“That’s sad,” Gretchen confirms.
“I did end up hooking up with a German bridesmaid at the hotel bar,” I admitted, which, thinking back, was probably when my little bridesmaid habit started.
“Lucky bridesmaid.” Gretchen took a bite of hash browns and kept talking. “So you and I got to have some semblance of a teenage experience, even if it was delayed, but Winnie grew up as a child star and was basically married off before she could probably even go on a real first date or hang out at the mall.”
“I have to talk to her.” I grabbed my last two pieces of bacon and downed the rest of my second cup of coffee before getting up from the table and jogging to the elevator. Technically, the tabloid storm that followed my picture wasn’t completely my fault, but I still felt like I owed Winnie something. An apology. An explanation. I wasn’t sure.
“Kallum?” Gretchen called across the tiny lobby. “Good job not punching Michael, but if he shows up here again, I might beat you to it.”
“We’ll make it a real donnybrook,” I told her as I jabbed the elevator’s Up arrow three times in a row.
I paced in front of Winnie’s door after knocking for a solid two minutes. Either she wasn’t in there or she was really, really good at pretending she wasn’t.
I wanted to apologize. I wanted to take her on a date—the kind of date I would have taken her on if we’d been just two normal teenagers when we first met and not living under some kind of intense microscope.
Trying once more, I rapped my fist on her door. “Winnie, can we talk?”
But it was totally silent, not even a creaking floorboard.
I sent her a quick text.
Me:Hey, my call time isn’t for another hour. You have time to talk?
A message appeared at the bottom of our text thread that said:Winnie has notifications silenced.
“Dammit,” I whispered before I went down a few doors to my room and grabbed some Edelweiss Inn stationery and a pen.
Winnie—
Will you go on a date with me? A real one. Not a North Pole one.
—Kallum
I trekked back to her room and knocked once more just in case, but like I knew there would be, there was no answer. Squatting down, I slipped the note under the door, and immediately wanted to take it back. What if she said no? What if she just wanted whatever was going on between us to quietly die off and now that I’d asked her out on a date, I was forcing her hand?
Just then my ringtone filled the empty hallway.
Maybe it was her.
An unknown California number flashed across the screen.
“Hello?”
“Mr.Lieberman?” the person on the other end asked in an Australian accent.
“Speaking,” I said, my shoulders broadening as though the person on the other end could even see me. “You must be the investor my nephew mentioned.”
He laughed dryly. “I am his representative, yes.”
I started walking back to the elevator in the hopes I’d run into Winnie on my way to hair and makeup.
“My client,” he continued, “who you might know from—”
“He’s a celebrity. He owns a sports team. He’s onShark Tank. But what does he want with me and who exactly are you? Is this whole mysterious vibe, like, part of your branding?”
“My name is Ian and my client was recently in Kansas City visiting family. I am legally obligated to say that he was not there in support of any local professional sporting leagues.”
“We don’t even have a basketball team,” I told him. “Can we stop pretending I don’t know who this guy is?”
