Page 16 of The Plus-One Deal
“We did great at dinner,” I said. “We’ll nail tennis too. If it even comes to that, which I’m betting it won’t.”
Claire let out a long breath. She bobbed her head. “All right. Oh, you know what?” Her green eyes lit up with new inspiration. “We’ll just stay in our suites till we’re clear to fly out. Say the storm kept us up and we slept late. It’ll be perfect, no tennis, no stress.”
“Perfect,” I said, and flashed the okay sign. I headed for my suite and she made for hers.Peanuts, of all things — whose stupididea… Everyone knew peanuts were evil, up there with gluten and egg yolks and carbs. We’d have to clean the whole kitchen. Have it detailed. Did they do that for kitchens, or?—
Movement caught my eye, shadows shifting behind me. The elevator dinged, its doors sliding open. I glanced back, and my skin pricked with sudden alarm. Claire had her door open, and beyond her,oh shit.
I yelled out, wordless. Claire dropped her keycard. She stooped to get it, and her door slammed shut. Verity stepped off the elevator with Ken at her heels.
“Verity!” I called, half-greeting, half-warning. Claire let out a gasp and bolted upright.
Verity’s gaze flicked to Claire, then back to me. Her brow knit in puzzlement. I frowned at my keycard.
“Hey, Claire, uh, what room is that?”
She gaped a moment, confused, then caught the hint. “Six oh-nine,” she said.
“Well, we’re in six-ten.”
Claire laughed. “Oh, dear. And this one’s unlocked. Did I almost barge in on some honeymoon couple?”
Verity giggled at that. “I did that one time. We were in Australia, at this outback retreat, and instead of rooms, we had these, what were they?”
“Yurts,” said Ken. “Yogurts with the ‘og’ scooped out.”
“That’s right, yurts.” Verity grimaced. “They’re like these huge tents, and they all look the same. And the couple I walked in on,let’s just say they were fit. Flexible as acrobats, let’s leave it at that.”
“Lucky I avoided that, then.” Claire hurried over to me. I slung my arm around her and drew her into my side. We ducked together into my suite, Claire waving over her shoulder at Verity and Ken. I shouldered the door shut, and she leaned against it. I watched her and waited, but she didn’t move.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting for them to leave.” She turned and squinted through the peephole. “These doors are too heavy. I can’t hear a thing.”
“Come have a drink with me. They’ll be gone by then.”
Claire came in past me and strode through my suite, the lounge, the bedroom, the long balcony. She stood at the railing, then came back inside.
“The wind’s picking up, but it’s not even cloudy. We could be halfway home right now if they’d let us take off.”
“Maybe. Or we’d still be queued up, waiting on the tarmac.” I slid the glass doors back open and leaned into the wind. The air had got cooler, and bitter with brine. When I breathed deep, I picked up an electric tang, the promise of lightning sharp in the air. Verity’s laughter drifted in from two balconies over, and I closed the door to shut it out.
“You shouldn’t go back,” I said.
Claire frowned. “Back home?”
“Back to your room tonight. It would be too risky.”
“Risky how?”
“With the storm coming in, who knows what’ll happen? What if your window breaks, or the fire bell goes off? You’d have to come out then, and Verity’d see you. She’d know that was your room, and she’d know we lied.”
Claire turned away, her troubled frown deepening. “My pajamas are in there. My face cream. My clothes.”
I edged up behind her and stroked her arms some more. “Tell you what, then — Verity’s out on her balcony, and Ken’s out there with her. I’ll keep an eye on them while you grab your things. Shoot you a text if I see them moving.”
Claire pulled her phone out and took it off silent, and I slipped outside as she hurried next door. Ken and Verity had settled in for a nightcap, mostly hidden from me by a planter full of ferns. I stretched out on a lounger and listened to their chatter, a quiet drone deadened by the crash of the waves. I couldn’t pick out their words, but their tone seemed light, punctuated at intervals by loud bursts of laughter. Claire had nothing to worry about, from what I could hear.
Soon, my phone beeped, a thumbs-up from Claire. I turned, and she was back and sitting on my bed.