My face fell before she continued. “We do, however, have one of our king suites available. It has a private plunge pool.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, I turned to Harrison with a look that said,see? Everything works out.
“Perfect. We’ll take that one.”
“One bed?” Harrison raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that the beginning of every bad romance novel?”
“I think you mean beginning of everybelovedromance novel,” I said, as the clerk typed away. “You read a few pages of my book on the plane and suddenly you’re an expert?”
He shrugged but didn’t look sheepish. “I’m just saying. I’m not sleeping on the floor.”
“We’re adults. We can build a pillow wall if we need to.”
“Alright, I just need a credit card for the room,” the hotel agent continued.
I fished around for mine. “What’s the price?”
When she told me the figure, my heart nearly sprang straight out of my chest.
TEN
Harrison
“This is better. Way better, actually.”Lila waved her arms in a frenzy as she led us back up the cliffside. “Who needs to stay in one of those fancy hotels? They’re total tourist traps. Real travelers don’t stay in those over-the-top luxury rooms.”
“You were fine with the luxury room when you thought Nathan’s endless pockets were paying for it,” I said, hurrying to keep pace with her. For someone with such short legs, Lila could really move.
“That was before I knew how much it cost,” she said, cheeks flushed. “That’s basically robbery.”
As soon as we’d heard the price, Lila had zipped her bag shut and laughed awkwardly before telling the front desk agent that we wouldn’t be needing the room after all.
I had suggested we call Charlie to sort it out, but Lila wouldn’t even consider it. It had been hours since we’d spoken, and it was already the middle of the night in Fiji. Lila had refused to be a burden on her friend, insisting she would find a solution.
I’d gratefully let her take charge. Being in an unfamiliar city in a different country with nowhere to stay should have sent me spiraling, but watching Lila handle everything was bothfascinating and oddly calming. For all the things I had given her crap about, her competency in a crisis certainly wasn’t one of them.
After we left the other hotel, Lila undertook a rather impressive mission of problem solving while I stood there, holding the bags. I wished I could say that I was good for more in this situation, but honestly, I was already in way over my head. I hardly traveled and had only been out of the country once, when I was fourteen and my parents had saved up for a road trip. My mom had insisted on going to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls—said it was more exotic, or something like that. The memory made me smile. I had already promised Mom I’d video-call them so she could see some of the views in Greece. She couldn’t even fathom I was here when I’d shot her a text from the airport.
Money wasn’t something I had an abundance of—either growing up or now. My dad had been working construction my whole life and my mom had a hard time keeping a job because she suffered from chronic migraines. Thankfully, she’d finally found a medication that worked for her. It was expensive, but I’d figured out how to get them on a better insurance plan—after hours of arguing with them about it, of course.
I worried about my parents. They hated accepting help from me, but despite that, I tried to push every spare dollar I made from the shop in their direction. In response, they’d started sending money back. So instead of sending it directly to them, I’d opened a retirement account in their name. My dad was getting older, and he wouldn’t be able to work a manual labor job for much longer. It meant that between my meager savings account and trying to make sure my parents were covered, I didn’t have a lot for extras. Like, say, a fancy hotel in Santorini.
While Lila was researching a place to stay, I was stressing out about how to broach the subject of money. I had thought thiswould be an all-expenses paid trip. While I wasn’t broke, I didn’t have thousands just lying around for fun.
To my immense relief, Lila seemed to be on the same page as me. After a few minutes of searching, she found a modest hotel nearby and presented it for my approval, saving me the awkwardness of admitting I couldn’t afford anything nicer. It wasn’t luxurious by any means, but it would do the job. And, most importantly, it wouldn’t break the bank.
“Those stairs are killer,” Lila said when we arrived at the top of the cliff, back at a main road. “I’m glad we aren’t staying down there. It’d be, like, a thousand steps anytime you wanted to leave the hotel.”
“I think you’re exaggerating.” I set down her suitcase and adjusted my duffel so the strap wasn’t digging into my shoulder blade. At that point, those bags might as well have been my permanent accessories.
Lila’s cheeks were flushed as she pulled up her phone again and held it a few inches away from her face to examine the map. The dim glow from the screen cast a soft light over her features in the dark.
“This way.” She didn’t even wait for me. She glanced up and spotted a gap in traffic, then bolted across the street.
“Hey!” I protested, looking both ways and darting after her. “You can’t keep doing that.”
“Doing what?” The way she blinked up at me innocently told me she knew exactly what I meant.
“Taking off without warning.”
