I slept awfully last night. I missed the quiet peace of Luke’s secluded house on Kauai and listening to the rain fall against the earth as I lay in his bed at night, thinking about him being on the couch. One night I came so close to letting him know it was OK to sleep in the bed with me. I don’t know if I would’ve taken it further than that, but the thought of going to sleep with his arms wrapped around me was enough to sustain me probably forever.
But things are so much noisier at the resort. I constantly hear people shuffling by outside my room in the hall, the rolling wheels of suitcases, kids talking loudly, excited to be going swimming. After Luke’s house, I never want to spend another night in a hotel again. After Luke, any guy I meet in the future will have a lot to live up to.
Standing in front of the bathroom mirror with a frothy tooth-brush in my mouth, I hear what sounds like a knock at my room door. I shut the water off and listen, my head hovering over the sink, toothpaste dripping from my lips. Another series of knocks rap against the door and I spit and rinse quickly so I can go answer it. For a second I assume it’s just the housekeeper, but toss that theory quickly when I don’t hear “Housekeeping!” following the knocks.
My heart races just knowing that it’s Luke, because who else could it be?
I press my eye to the peephole and freeze with my face against the coated wood.
What is Kendra doing here? Kendra, of all people.
I move my eye from the peephole and just stand here for a moment, not sure whether I want to, or should answer the door; my arms are rigid down at my sides. She might be here to hack me to pieces or something—crazy comes in many forms and Kendra doesn’t seem far from the farm.
I open the door. There’s a long pause rife with tension between both of us as we stare at each other.
She breaks the quiet. “Can I come in and talk to you?”
“How did you know what room I was in?” That’s the only thing I want to talk about right now.
She seems anxious to come inside, but answers just to get it out of the way. “A friend of mine works at the front desk.”
Oh really? Well, if you attack me, that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.
“Sienna …” She sighs and hesitates, looking discouraged as her big brown eyes stray toward the wall. Then she looks right at me. “I just really need to talk to you. I’m not here to give you shit, or to make you feel any more uncomfortable than I already have. Can I come in?”
I step aside to clear a path for her.
She wastes no time getting right to the point.
“Seth tried to call Luke this morning,” she begins, standing in the center of the room with her tanned arms crossed over a pink tank top, “and it took forever to get through to him. Basically, Luke didn’t want to talk, but Seth got enough out of him to know that you took off last night and that … well, you might’ve overheard our argument.”
I cross my arms, too, and nod slightly, unable to look her in the eyes. “Yeah, I did. I heard enough.”
“Maybe you didn’t,” she says, and my gaze snaps back to hers. “I think if you did—well, what did you hear exactly?”