Chapter 11 #2
Emmy initially smiled with a nod, thankful her sister had booked her a room with a view, but quickly backtracked her thought
when she registered the latter part of the description.
“King?” she asked the woman.
“Sí.” She nodded with a smile.
Emmy’s smile morphed into a tight line as her pulse leapt in her throat. “As in, one bed?”
“Sí,” the woman said with another smiling nod. “One big bed.”
A hot bloom of color raced up Emmy’s neck. “No. I need two beds.” She held up two fingers. “Dos camas, por favor.”
The woman’s smile faltered, and she tilted her head in question.
Emmy’s nerves twisted around inside her like eels. The mere idea of sharing a room with Gabe Olson had her spinning, let alone
having to share one with only one bed. And now she was having to negotiate her way out of it in a language she hardly knew
beyond high school instruction. She glanced over her shoulder to see if Ben could come help translate, but he and the manager
had disappeared. Desperate, she leaned back over the counter and began babbling to the clerk.
“Listen, I’m here for a wedding, and my date is coming tomorrow.
We are not a couple. In fact, we don’t even really like each other.
Well, I guess that’s not entirely true. I do like one version of him, but that’s not the version who’s coming to the wedding.
The guy who’s coming is my co-worker, and
he’s doing me a favor. We can’t share a room with only one bed because that is crossing so many boundaries I might as well
report myself to HR right now. Please. I need a room with two beds.” She held up two fingers again. “Better yet, I need two
rooms. Can you help me with that, please?”
The woman blinked at her, clearly not having followed her ramble. Still smiling, she held up one finger. “One bed. One room.
The hotel is full.”
Emmy grimaced and realized it was less of a language barrier and more the fact there were simply no other rooms.
“Well, can I switch with someone? Someone here by themselves who doesn’t need two beds?”
The woman shook her head with another polite smile. Emmy had to credit the hotel management for training their staff to maintain
such composure in the face of whining tourists. “We don’t have any more rooms. The shuttle is ready for you now.”
Resigned to her fate, Emmy sighed. She looked over her shoulder to see a fancy golf cart with a luggage rack outside the front
entryway. A young man in a white shirt and khaki shorts stood by waiting. “Gracias,” she told the woman and gathered her map.
She rolled her suitcase across the lobby with her heart beating uncomfortably hard. She had a few choice words for her sister
for booking her a room with a single bed because Piper knew she wasn’t going to find a date until the last minute, and anyone
she invited to come would not be someone she was comfortable sharing a bed with. And now that someone was her co-worker. Her archnemesis. Her... secret
pen pal crush.
“ Argh! ” Emmy yanked her suitcase over the curb to the waiting golf cart.
The bellhop flinched and looked frightened.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
He recovered with a pleasant smile. “Bienvenidos. Room number?” he asked in heavily accented English.
Emmy dug for the map she’d shoved into her jeans’ back pocket. She needed to get out of the denim ASAP as she was starting
to sweat in the aggressively humid air. “Um, 2247,” she told her driver as he hoisted her bag up into the luggage rack.
He nodded and circled around to sit behind the wheel. Emmy climbed into the back seat and held on to the handrail. The cart
had no seat belts, but she couldn’t imagine they’d be driving very fast over the small, paved pathway that unspooled before
them. He hit the gas, and they lurched off.
The warm air rushed by like a blast from an open oven. The sweet smell of guava and palm and sea salt pushed in on Emmy in
a rush, and she remembered she was in paradise. They passed a blur of green on either side as they zoomed through the jungly
landscape toward the water. A golf course briefly sprang up to their left in a finely manicured streak of lime green. She
glimpsed a swimming pool in flashes of aqua on the right. They’d been driving for at least five solid minutes when Emmy realized
it was no wonder they escorted guests around by shuttle; it would have taken her ages to walk this far with her luggage.
Her driver eventually stopped in front of a white stucco building with a tile roof. Emmy could see the Caribbean Sea, a glittering
shock of teal water, straight through the building’s breezeway. It momentarily stole her breath.
“Bienvenidos,” her driver said again. He smiled at her and hopped out to grab her bag.
Emmy climbed out of the cart and felt the sun mercilessly beat down from above.
With the humidity, she felt like an insect being burned under a magnifying glass.
She only had thoughts of getting into her air-conditioned room and stripping down to one of the cot ton sundresses she’d packed.
Or putting on her swimsuit and jumping in the pool.
“Gracias,” she told him, and dragged her bag toward the building’s entrance. It had no exterior doors or windows. Simply big,
open holes painted with blue trim that allowed the thick air to freely move in and out of the lobby and halls. The elevator
deposited her on the second floor, and when she unlocked her door and saw a king-size bed plush with dreamy white linens framed
by the teal sea, all the blood in her body took a funny loop.
It was stunning and utterly romantic.
She dropped her bag and immediately cranked the AC as low as it would go. Then she peeled off her jeans and flopped on the
bed in her underwear. She lay there like a starfish, reaching for either end of it to gauge how big a king-size bed really
was and trying to think of a remedy for the situation.
She could go yell at her sister for booking her a room with one bed, but her job was to help keep Piper calm, not start a
fight. There were no more rooms, and there was no other nearby hotel. Their resort was several miles down the coast from Cancún,
where all that existed were insular mega resorts specifically designed for guests to never have to leave. She knew from Piper’s
planning that the all-inclusive property had a grocery store, a laundromat, a golf course, a spa, eight restaurants, three
pools, a private beach, two gyms, gift shops, two clothing stores, a daycare, a wedding venue, and, somehow, no spare rooms
with two beds.
Was this really happening? In approximately thirty hours, was she going to have to share a hotel room with Gabe Olson? Granted, it was a beautiful hotel
room with an absolutely stunning view, but even with the sunken tub, minibar, and TV big enough to be seen from space, it
still only had one bed.
It struck Emmy then that she needed to warn him.
If their roles were reversed, she’d want to know what she was walking into because otherwise, it might have felt like a trick.
And they were on shaky enough ground with their dual identities that she wanted to be transparent about the situation so he wouldn’t think she was trying to pull one over on him.
She reached for her phone. The last text she’d sent Gabe was the name and location of the hotel. Other than that, the conversation
between Axe Murderer and Bird Girl had died days ago.
The thought put an ache in her chest.
She checked the time to see it was lunchtime in California. She imagined him sitting at his desk next to her empty cubicle.
Or maybe he had gone out to grab a bite with Pedro and Silas. Or maybe he was studiously pounding away at his keyboard and
skipping lunch to make up for the time he’d lose by coming to the wedding for her.
Before she could talk herself out of disrupting him further, Emmy typed out a message and hit send.
Hey. Made it to the hotel. So, bit of a situation...
Her heart positively leapt when he instantly responded. She tried not to read into it.
Glad you made it. What’s going on?
Well, turns out the hotel double-booked the venue this weekend. There’s another wedding happening at the exact same time.
Oh shit. Really?
Yeah. My sister is freaking out. My (almost) brother-in-law is talking to the hotel manager trying to fix it.
Yikes. What’s going to happen?
Not sure, but the double book isn’t the only problem.
She nervously bit her lip, afraid to say the next part.
Oh?
With two weddings, the hotel is completely full. I was planning to get you your own room, but there aren’t any available.
So we’re going to have to share.
She immediately locked her screen and laid her phone on her chest, breathing deeply. She wasn’t sure if it was the thought
of sharing a room with him or worry over how he was going to react that had her pulse hammering. She gasped when her phone
buzzed.
Well, I don’t snore.
Her face bent into a smile.
I do.
Really?
No. But I’ve been known to talk in my sleep.
Ah. Well, I look forward to learning Emmy Jameson’s deep, dark unconscious secrets.
You already know my biggest secret.
What, that you have an affinity for musical bird-related humor?
Emmy laughed out loud, and the sound startled her. Why was talking to him through text so easy? It was like no time had passed;
nothing had gone wrong. They hadn’t imploded their perfect relationship by taking it to the ill-informed next level.
No, pun master. I meant your identity.
We need to expand your horizons if my identity is your biggest secret. I’m looking forward to what kind of trouble we can
get into in Mexico.
Emmy’s heart flipped over with a delicious little bump. The feeling made her forget she was texting Gabe, not Axe Murderer.
Beth’s words floated back to her. They’re the same person.
She knew that was objectively true, but she still could not fully wrap her mind around it. Especially with the curious floating
feeling his saying he was looking forward to joining her had filled her body with.