“Had a growth spurt recently,” I joked.
“Aren’t you supposed to be fifteen years old?” Mr. K grinned at me. “No, sixteen, I remember your birthday party. You gave me a soda.”
Carter glanced at me, obviously surprised. My relationship with his dad had probably gone unnoticed by him.
He’d never really noticed me at all. That was what made him noticing menowso special. Even if it was just because I was useful.
I thought we were getting along, though.
“I can still do that magic trick you showed me,” I said. “With the coin.”
Mr. K’s whole face lit up like I’d just told him he’d won the lottery. “You’ll have to show me later. Let’s get you boys room keys instead of freezing our asses off out here, hmm?”
He was taking this… well.
Maybe he hadn’t put two and two together yet?
We followed him inside to the much warmer reception, and I took a moment to appreciate how beautiful this place was. All the outer walls were made of glass, and the ceiling, too, so there was a full panoramic view of the snow fields outside.
But it wasn’t a big glass cube, either—no, the doors swept up like something out of a medieval cathedral, and while the ceiling wasn’t quitethatspectacular, it was structured with a big glass spire in the middle that probably provided a lot of heat and light even when it was overcast outside.
The stained glass details at the very top of the walls must have lookedincrediblein the summer.
The part of me that loved beautiful things was very,veryhappy right now.
“Aiden’s here as my date,” Carter said as his dad marched us to the central desk, glowing with warm yellow light.
“I know,” Mr. K said. “I’m old, Carter, not stupid.”
Okay, so… he was just… taking this incredibly well. That was a surprise.
He didn’t say anything else about it while we checked in, the upbeat receptionist handing us two sets of keys and directing us to ourcabin.
Not room. Cabin.
I’d forgotten the kind of money Carter’s family had. I hadn’t grown up in poverty or anything, but mom had been raising three kids on one income, plus whatever we could make doing summer and after school jobs.
I couldn’t remember Carter ever having an after school job, but Ididremember him having his own, new car.
And this was a resort hotel in the goddamn middle of Quebec. Only the rich came here.
I turned that thought around in my head as I followed Carter back out to the car, passing him the keys because I’d been too busy marveling over the architecture to listen to the directions.
The cabin turned out to be one big room with an open fireplace and a comfy-looking bed as the center of attention, with a plush leather couch that looked like the grown-up, expensive version of the one I had in my office.
It was definitely the kind of couch you could fuck on.
“This is…” Carter paused to look around, eyes falling on the wide but definitelyonlybed.
“Romantic?” I offered cheerfully.
“Well, yeah. I guess it would be.” Carter scratched the back of his neck.
He hadn’t thought this all the way through. I’d known, I’d had the general feeling that he hadn’t worked out all the details, but I was only now realizing howlittlehe’d thought about this.
Clearly, he’d been panicking so much about running into his ex that nothing else had entered his head.
“I’ll take the couch,” I said.
