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“Logan,” I hear Kat’s voice next to me.
I turn to meet her apprehensive eyes, laced with worry and a silent plea.
“I may have an idea,” she says. “I know a place around the corner. Let’s just go there instead.”
She throws a quick side look in the receptionist’s direction, and I’m not sure whether she’s trying to help him or us.
“What? No, we’re not going anywhere!” I protest, before turning back to the guy. “I want to speak to the manager. Now!”
He almost looks relieved at the prospect of delegating this issue to someone else. Nodding, he’s just about to turn around and walk away, when Kat interjects.
“No, it’s fine, really!”she maintains. “We are leaving.”
Her hand is on my upper arm, adding a subtle squeeze as if she was trying to tame me like some sort of wild animal. I don’t like to be curbed like this, but instead of following my instinct to yank her hand away, I take a deep breath and nod in agreement.
“We will leave,” I agree, casting an angry look the receptionist’s way. “But this will have consequences, believe me.”
The guy looks like he’s about to spout another surge of apologies, but Kat beats him to it.
“Bye!”she pipes in her finest high-pitched hostess voice. A voice that I haven’t heard since the night we met. She takes my hand and before I know it, our fingers are intertwined and she’s leading me out on the street.
“Let me make a call,” I say, freeing my hand of hers as soon as we are back outside. “I need to find out what went wrong here. This has never happened before and he—”
“Can’t you do that later?”she interrupts, a hint of reproach underlining her words. “I’m hungry. Let’s just eat for now. You can continue to yell at people later.”
The glum tone of her voice stops me in my tracks, and when I look at her, I find that very same dejection mirrored on her face.
“I had every right to be angry,” I defend myself. “It’s not like I yelled at him for nothing.”
“It wasn’thisfault, was it?”she adds for consideration.
I don’t like that she’s right about this, but accept her invitation to take the high road and give it a rest for the moment.
“I’m sorry, it’s just… I don’t like yelling,” she adds, speaking in a low voice.
She clears her throat and lowers her head for a moment before she beams up at me. “Shall we?”
I throw her a skeptical look. “You really know a place?”
I thought she’d only said that to get herself out of an unpleasant situation.
“Yeah,” she says, nodding enthusiastically. “It’s this diner that I used to go to when I was...”
She pauses, biting her lower lips as if to stop herself from revealing a well-kept secret.
“Anyway, we may be a bit overdressed, but the food is great,” she goes on. “I’m sure you’d like it... the food, I mean. You’ll have to ignore the interior and all that. It’s not exactly Burberry fancy.”
There’s a hint of worry on her face when she looks at me now, her lips curved into a pleading smile.
“Alright,” I say, reaching for my phone to summon Christopher, who is waiting for us in a parking lot a few blocks away.
But Kat intervenes once again.
“It’s justtwo blocks away,” she claims, pointing to the right. “Let’s walk.”
She’s already turning on her heels, casting me an encouraging nod to follow her as she starts moving.
I hesitate, unsure how to feel about all of this. This is not going as planned, not at all, and I hate when things are taken out of my hands.
