Part of me wanted him to say no. Stay. And I think part of him wanted to say it too. But instead, he just reached for my hand, squeezed it, and said, “I’ll walk you to your car.”
He kissed me before I drove away, this time crazy soft and sweet. When I crawled into bed later that night, I could still feel the whisper of his lips on mine.
Chapter 13
A Night of Stars. That was how tonight’s entertainment at Bryant Mountain House was advertised. Internally, hotel guests only. I’ll explain.
Every night at Bryant Mountain House there was in-house entertainment for the hotel guests. It could range from supremely entertaining to entertaining in only the most very literal sense of the word. Every morning each guest received a “newspaper” under their door with the day’s activities. The Bryant Bugler listed exercise and yoga classes, what was on the lunch menu, the weather report, you get the picture. There was also a section for nighttime, such as what movie would be shown, what times were available for dinner, and what was on tap for the nightly entertainment, typically held in the Lakeside Lounge. Since I’d been working here, I’d attended lectures on soap making, witnessed three magicians and their disappearing rabbits, attempted to learn to square dance, and watched a group billed as the Schmanders Sisters, not kidding, boogie-woogie until the boys came home.
And these evenings were always well attended. I’m telling you, take people’s televisions away and pow, let’s all learn how to macramé becomes oh so special. I’d asked Archie about the nighttime entertainment once, if he felt it needed to be punched up at all, and he honest to God asked me, “Why, what’s wrong with the entertainment?”
So when a Night of Stars popped up on the Bugler, I’d assumed it’d be some kind of variety act where jugglers and ventriloquists would vie for top billing only to come up short to a dancing poodle.
No no, it was actually something very cool. An astronomer was coming up to lead us on a nighttime hike up to Skytop to watch a meteor shower. Thinking I’d finally found the one event I was ready to invite everyone to, I put the call out.
“You gotta come up, it’ll be so cool.”
“Wait, hike? At night? In the dark? To see stars?” Natalie had a firm grip on the obvious.
“Ow, Pinup, not so hard,” I heard in the background. Apparently the obvious wasn’t the only thing she had a firm grip on.
“Jesus, morning boning? Are you guys animals?” I asked, rolling my eyes.
“Listen, just because you’re not getting it doesn’t mean I’m not getting it.”
“Touché,” I replied. “So you’re coming?”
“Gimme five minutes and yeah, I’ll be coming.” She laughed, and I sighed heavily.
“Tonight? Up to the resort? Are you in?”
“Let me ask Oscar,” she said, covering the phone. I heard things that, even though they were muffled, I had no business hearing, but eventually she came back on the phone. Albeit breathless. “We’re in. What time?”
“Seven thirty, we’ll meet in the lobby, and I’ll tell the guard shack you’re coming up and to let you through. Make sure you wear boots and . . . Jesus, I’m hanging up now.”
My next call went somewhat smoother.
“A nighttime hike? That sounds . . . interesting. Won’t it be cold?”
“Yep. The way to combat that would be to wear a coat and mittens.”
Roxie laughed. “I’ll double-check with Leo, but that should be fine. Polly is spending the night with Trudy.”
“Oh, I hate to take you away when you guys have the night to yourselves, I know that doesn’t happen too often.” Roxie adored Leo’s daughter, Polly, but dating a man with an eight-year-old did have some limitations.
“No no, it’s good. Besides, it’s nice having you in town. Leo was just saying how much fun it was hanging out with you and Archie.”
“Me and Archie?” I scoffed. “There’s no me and Archie. I mean, there’s me, and then there’s Archie, and we work together, and I suppose he’s pretty cool when he’s not being an asshole, but there’s definitely not a me and Archie per se, like in the traditional way. Why would he say that? Me and Archie? That’s crazy.”
Silence on the other end of the phone.
“Um, okay,” she said, her tone measured.
I nearly smacked myself in the forehead when I played it back, how crazy had I just sounded?
“So, um, yeah, anyway. Seven thirty?”
“Sure. Got it.” She paused for a moment. “Everything okay up there?”
Shit. “Fine!” I practically shouted. I made myself take a breath. “Fine,” I repeated in a much calmer tone. “Everything is fine. Working hard. Doing my thing. You know me.”
“I do know you.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“So, if there was something going on, something you wanted to talk about, you know you could talk to me, right?”
“Mm-hmm.” Sooo much trouble.
“Because you know, I’d hate to think that one of my very best friends had something going on that she was excited about, but didn’t feel like she could tell me because who knows why . . . but I know that’s not happening because of course you’d tell me, right?”
“Mm-hmm.” I was humming because my lips refused to unseal.
“Okay then,” she said, with the sweetest-sounding voice ever. “We’ll see you at seven thirty.”
You already know my response.
Okay, so. Roxie was onto me. She knew something was up. But if I could play it cool tonight, she might just let it lie. If Natalie sniffed something, however, I was screwed.
Sigh. I really couldn’t talk about this with those two. They’d already been planting seeds left and right about the magical gravitational force that was Bailey Falls and how hard it could suck me in. If they got a whiff that there was actually something going on between us? They’d never let it go. And it wasn’t that I didn’t confide in my girlfriends, these two were my family. But when I talked to Roxie and Natalie about something, it was something. And if I didn’t even know what this was, whether it even was something or not, I didn’t want to make it more than it was.
If I told the girls, then this shit was real. And when shit was real, it could hurt. So I needed to minimize their interest in this.
I called Chad and invited him and Logan. They could run interference if needed. Plus, they were fun. And we needed fun young people up at the resort, if for no other reason than to tell other fun young people to book a weekend trip. In fact . . .
I headed down to Archie’s office, poking my head around the corner to find him behind his desk, working.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he said, looking up with a smile.
“I invited some people up tonight for the meteor hike, Roxie and Natalie and company, seven thirty?”
“Of course.”