Page 116 of The Fast Lane

“Yes.”

“You can stay in my room.”

“Bed. Sleep.” I nodded.

We started back up the stairs. “I might like this version of you. These one-word answers are nice.”

“Jerk.”

He laughed. “I deserved that.”

When we reached his floor, the elevators were letting off a group of people. We waited for them to pass. Theo reached out and took one of my hands. I smiled sleepily and rested my head on his shoulder.

The last person exited the elevator and froze when he saw us. Of course, it was Alec.

He smirked and waved us to go first. Thus began the most awkward thirty seconds of my life. Alec followed us down one hallway and again when we turned left. Theo pulled me to a stop in front of his room. Alec stopped, too. At the room right next to Theo’s.

Alec cleared his throat. “Like I said, think about it.”

My jaw dropped but, as was Alec’s way, he said what he wanted to say and disappeared into his room before I could reply.

“Ignore him,” Theo whispered. “He’s not worth the effort.”

Theo’s room, like mine, only had one bed. I crawled in and curled on my side.

“Make yourself at home.” Theo pulled my tennis shoes from my feet and tucked the covers around me. He snapped off the lights and climbed in next to me. I was mostly asleep when he rolled on his side behind me and wrapped an arm around me.

“Nice,” I whispered.

The rain started a few hours later.

FORTY-NINE

Note to self:

Elope.

Friday, two days before the wedding

Rain in Texas was quick and dirty. A storm blows in fast, brings thunder and lightning, thirty minutes of heavy rain, and then it’s done.

But we weren’t in Texas; we were in Portland where rain worked differently. It started early Friday morning, an endless light drizzle. A few moments of more intense rain and then back to endless light rain. It didn’t stop. Just continued for hours and hours, making everything damp and gray.

“So much rain.” Melanie stared morosely out the window while a nail technician worked on her French manicure. She’d been on the verge of tears since yesterday.

“This is why I wanted you to have the wedding back home in Texas. We could have used the church and wouldn’t have had to worry about the weather. But what do I know? I’m just your mother.” Melanie’s mother, Sonya, was an aggressively polite woman but always standoffish when Alec brought me around. All day, her snide comments had done nothing but drag the mood down.

I’d never liked that woman. There. I said it.

“Hallie,” I said, in hopes of changing topics, and quickly, “how you doing?”

She smiled at me from the miniature pedicure chair next to me where she was getting a lovely pearl pink applied to her toes. “I feel like a princess.”

My mom didn’t take the hint. “A wedding in Texas would have been so nice.”

“Mom.” I turned my head and gave her a pointed look. “No, just no.”

“That’s what I told them. I said it would be so much more convenient.” Sonya sighed. “But no, they insisted on having it here in Oregon.”