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But she takes the news that there’s been a mistake with the reservation and all the other rooms are booked remarkably well.
Almost, too well…
“You’re sure this is okay?” I ask as I tail her up the narrow staircase to the third floor. “I could ask Gretchen to switch with me. I could move to her single in the annex building, and she could take one of the full beds in this room. She’s the only other person here without a significant other. I believe the rest of the staff brought their husbands and boyfriends.”
“Or girlfriends,” Wren says, turning to face me on the landing with a mysterious smile. “Gretchen’s seeing Molly. From the nursery. The tree expert who helped you pick out what kind of fruit trees to plant a few years ago?”
“Oh, right. Really?” I grunt, “When did that start?”
“Two months ago,” Wren says, allowing me to pass her and lead the way toward our room at the end of the hall. “They’re really happy together, and Molly’s coming up to join her tomorrow night. She just couldn’t get off work today.” She arches a brow and shoots the closed door in front of us a pointed look. “Looks like we’re stuck together until Sunday morning.”
“I could go to the campground down the road,” I offer. “I’d just need to buy a sleeping bag and a few supplies.”
Wren shakes her head, that mysterious smile curving her lips again. “No, you should stay here. And we should make a plan for Saturday night.”
“What kind of plan?” I ask.
She nods toward the room. “Let’s check out our new digs and go from there.”
“All right,” I say, pressing the key card to the sensor on the door. It swings open to reveal a sunny room with pale yellow walls, white linen drapes on the windows, and a beautifully made bed covered in a puffy white duvet with blue and yellow accent pillows.
Just one beautifully made bed.
“Looks like the plan might need to be moved forward a bit,” Wren murmurs beside me.
I glance down to see her studying the bed with a determined almost…hopeful expression. Hopeful enough for me to risk saying, “Does this mean you’ve decided to forgive me for making the wrong decision that night in your hallway?”
“No, it means I’m going to give you the chance to make the right decision,” she says, turning to face me. “And give myself a chance to make better decisions, too. What do you think about a do-over?”
My eyes narrow. “A do-over?”
“Yeah. We meet up at a club tonight after the conference welcome reception thing. You approach me, compliment my dancing, and we see how things go from there.” She lifts a shoulder and lets it fall. “Maybe we’ll end up in a better place than we did the first time we left a club together.”
My stomach flips as the importance of what she’s saying hits full force. “And if we do?”
“We let our new memory take the other memory’s place and move on from there?” she asks, her nose wrinkling. “If you think you can do that?”
“I can do that,” I assure her. “Can you?”
“I think so,” she says, hesitating for a beat before she adds, “If you think we can find a dance club around here that’s open on a Thursday night. I know Minneapolis is only forty-five minutes away, but I really don’t want to drive into the city. It’s so stressful there.”
“I’ll find a club.” I pull my cell from my pocket. “And if I can’t find one, I’ll build one.”
She laughs, but her eyes are happier than I’ve seen them in a while when she adds, “Yeah? You’d build a honky-tonk just for me?”
“I would,” I say, my gut twisting as anxiety dumps into my bloodstream.
Wren’s smile fades. “Why did that sound so ominous?”
“I don’t know,” I say, backing toward the door, abandoning my suitcase in the middle of the carpet. “I’ll think about it while I’m googling. See you at the reception? Four o’clock? It’s in the barn by the conference building.”
She nods. “Sure. But feel free to come back anytime. If you need to shower or change or whatever. This is your room, too.”
“I don’t want to bother you,” I say, reaching for the handle.
“I’ll just be catching up on some reading I wanted to do before the lecture tomorrow. You won’t be bothering me. I promise.”
I mumble something to the effect of “sounds good, I will if I need to maybe, see you later, how in the hell am I going to pull off a do-over when I still have no idea how to do any of this love and romance stuff right,” and flee down the stairs with nothing but my cell phone and briefcase.
I don’t say the last part out loud, of course, but I might as well have. Sooner or later—probably sooner—Wren’s going to realize that I’m a hopeless case and that’s she better off with a guy who knows how to get love right the first or second time around. A guy like my brother, Christian, who never fucks up a first impression. Or my other brother, Drew, who wasn’t afraid to put it all on the line for a woman he’d known all of a week. He was that sure of his feelings and that he could make Tatum as happy as she made him.
