We start to head out the door when Apollo comes barreling out and almost takes us all down.
“See? There’s something seriously wrong with you.” Eros laughs.
“You think we can fit in one elevator this time?” Armando asks as he laughs. Coming up, we had to take two. We couldn’t fit in one with our suitcases.
“Maybe?” Keegan answers as we all laugh.
We all shove into the elevator, it’s a little tight but doable. It’s almost like when you go to the circus and see the clown car with all the clowns stuffed into it. When we get to the lobby and get out, we can hear people making comments. It’s pretty funny.
We all take a minute to look at the menu, it looks like they have a pretty good variety.
“Looks good to me,” I say as the others nod.
We order and eat enough to feed ten of us. I remember the first time I went out with some of the family in Chicago. I’d never seen a restaurant bill so high before that night. But tonight? We came pretty close. The waitress comes back with dessert for each of us.
“We didn’t order this,” I say.
“It’s from Melody, she wanted to pay for your dinner, but you paid before she told me. So she got you all dessert.”
“Please tell her thank you,” I say as the guys chuckle at me. I swear they’re like kids.
“She also asked me to give you this,” she says as she hands me a piece of paper. “In case you didn’t get the right key.”
I thank her again as she walks away.
“Are you going to call her?” Eros asks.
“I wasn’t planning on it. I mean it’s not like we’re coming back here. But now I feel like I owe her for all this.” I sigh and get up, heading to the concierge desk.
“Hi, Tristan, did you need something?” Melody smiles.
“No, I wanted to thank you for the dessert. And let you know that I appreciate what you’ve done for us with the rooms. But I’m not in a position to hang out with you. My brothers and I are only in town for one night.”
“I understand. My mom always said you’ll never know until you try. So I had to try and see if you were interested.”
“I’m flattered and thank you again for everything,” I say as I head back to the table.
“She seemed to take it well,” Armando says to me.
“She did. And she seems really nice, but I’m just not in the right headspace for meeting someone. Especially while I’m headed back to Valor Springs.”
“Have you been back at all since you enlisted?” Eros asks.
“Nope. Not once. I haven’t even talked to anyone back there. I had a few friends, but it was the type of friendship where we only texted for holidays.”
“I get it. We have a few friends in Greece like that. I mean if we went back, we’d hang out. But keeping in touch is harder,” Apollo adds.
We finish up dinner and head to the room to get some rest. The plan is to get an early start and maybe try to do the last sixteen hours in one shot. We’ll just take turns driving. I really want to get this over with and get my parents back to Lake Renegade.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lily
It’s Saturday and I’ve spent all day writing. The last book I did for Carter was about a military man who loses his leg while deployed and falls in love with his doctor. It was what they call ‘slow burn.’ It took half the book for them to stop fighting their feelings for each other. Then they had to get past the doctor-patient aspect. But because it’s a romance book, that’s always easy to look past. And in the end, love wins. That’s my favorite part about writing romance. Love always gets the couples through whatever life throws at them. I hope that one day I find the kind of love I write about.
“Why are you still in your jammies?” I hear a voice behind me ask.
I scream as I fall off my chair. I flip onto my back and look up. One of my best friends, Paisley, is standing over me. Laughing.
