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Or maybe that was just me.
I certainly felt awkward and tense.
And while tense might have been an old friend of mine, having never really been someone able to completely relax, awkward was an entirely new sensation.
“You’re quiet,” I commented, unable to take it anymore, wanting my old Kai back, the one who would have been making comments about the town, about the music, telling jokes. Something. Anything.
“Just thinking,” he came back with, not helping the situation at all.
Because now I couldn’t seem to hold myself back from demanding what it was he was thinking about.
“About what?”
“Strategies. Plans. That kind of thing.”
“Well, I am a strategies and plans kind of girl.”
“Usually, yes. But today, I think you are a sit in the passenger seat and get lost in your own thoughts kind of girl.”
He wasn’t wrong.
But that was exactly the problem.
I didn’t want to be lost in my own thoughts.
Just as those words were starting to work their way up my throat, over my tongue, we were pulling to the parking lot of a white stucco five-floor hotel with an overhang for valet.
Valet.
My gaze went to Kai’s profile as he drove us under that overhang, wondering if this truly was the only hotel in the area… or if it was the only one he thought I would be willing to stay in. Because there had to be somewhere less expensive, one of those long, low motels off the highway where you might catch bed bugs or an STD from simply walking into it.
But before I could ask if there was anywhere else, he was hopping out, rushing around the hood to beat the valet to my door, pulling it open for me.
Gary hadn’t been much of a door opener.
And, to be honest, it was one of my biggest pet peeves about him. It didn’t even cross his mind to do it when my hands were full, or when we were all dressed up, and heading to a fancy restaurant.
Maybe it shouldn’t have bothered me. Of all women. Since I prided myself so much on being independent, on taking care of myself in every way possible. So of course I could open my own door.
I guess it was simply that it had nothing to do with sexism or feminism or anything like that. It was just basic good manners. And that had always been one of my requirements.
But since he was good about most other things, I let it slide. Even if it irked me.
Kai fetched our bags, leading us into the hotel with still nothing to say.
The lobby was as spacious as you’d expect with how giant the place was, all creams and champagnes and the occasional hint of a rose gold.
I was too busy admiring the enormous glass chandelier hanging over the center of the space – and maybe wondering how the hell one cleaned such a thing, let alone changed the lightbulbs – to notice what Kai was saying to the pretty brunette at the check-in.
That was until I heard three words.
“Only one room…”
My attention snapped to her, finding her focus on Kai, and his on me.
“The next hotel is half an hour away,” he told me, shrugging, leaving it up to me. “It’s only a king,” he added, not two queens or fulls as one might expect.
Thirty minutes wasn’t far, not really.
And I wasn’t even the one doing the driving.
But I felt drained.
Like I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes open for the walk to the elevator, let alone have to get back in the hot car, drive to a new place, then see if they had any openings at all.
“We’ll take it,” I told the girl, reaching for my wallet, only to see Kai beat me to it. “Kai… no…”
“What? It’s a business expense, right?” he asked, giving me a mischievous little smile, knowing I was the one who handled the company credit cards, and that Quin just blindly signed off on them.
It wasn’t until she had swiped it and handed it back to him that I realized he hadn’t handed her a company card, one I knew to be gold since they all were, but a platinum one that must have been his own.
I should have fought him on it.
But I couldn’t muster the energy.
I’d pay him back.
When all this was done, I’d figure out what the room cost, and pay him back. Even if I had to discreetly sneak it into his paycheck to keep him from knowing about it because I knew he would never take it from me.
“Coming?” Kai asked, head dipped to the side, holding up two room keys, waiting for me to show any sign of life at all.
“Yeah,” I agreed, letting him lead me down the hall, to an elevator, then up to the fourth floor, down another hall, then finally to our door.
