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When I see Wynona’s black-nailed hands going up in exasperation, I head on over.
“Listen,” I tell the airline stewardess, who might be pretty if her pencil-thin eyebrows weren’t drawn into a don’t-fuck-with-me expression. “There are still five minutes. Are you sure there isn’t any way that we could—”
“No,” she says flatly.
“Okay, drop me. Are you sure that you can’t let my friend here” —I gesture to Wynona— “one more person on?”
“No,” she says. “The plane is leaving. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t sound very sorry,” Wynona says, arms crossed.
“You don’t sound very sorry,” I agree.
Wynona wilts with a sigh. “This is all my fault. I never should’ve taken that sleeping tablet. I just couldn’t fall asleep, not after...” She trails off with a glare my way.
“Listen,” I say, giving the airline stewardess my best smile, “there must be another plane soon. Tonight, perhaps?”
“I’ll look,” she says in an unoptimistic tone.
Two sips of the water bottle from the bar fridge in my room that I’m pretty sure the hotel is going to post-bill me for later, and she shakes her head. “None available today.”
“Tomorrow then?” Wynona says, an edge in her voice.
Her water bottle is decorated with black and white cats that seem to be drawn Dali-style, although she doesn’t touch it. She’s busy on her phone.
Seeing her watering a fake flower on some phone game, I chuckle.
“What?” she snaps. “It’s good for stress.”
I make the wise choice not to say anything to that.
“None tomorrow,” the airline stewardess chimes in, looking more pleased by the second.
Fuck.
Before Wynona can open her very angry-looking mouth, I say in the calmest voice I can muster, “Okay. When is the next flight, then?”
Seven more water sips later, and the woman nods. “A week.”
“A week?” Wynona sputters. “But that’s impossible.”
“That’s the earliest date,” Evil Stewardess says.
“There’s probably another airline with an earlier flight,” I tell Wynona. “Let’s go.”
As it turns out, there isn’t. We trudge on back to the original stewardess, buy ourselves some tickets, then catch the same taxi back to the same old hotel.
Talk about déjà vu.
“This is your fault,” Wynona says about halfway through the taxi trip as the palm trees waggle in the wind outside.
“My fault?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” I say.
There are not many ways that today could get worse, but fighting with Wynona in a cat-piss-stinking taxi would be one of them.
“If you hadn’t played that song at the wedding reception and rattled me,” she said, “then I’d have been able to sleep fine without a pill. I wouldn’t have overslept.”
“What do you want?” I snap. “For me to pay for your stupid extra plane ticket home? Fine. I’ll do it.”
There’s a silence that I’m beginning to think might mean another truce, but then, voice dripping with disgust, Wynona says, “I don’t want your money.”
That’s it.
“Listen,” I growl, turning to her. “I didn’t intend for that. I didn’t intend for any of this. Why don’t you take some responsibility for a goddamn change?”
“And why can’t you leave me alone?” Wynona snaps. “Last night, your following me onto the beach like that—”
“Later, you said we had a truce,” I say with as much patience as I can muster. Which just means that I’m not growling anymore.
“That was for Sierra,” Wynona snaps. “Because she said—”
She stops suddenly, with a sullen glare my way.
“Oh, that’s finally it?” I say sarcastically. “No more snapping at me?”
Head turned away, she says nothing.
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” I snap, turning to my own window. “Suits me just fine.”
The rest of the ride consists of bumping over a seemingly endless succession of potholes—the taxi driver took another route for whatever reason—listening to some Spanish singer croon out notes that indicate he’s in entirely too good of a mood, and sticking my head out the window to get some respite from the heat.
When we get back, I go to the front desk and explain the situation. Turns out that Josie and Jeremy missed their flights too. Wynona’s ready to beat it to the closest other hotel there is with Josie, but apparently, one of my brothers reamed out one of the concierges for not giving me a wake-up call as instructed, and they offer to let Wynona and me stay here for free until we can fly home.
So we go to our new separate rooms without a word.
Which, yeah, suits me just fine.
Chapter 5
Wynona
“Oh, God,” is the first thing Josie says after I head to her room to wake her up and tell her the news.
“I know,” I grumble.
“Oh God, oh God!”
“I know.”
A long pause.
“Jesus, Wyn, I can’t believe we both missed the flight,” she continues. “You’re just always the on-time one, and I just figured you’d wake me up and we’d get there just in time.”
“It’s fine,” I grumble. “Completely fine. I’m just stuck here. In the same hotel as my ex.”
“I guess at least it’s free?” Josie says with a forced smile that convinces nobody, already trying to put a positive spin on things.
