Page 98 of 72 Hours of You

“Okay, okay,” I say, and then I jump.

“Come on, Syd, you can do better than that.”

I scowl at him and jump higher, and higher, and higher, until my hair fans up around me and everything in the gorgeous, Kardashian-level pricey room blurs together and all I see is Peter’s face—happy and flushed—looking at me.

I stop jumping.

“Hey,” Peter says, catching his breath, “we’re just getting start—”

“I love you.”

Peter stops jumping. “Are you just saying that because I’m—”

And then I do one more jump, into his arms, and we fall back down on the bed, together.

And we don’t waste one single second of the next three hours.

Fifty-Nine

31:22:35

Peter picks up the ornate, old-timey telephone and presses the DINING button.

He clears his throat. “’Ello, yes. We would like to order an obscene amount of food.”

“Oh my god, is that a British accent?” I whisper, stifling a snort.

Peter gives me a mock-stern look. “As I was saying. We would like a Maine lobster roll, the bolognese, some French fries, two orange juices—”

“A coffee.”

“A black coffee, a shrimp cocktail—”

“Seriously?”

“Some caviar, two Wagyu burgers, and the …” Peter looks over the menu one last time. “And the Home Alone Sundae.”

I peer over his shoulder. The sundae is $350 and comes with sixteen scoops of ice cream.

“Yes, very well, thank you kindly.” Peter hangs up the phone and grins at me. “Hungry?”

“I think you slipped into a Texas accent at the end there.”

“What do they care? I’m pretty sure I just blew a thousand bucks on food.”

“Yeah, I mean, I get the whole ‘let’s spend it while we can’ thing you’re doing right now, but also, how do you have this much money?”

Peter shrugs. “I’ve been saving.”

“I’ve been saving for college too, and my debit card still only has like forty dollars on it.”

“I actually wasn’t sure if I was going to go to college.”

“You?” I balk. “How is that possible? You’re kind of the smartest person I know.”

“Kind of?” Peter laughs.

I roll my eyes.