Finally, he looks up from his phone. His brown hair, usually so artfully styled, falls loose across his forehead, over his dark eyes. His full lips part in amusement.
“You’re being dramatic.”
There are times I’ve wanted to smack this man. But right now I want to push him into traffic.
“Dramatic?” I gasp, clutching my hand to my chest. His eyes drop down, then flick back to his phone. “You cannot seriously be looking into flights right now. We were just in a crash.”
“Statistically—”
“Fuck statistics!” I shriek. He groans, but his eyes don’t leave his phone. I stare at the side of his face, waiting for something—anger, annoyance, anything. Nothing. Just the soft tap of his thumbs. My mouth opens and closes. I don’t even know what I want him to do. Yell back at me, maybe. Acknowledge that we almost died.
I need a shower. I need a nap. And then I need to figure out how to get myself to Georgia without setting foot on a plane or in a car with this man.
“There had better be two rooms,” I growl again.
“There will be,” he says with the confidence of a billionaire.
I reach into my bag for my phone—and then stop. I was drafting a text to Easton, bitching about Pearl and Logan when the plane went down. I wasn’t thinking about my phone when we hit the ground. I wasn’t thinking about anything. My hands shake as I sift through my bag, shoving clothes and toiletries aside, knowing it’s not there but hoping by some miracle my addled brain thought to find it off the floor of the plane before we left.
“Fuck. I don’t have my phone,” I panic. “It’s still on the plane.”
“We’re not going back there.” I glare at him, but all he does is shrug. “Wecan’t. We have no ride. Once we get back to civilization, you can buy a new one.”
I scoff. “Of course. And the old one, in perfect condition, will just end up in a landfill,” I snap. I really can’t afford a new phone right now, either. I’ve had a few odd jobs here and there, and some of Easton’s teammates I’ve taken on as private clients, but I’ve been dragging my feet the last couple of months. God dammit. Not to mention—
“Have you talked to my father? Does he know what happened?”
“I was just updating him and Pearl.”
“Oh yeah? How’d she take it?”
Logan winces, then tucks his phone into his pocket. “I told them there were some mechanical issues, and we were grounded. I kept it vague.”
Kept it vague. Of course he did. Pearl couldn’t handle the truth, anyway. “That’s probably for the best.”
He grunts in agreement when an ancient green Toyota Corolla rattles into the dusty lot, trailing a faint cloud of exhaust. The woman who climbs out is somewhere in her sixties, small and wiry below the waist—tiger-striped leggings tucked into rhinestone-studded sneakers—and generously proportioned above it, her hot pink shirt straining at the chest. A pair of oversized sunglasses sit pushed up into a cloud of copper-dyed hair.
“Well, howdy, kids,” she says with enthusiasm.
“Ma’am,” Logan greets stiffly. I elbow him.
“Hi, are you Maybelle?” I rise, reaching out to shake hands.
“Sure am. You need a room?” She glances around the empty lot, noting the absence of our vehicle. “I got the honeymoon suite—”
“Two rooms,” I say at the same time Logan grunts, “God, no.”
“Two rooms, if you have them,” I say again, stepping slightly in front of Logan. “We just need somewhere to clean up while we sort out a ride.”
She narrows her eyes, so I add, “Car trouble. We got stranded. We’re just waiting on a rental.”
“Expecting a rental all the way out here, it’ll be at least a day. I can give you a room for the night, and you can let me know in the morning if you need longer.”
“That’s perfect,” I tell her while she eyes Logan, then unlocks the office door. She flicks on the lights and steps behind a desk buried under tchotchkes and jars crammed with pens, paperclips, and miscellaneous office debris. She flips open a notebook, licks the tip of her pen, and looks up at me expectantly.
“Oh,” I clear my throat. “Rose Lopes. Any room is fine.”
She smirks. “They’re all the same, honey.”
