly like mine either, and they didn’t disinherit me and leave me unprepared for the world without money.
“One key card?” the receptionist repeats as she takes Daphne in.
I nod curtly and leave it at that.
“If you think I’m letting this guy out of my sight for one minute when we have nothing but a hotel room all to ourselves and no kids yelling for us and no parents forgetting to putclothes on before they leave their rooms since they moved in with us too, you can think again,” Daphne says. “We probably only need the card to get into the room once. There’s room service here, right? Oysters? Dark chocolate? Wine or?—”
I grab her by the arm and steer her toward the elevator bank.
“—champagne?” she finishes.
“Can younot?” I mutter to her.
The fish hangover has faded, and I could use another three-hour nap.
Or seven of them.
Back-to-back.
For six days in a row.
“She thinks you’re kidnapping me. At best,” she murmurs back. “The more obnoxious I am, the more they’ll think it’s the other way around, and they’re less likely to interfere. But if anyone asks you if you’re okay or slips you a note while we’re in public, that’s why.”
The elevator doors open, and I hit the button for the top floor, slightly uneasy as I realize I don’t have to swipe my room card to get there.
Anyone can get anywhere inside this hotel.
Including directly to my room.Ourroom.
No security.
No layers between me and the general public.
