Xave drives right up to the front entrance and puts the car in park.
Two men, a bellhop and a valet, immediately hurry to the car.
“Do you have any bags?” the bellhop asks.
“In the trunk.” Xave hands the keys to the valet as he slings the strap of the backpack we stole over his shoulder. “Can you keep her accessible? I’ve got to head back out soon.”
“Of course,” the valet says, eyeing the car as he waits for his tip.
“I had a bit of a mishap and lost my wallet,” Xave tells them regretfully. “But I’ll catch you when I come back down and make up for the inconvenience.”
The valet and the bellhop seem content with his explanation, and we stand off to the side as they carefully pile the canvas bags with my equipment onto a cart. Once it’s all loaded up, the valet drives off, and we fall into step behind the bellhop as he wheels my bags into the lobby.
“We can take it from here,” Xave says as we get in line at the main desk. “No need for you to wait while we get replacement keys.”
The bellhop looks between us, doubt flickering in his gaze, then nods and heads back toward the entrance doors.
“It might be less sus if we go up to the desk together,” he says in a low voice as the guest speaking to the clerk leaves and the person in front of us takes their place. “Blame it on a wild night and all that instead of us both coming up with different stories.”
“Yeah, that’s a good call,” I whisper back.
There’s a loud crash behind us, and I jump a mile as I whirl around, my heart pounding like I just sprinted up a dozen flights of stairs. I breathe out a sigh of relief when I see that the commotion was just someone knocking over a hard-shelled suitcase, but I get lightheaded as my panic recedes and have to close my eyes so I don’t start swaying on my feet while I wait for it to pass.
My vision clears, and the world stops fading in and out after a few seconds, so I turn back toward the desk, glancing at Xave to see if he saw what happened.
“You good?” Xave asks quietly.
“Yeah, just dehydrated,” I say quickly, my neck heating with embarrassment.
He nods and looks back at the clerk.
I toy with my lip piercing, trying not to think too hard about my reaction to him seeing me get dizzy.
I’ve spent my entire life not fitting in, and I’m used to being labeled as a freak or a weirdo or whatever else people want to call me for being different. And instead of hurting my feelings or making me self-conscious, I wear those labels like a badge of honor.
Iamweird and different, and I’ve never given a fuck what anyone thinks of me. Why do I care that Xave saw me havea perfectly normal reaction to being dehydrated? It’s not like needing water makes me weak or pathetic.
Before I can spiral too deep down that train of thought, the person in front of the clerk leaves, and it’s our turn.
Xave pushes the cart up to the desk and gives the clerk a radiant smile.
“Welcome to Château de Ville,” the clerk says, smiling back at him, and I don’t miss the quick side-eye she gives me.
I have no idea what kind of shape I’m in or how I look after our ordeal, but with his messy hair and slightly disheveled clothes, Xave just looks like he had a really good night and rolled right out of bed to get here.
“Hi,” he says warmly. “How are you this lovely evening?”
The clerk’s smile shifts from a customer service smile to a real one as her posture relaxes. “I’m doing well, how are you?”
“Doing great. Or at least we would be if we weren’t idiots,” he says, looking embarrassed as he huffs out a laugh. “And we’re hoping that you’ll be able to help us.”
“Of course, what’s the problem?”
“So, my buddy and I are both staying here, and we went to a little soiree last night.” He grins wryly. “But being the idiots that we are, we both lost our phones, so we don’t have our confirmation codes to get into our rooms.”
“Were your keys lost too?” she asks.
Xave glances at me, and I shake my head.
