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The lobby sparkled by candlelight. Colors were muted, and gold finishes and accents reflected a dance of fireflies.
“Is the electricity out in here?” she asked the night front desk receptionist as she walked around examining hand-painted mosaics.
“Not yet. I just like it this way.” The young woman with black painted nails leaned back in the desk chair. “It kinda goes with the storm, don’t you think?”
The room’s ambiance matched the dark and mysterious look of the receptionist—kind of macabre, but in almost a dreamy way. The flickering candle flames pushed long shadows across the room, creating a shadow puppet show on the walls.
Callie fashioned shapes with her hands like she used to do with her father. A butterfly first, flying across the room. Then a bunny, hopping across a meadow of wildflowers. Then an eagle or was it a sparrow? A bird. Just a bird.
“Nice to see that you can let go of the corporate camouflage.” The voice made her straighten her back. “Is that a moose?” Liam asked.
She quickly dropped her hands. “I think it was an attempt at a bird or maybe a dog?”
His deep chuckle covered her like the coziness of her jacket.
“Ah, maybe more like this?” Liam crossed his hands, and Callie’s eyes followed the shadow as a loud bang cracked against the wall. “I like to call this the stork.” Liam spoke at the same time as the crash.
Callie laughed. “Did you say ‘the dork’?”
Liam stepped closer. “I said ‘the stork,’ but I’ve been called dork and a lot worse.”
Callie stilled and shoved her hands in the hoodie pocket. “I don’t think you’re a dork, Liam.”
“Good to know, Callie.”
Without her pumps on, Liam was about four inches taller than she was instead of the almost eye-to-eye of earlier in the day. His toes curled on the cold tile. She liked that he walked barefoot. It mixed with his firm outside and made him seem a little more accessible.
Her father had proven so much to her when it came to finding a partner in life. “A man doesn’t have to be a model to be attractive. A man doesn’t have to be a genius to be gifted. And a man doesn’t have to be a comedian to be engaging,” he’d reiterated over and over, but after her mother’s death, her father had descended into a depression that he’d never fully recovered from. Callie considered maybe it was to punish himself for how her death had happened.
Liam’s gaze diverted from Callie’s. “Why are you out in the lobby?” he asked after taking a few steps from the glow of the candles.
“Meg snores.”
Liam laughed. “I have an extra bed.” He stilled. “I mean for sleeping … of course.”
It was clear what he meant, but she liked witnessing his little backtrack with a stammer at the end. He wasn’t a dork. He definitely was attractive. And highly intelligent. And extremely entertaining.
“Thanks, but I’m sure the convenience shop has some earplugs?—”
“Complimentary ones right here, Ms. Laurel.” The woman behind the desk spoke up.
Callie grabbed the small package of hot pink squishy earplugs. “See. Thanks for the offer, but sleep shall be mine.” She waved the tiny bag.
She thought she saw a shadow of disappointment cover his face, but she wrote it off as a flicker of the candlelight.
“Why are you still up?” she asked.
“I can’t sleep without knowing my brother’s okay.”
She could understand that. Many a sleepless night had been spent at home while her father had slept in a hospital bed. The nurses had offered her a place to stay in the room in a reclining chair, but her father had known her back couldn’t take multiple nights that way and he’d promised to live another night. She was there until the end, and she knew what not knowing was doing to Liam.
She reached out and her hand pressed into his forearm. “I understand. Trent told me about Sam’s illness.”
His brow furrowed a little. “What exactly did Trent tell you?”
Callie backed away, wondering if she’d betrayed a confidence that wasn’t hers to speak about. “Nothing personal, I promise. Just that Sam needed to come home and Brittney wanted him there for the wedding. I’ll admit, we normally don’t do last-minute rides, but that really pulled at me. I know what cancer does to a person.”
Liam’s gaze wandered the room. “My brother-in-law is definitely concerned, and he has every reason to be.”
