Chapter 1 #2
Sloane wrinkled her nose and took the key card for room 316.
She was still wearing the giant hat. Her dark hair was tucked into a bun at the back of her neck.
Max realized her fingernails were painted nearly the same blue as her eyes—on purpose?
Did people do things like that on purpose?
He also noticed that her flimsy, floaty, diaphanous, translucent cover-up garment was belted at the waist, and the belt had loosened while they’d talked to Brian.
She was wearing a swimsuit underneath, deep green and cut down to her sternum, and Max was about to say something very professional when she untied the belt and re-wrapped the robe-thing around herself.
He was pretty sure she was smirking at him.
“Better than a ghostly AC unit,” she said, tying a bow. “Do you think he was trying to tell us that there’s a ghost in the air conditioner in those two rooms or that the air-conditioning unit itself is a ghost?”
“Probably the first,” Max said, making eye contact. So much eye contact. “I’ve never heard of a machine becoming a ghost. I think that only happens to things that are alive.”
“I think it doesn’t happen at all.” Now she was grinning over at him like they were both in on the same joke, and Max discovered just how much he was looking forward to the next two days.
Max opened the door on the second knock. Even though Sloane was three minutes earlier than they’d agreed and he wasn’t wearing a shirt yet, just shorts and a towel around his neck.
“They really are the same room with different beds,” Sloane said, glancing around the space behind him before finally looking at him. “Sorry—did you need a minute?”
“You’re early,” he pointed out but stepped back to let her in.
“Your watch is wrong.”
Max held up both hands, wrists out, demonstrating his lack of watch.
“Then your phone is wrong,” she said, and she had that same little smirk that she’d had earlier, when she was re-tying the fucking femme-fatale I swear I had nothing to do with my husband’s death, Officer robe she’d had on. She wasn’t wearing the robe now, just a tank top and shorts. Max missed it.
“My phone has the same time as your phone because Apple headquarters sets it,” he said, squeezing more water out of his hair with the towel. He could feel droplets dripping down his back, which was at least better than sweat.
“I can go stand in the hall for two minutes and thirty seconds if you need the time to get decent.” Sloane was still smirking.
“I’d need way more time than that to get decent,” he said, and grinned at her.
Sloane snorted. “Okay, that one was my fault,” she said, and flopped onto the end of the bed.
Max opened his suitcase and pulled out one of four identical shirts he’d brought: a long-sleeved light blue button-down made of that material that was kind of like denim but wasn’t actually denim. He could never remember the name.
“I was sure the manager was about to tell us they only had one room left and we’d have to share it,” Sloane went on.
Max paused buttoning his shirt. “Why? It doesn’t seem that crowded.”
“Because it’s a romance-themed hotel?”
“But then we’d only pay for one room instead of two.”
“Didn’t you get a discount because you’re doing a feature on the air-conditioning ghost?”
“Yeah, they gave me half off in exchange for the exposure to the ghost-hunting community,” Max said, rolling up one sleeve. “I guess they’re hoping to drum up business during the fall and winter from romantics who…want to romance a ghost?”
“I’m not sure that’s the audience they’re going for,” Sloane pointed out. “Seems niche.”
“I don’t think they’d turn away ghost fuckers, though,” said Max. “I mean, they probably wouldn’t. There’s a week-long human fuckfest every year. Why not ghosts?”
He turned to see Sloane watching him, both eyebrows raised.
“Well, they call it singles’ week,” he explained.
“Maybe I should come back then.”
Max nearly said, Wear the swim-cover up, the offers will be endless. But he’d promised himself not to make it weird, so he didn’t.
“So, you think Brian was scheming to start singles’ week early by putting us in the same room?” he asked instead, which was maybe not a whole lot better.
“It’s a romance novel thing,” Sloane explained. “You know, two people are on a work trip together or traveling to some estate, and when they get to the hotel or the inn there’s only one bed left, so they have to share. Sexual tension ensues.”
Normally, Max thought he was pretty good at reading people. He dated a normal amount, hooked up pretty regularly, and was usually pretty good at telling when someone wanted to make out or fuck. And usually, if he wasn’t sure, he could ask.
But he’d known Sloane for a long time. In high school, they’d been the kind of casual friends who didn’t stay in touch after graduation, but they’d drifted back together in the past few years when all their peers had started getting married.
Maybe he didn’t know her all that well, but he knew she said what she was thinking rather than dropping hints.
Besides, Max and Sloane were about to spend two whole days together. A lot of that time together was going to be late at night, in the dark. Starting off with Hey, wanna fuck? was probably not the move.
“Oh,” he said, instead of Are you flirting with me. “Seems like a good way to get sued.”
“Probably,” Sloane admitted. “Unless they advertised it as part of a matchmaking package or something. Like, come stay for a week, get a different cliché every day. Cliché a day is pretty good, actually.”
“Go pitch it to Brian.”
“Monday: one bed. Tuesday: marry an earl to get your inheritance. Wednesday: kidnapped by sexy pirates.”
“Do you divorce the earl first?”
“I think you get the marriage annulled.”
“Ah. Romantic.”
Sloane laughed, and Max couldn’t help but grin.
“Okay, we’ll workshop it some,” she said. “Should we go check out all the haunting hotspots?”