With the bus gone, I now had nowhere to go for the next?—
I glanced at my phone with a wince.
Three hours.
The woman who had initially been checking me in, gave me a sympathetic look. “You don’t need an appointment to take advantage of the vapor caves.”
As if on cue, the frosted doors swung open, and a thick, mineral-scented gust curled into the room. The tang of sulfur was not…pleasant.
“Uh, no.” I grimaced. Maybe this wasn’t my thing after all. “Thanks, though.”
She smiled, polite but already moving on. “Enjoy your evening, then.”
And just like that, I was alone again. No itinerary. No plans. Just me, standing awkwardly in a spa lobby that smelled vaguely like overcooked eggs.
I wasn’t sure where to go. Or what to do with myself. And with the episode before lunch still hovering in my thoughts, I felt a little fragile.
I didn’t particularly want to be left to my own devices; I’d gotten used to the near-constant distractions over the past two days.
It’s fine. I determined to stay calm even as my heart rate started to pick up. Everything is fine. It’s no big deal.
Something moved in my peripheral vision, and when I spun around, there was a man stepping away from the opposite counter, tucking his wallet into his pocket.
I knew that backside. I had, in fact, gotten a very up-close-and-personal view of it earlier.
True, I’d been hanging upside down, but if I’d been so inclined, I could have sunk my teeth?—
He turned, meeting my eyes, and I did my absolute best impression of someone who had definitely not just been contemplating wildly inappropriate ideas.
Again.
“Hey,” he offered.
“I thought you were staying with the bus,” I said. Not because I was keeping track of him or anything. Just…observational skills. Poor ones, apparently.
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Right,” I muttered, lingering in that awkward limbo where I couldn’t tell if I should say something else or walk away. I had been talking his ear off all day.
Thankfully, he saved me from having to decide.
“Are you waiting to go in?” he asked.
“Miss Faraday gave up her appointment,” the receptionist chimed in—now quite happy to make conversation, apparently, since Noah was involved.
He didn’t seem to notice her. His attention stayed on me.
“Faraday.” There was a glint of something in his eyes as he said it. “Luna Faraday.”
He rolled my name around like he was tasting it.
“I like it. Makes me think of the sky.”
“The sky?” I blinked. Was that…a compliment?
His gaze locked on mine. “Yeah. Something about it feels…limitless.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again.
