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“I can’t believeyou’rehere,” I say, pulling away to get a good look at her.
“Awww! Well, I can’t believe you’re both here,” comes Austin’s voice from down the hall, albeit high-pitched and played up, like he’s a Southern Belle. “Oh my gosh!”
He enters the room, fanning his face dramatically, and Mara laughs, launching toward him. Her black hair bunches up around the neck of her sweater as she hugs him, and I can’t help feeling jealous.
“Memphis Reed, in the flesh!” she cries when she sees the asshole round the corner. “And here I thought vampires only came out at night.”
Am I the only one who doesn’t know him this well?
“Hey, Mara.” He gives her a small smile and a one-armed hug that doesn’t at all match her energy. “Good to see you, too.”
She takes her sunglasses off of her head. “I thought you weren’t going to make it.”
“He strong-armed me,” Memphis says, jutting an elbow toward Austin.
“You knew Ethan wasn’t coming?” I ask her.
She looks over at me. “Yeah. You mean you didn’t?”
“No, I had no idea.”
She pulls out her phone, and I watch as she opens her social media app. “He sent me a message…what, like, Monday, I guess. Yeah, Monday.” She spins the phone around so I can see the message. “He said his grandmother died.”
“Oh.” My stomach drops. “Oh, god. That’s terrible.”
“Yeah, I didn’t want to tell his business or whatever,” Austin says, his head tilted downward.
“Shoot.” Mara covers her mouth. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“He won’t care that I know,” I say. I want to believe it’s true, but why am I the only one he didn’t tell? Then again, how dare I expect him to tell me anything when he is going through such a tragedy?
“Of course not,” she agrees. “He only messaged me to ask if I knew anyone who’d want to take his place on the trip. You know, so we wouldn’t all have to pay more or have him pay for a trip he couldn’t come on. But I didn’t. No one I asked could make it on such short notice.”
“Which is probably when he reached out to me,” Austin says. “That was Monday night, because I reached out to Memphis on Tuesday.”
The day of my interview.
“Logan never heard from him either, but I convinced Memphis to come by Tuesday morning, so that was probably why he didn’t reach out to you guys. I’m sure he just had a lot on his plate.”
He’s probably right. It should make me feel better that at least I wasn’t the only one, but somehow it doesn’t. The fact that I was so far down his list only further proves we were never as close as I thought we were. It’s all been in my head.
“Yeah, of course,” I say eventually. “No big deal. I’m just glad it all worked out.”
“Okay, so what are we doing? Where are the rooms? Why isn’t there wine yet? Is everyone here?” Mara asks, practically all in one breath. “I can’t believe this is happening! Ah! You guys are real!”
“Rooms are upstairs,” Austin and I say at the same time. He smiles and gestures toward me, letting me finish the sentence. “I’ll show you the way.”
I lead Mara upstairs, and along the way she talks my head off about the drive in and the fiasco she dealt with in airport security.
“I totally didn’t know you don’t have to take everything out of your bags now, so I was just taking it all out, and the man was like ‘No! No! You don’t do that anymore!’ Like, hello? How was I supposed to know?”
I chuckle. “Yeah, seriously. I’m just glad they let you get on the plane.”
“Please.” She rolls her eyes, looping an arm through mine. “I would’ve held onto a wing if they didn’t. I was getting here one way or another.”
In the hall, I show her the room choices she has left. “Here or there.”
“Where are you staying?”
