Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 87536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
I should go.
Sleep at the fucking airport instead of staying holed up at this lodge, gathering more shitty memories of Washington and the place where I should never have brought my daughter because then she wouldn’t have met Layla.
And neither would I.
I pick up the phone again and call Skylar.
“Hey,” Skylar answers on the third ring. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” Not true. “Benny good?”
“She’s elbow deep in cookie dough,” Skylar says dryly. “Currently lobbying for more chocolate chips. I told her and Madison they’ve eaten enough to feed a small village and to save some for baking.”
The dull ache moves from my head to my heart. “Tell her I love her. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“You sure?” Skylar hears more than most. “You don’t sound . . . so great.”
“I’m fine,” I lie, then make it a partial truth. “I’m waiting.”
“For?”
Nothing.
Everything.
I avoid responding, because Skylar Hansen doesn’t need to know my personal drama. I don’t need her running to all the other moms at school and spreading gossip. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
We end the call, and I return to watching the parking lot, my back to the door.
When a sharp knock interrupts my thoughts, my heart trips over itself, freaking the fuck out.
Holy shit, she’s here.
She showed up.
I blow out a puff of air. “Phew. Calm down, bro.”
Be cool.
I smooth my palms down my jeans, roll my shoulders back, and open the door, wearing a smile I don’t believe in.
The kid standing on the other side is decidedly not Layla.
He’s wearing a buttoned green velvet vest and pushing a two-tiered cart stacked with warming dishes and an ice bucket with a bottle of wine stuffed inside.
He stammers at the sight of me. “Room service?”
My brain fumbles, my chest caves. The adrenaline that had been screaming through me just—dies.
“No,” I croak, the word gravel in my throat. “Wrong room.”
He flushes. “Uh. Room 402, right?”
“Yeah, that’s me, but I didn’t order—”
From down the hall a door opens and a woman sticks her head out. “Yoo-hoo! Down here!” She steps into the hallway, wearing a hotel robe and slippers. “Thank God you’re here, my husband is starving.”
The kid looks ill. “Sir, I’m so sorry, I read that wrong.”
“It’s fine,” I manage, and it isn’t, but this isn’t his fault. “Go feed that room before the wife comes and wheels the cart away from you.”
He rattles away with his cart, and I shut the door, pressing the latch home until it clicks, and the room feels smaller for it. All that buildup. All that racing hope. For what? An ice bucket I didn’t order?
I lean my forehead against the cool wood, and laugh once—bitter, hollow.
When did my personal life become a joke?
I go to the window because there’s nowhere else to go. The lot is just cars now. Headlights drift through like fish in a dark tank. Every time one slows, I brace. Every time it doesn’t, something in me loosens and sours.
My phone buzzes. I don’t even let myself hope this time.
Skylar:
Benny says goodnight!!
I send back a text with three red hearts and the hugging emoji and hit Send.
“I’m done waiting.” I grab my wallet and the key card and pull the door open again.
Carpet swallows my footsteps, and when I reach the elevator, I jab the button with more force than necessary and watch my reflection in the brass: Surly. Frustrated. Jaw clenched.
The hotel bar is tucked to the left behind a half wall of smoked glass, close enough to the front desk that you can hear check-ins and complaints if you listen hard enough.
There’s a game on the TV over the shelves of bottles—the news on mute, closed captions translating the commentary. A couple at the far end is whispering, faces close, and I wonder if it’s a first date or a couple on vacation.
I pick a stool in the middle and park myself.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asks, laying a napkin in front of me.
“Old-fashioned. Light on the soda, bourbon.” I don’t want ceremony. I want to get buzzed. Or drunk.
My phone buzzes, and I check it, disappointed. A message from the airline about my return flight tomorrow. A weather alert for freezing fog at the Seattle airport has already delayed my itinerary.
“Fuck.” I do not need to be stuck here, but it looks like I’m going to.
The front doors breathe open with that motorized sigh, and a pocket of cold air rolls across the lobby. Instinct makes me turn. Not her. Two conference guys with badges and laughter too loud for the time of day.
My shoulders crawl back down an inch.
“Rough night?” the bartender asks when he returns to check my drink.
“Just long,” I say.
He nods in the way service people do, knowing how to acknowledge without prying, and leaving me to suffer in silence, but sliding a menu across the counter before he walks off again.