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I point out her passenger window at the building that looks like it’s literally going to collapse before our very eyes if a mosquito so much as flies by flapping its wings.
“I mean, no, Luna, you are not staying here.”
After we’d agreed that I would manage her trust, we both tried to get a few hours sleep. Then I’d driven us back to London, where she gave me the address of where she’d be staying and where she wanted me to drop her off.
Except now that I’ve seen it, as I told her, there is no fucking way.
“What? It’s cheap and in a great location. I have no trouble staying here,” she insists.
I shake my head, griping the steering wheel, gearing up for another argument. “No. I’m not going to say it again. Luna. Idon’t want to have to come dig you out of a pile of rubble in an hour.”
“Aw, you care,” she teases and flutters her eyelashes.
I have a resting I-don’t-have-time-for-this-bullshit face as it is, but the look I give her is withering even for me.
She’s already built an immunity to it, however, and just rolls her eyes. “It’s totally fine, Kingsley. I’ve been staying there for almost two months. And look, it’s still standing.”
I honestly don’t know how. And I’ve seen my fair share of rundown buildings. My brothers and I have bought and flipped our fair share of cottages, hotels, and apartment buildings. I know when a building is one worn screw thread away from collapsing.
“Luna, go get your things.”
“Why? Kingsley! I like it here.”
My forehead tightens with what I imagine is the first of many migraines I’m going to be gifted with over the next three months. “I said get your things.”
“No. I have friends here.”
“Leave them a Post-it telling them how to get in touch with you.”
She pulls her arms close to her chest, squaring her jaw as she slides lower in the car seat. “There’s nothing wrong with this place. You’re just being a snobby dickwank.”
“I am a snobby dickwank, but that isn’t what this is about. I’m giving you one last chance. Are you going to go inside and get your things?”
“I said no. And we’re going to have to talk about you treating me like a child.”
“Fine.” I turn the ignition off and jump out of the car and stalk toward the hostel. “Please don’t collapse while I’m in there,”I murmur under my breath as I step inside.
The foyer is bustling when I step inside. A line ten-people long is crowding the door as they wait to be checked in. There’s an array of stained, duct-taped-together backpacks and worn duffel bags. People chatting too loudly for my liking.
A full-grown adult male wearing a bright yellow hat of some vaguely familiar Japanese anime character stands alone, leaning against the wall, and he seems like the best one to approach, the one least likely to want to make needless conversation with me.
“Excuse me. Where are the dorm rooms, please?”
He looks up from his worn travel guide. “Through that corridor. You lookin’ for someone?”
“No.”
I know exactly where she is. Probably still glaring at me from my double-parked car out front of this about-to-be-condemned building.
Making my way through the corridor, I peek into the rooms.
Most of them have six to ten bunk beds, about half occupied.
In the fourth room I look in, there’s a bottom bunk with a makeshift curtain from what looks like a bedsheet. A bag sits in the corner of the bed, with a familiar looking white-and-red stripey dress poking out of it. Bingo. That damn candy striper uniform.
“This is the women’s dorm,” a voice admonishes me from the top bunk when I step inside.
“I’m just grabbing something.”
