“I have my reservation,” I interrupted, a sinking feeling in my stomach telling me where this was going. But it couldn’t be. I had it in writing. I’dprintedit. I shook off Sam’s grip and reached into my backpack again. “It’s right here,” I said, my hand shaking. “And… and I already paid.”
“I know,” Sam said, twisting his hands together. “But—” His voice suddenly dropped to what was probably supposed to be a whisper, even though, with just the three of us in the lobby, there was no way the married guy wouldn’t hear, too. “—my manager made me bump you because the owner called yesterday and insisted we give him a room. Wehadto, Rene.”
My hand shook as I finally got the main compartment of my backpack unzipped. I stared down at Teddy, swallowing hard, and the married man made a low unhappy-sounding sound behind me.
He was probably irritated that my check-in was taking so long, but I couldn’t just walk away yet. Where would I go?
“But… I already paid,” I repeated, looking up at Sam.
“And I refunded it.” Sam sounded just as miserable as I felt. “And I know sometimes it takes a few days for, um, for the banks to reverse the funds? Because we’re required to put a hold on the card when you make the reservation, and youdid. You’re right. This isn’t your fault, Rene. It’s just… it’s just one of those things. But you’ll get all the money back, Ipromise.”
I swallowed hard. I knew the refund hadn’t hit my bank yet, so how was that going to help me right now?
“And you could still stay somewhere close by?” Sam went on. “There are some other hotels super close to us, and you wouldn’t be the only one. We’ve gotlotsof people coming this weekend who couldn’t get rooms here or who… who live locally, you know? But they—and you!—can all still come to the activities, as long as you’re registered through Cuffd, which you are, right?”
“Right,” I answered numbly, and I already knew all that. It was what Daryl planned on doing since he already lived here in Asheville anyway… although he hadn’t said anything about the mixer thing Sam had mentioned earlier or been very specific about when we’d meet up or which activities we’d go to, but… but I knew it was a thing. For people to participate in the weekend without staying at the hotel.
I looked back down, blinking fast, and finally saw the piece of paper I’d been looking for.
I’d put it in the wrong pocket. It was crammed in next to Teddy, but I didn’t bother pulling it out now.
“I can still give you a gift bag!” Sam said when I looked back up at him, whirling around and ducking under the desk. “It’s a welcome bag the Cuffd people helped us put together,” he said, his voice muffled, “and it’s just supposed to be for paying guests, but… but you can have one. Iwantyou to. It has goodies in it. And swag!”
He popped back up, holding a bulging canvas bag with the Cuffd logo out to me. A purple one.
Sam grinned, but then it faltered when I didn’t take the bag from him. I couldn’t. My chest felt so tight I couldn’t even breathe.
“We can still be friends?” Sam said tentatively. He lowered the bag. “I’m sorry.”
This was the part where I was supposed to say “it’s fine,” but it… it wasn’t. Sam was wrong. I couldn’t stay somewhere close by. Not with my phone too dead to call around and find another hotel, and that money not back in my account yet to pay for it, and no gas in my car to get anywhere anyway. Plus, it was full dark out now, and even though Ialways planned for worst-case scenarios—always—this time, I hadn’t.
And now I had no idea what to do.
4
Edward
Somethinginside me twisted painfully as the boy, Rene, trembled helplessly in front of me, clutching his backpack and looking like he was on the verge of tears.
No, that wasn’t true. He looked like hewantedto cry, but like he was holding back because he didn’t believe it would do any good. He looked hopeless, which was somehow infinitely worse than the tears that I instinctively knew would have gutted me, too.
And all of it—from the way his chin quivered to the glassy sheen in his eyes to the white-knuckled grip he had on his backpack—was my fault.
I’d been frozen in place from the moment the bubbly hotel clerk had told Rene why his reservation had been canceled: because ofme. And even though remorse and guilt had been my constant companions for the last five years, their fresh bite when I saw the effect of that news on the boy almost brought me to my knees.
Which made no sense, and not just because the boy was a stranger to me.
Since losing Blair, I’d slowly turned into a man Blair never would have put up with in the first place, too caught up in my own pain to give a shit about the effect I was having on others. It wasn’t as if I’d been blind to it, either. I simply hadn’t been able to bring myself to care. But something about Rene made it impossible not to.
I didn’t know why.
I cared, I had no explanation for it, and I needed to fix this.Thosewere the three things I knew.
But before I had a chance to make things right, the redheaded clerk had rushed out from behind the desk and gathered Rene up in a hug, murmuring soothing things under his breath that had me clenching my fists and fighting back the totally inappropriate idea thatIshould be the one comforting him.
“We’ll figure it out,” the little clerk promised Rene as something inside me violently rebelled at seeing the boy in someone else’s arms. “You never said, but are you meeting a Daddy here?YourDaddy? Because if he’s already checked in…?”
The clerk pulled back and gave Rene a hopeful, sunny look.
