Chapter 18
Bailey
As it turns out, the Tiger Motel is about as bad as it gets.
Doubled over, leaning against the edge of the bed, I can’t stop laughing.
Every time I manage to calm down, I look straight up again and catch my expression in the mirror, which just makes me bend in half all over again.
Tears are squeezing out of both corners of my eyes by the time I manage to form words.
“How did they not mention the mirror at check-in?” I ask, gasping for air.
No answer from Rhett, but his face twists each time our eyes meet. He’s trying so hard to stay serious, and it makes me bend in half all over again.
Finally, he cracks. His grin turns into that chest-rumbling laughter of his that I love, and I nearly forget about the mirror in favor of watching him as he gives into it.
The worker stationed behind the bars of the motel’s check-in desk told us that they only had one room in working condition that was available to sleep in tonight. She’d referred to it as the honeymoon suite.
Apparently, at the Tiger Motel, “honeymoon suite” means a lip-shaped bathtub in the corner and a mirror bolted to the ceiling above the bed.
The one bed, as it were.
I hadn’t noticed the mirror until I was standing beneath it and saw Rhett’s gaze shift up toward the ceiling.
Then he’d waited for me to notice.
Now, it’s been a few minutes, and I still can’t form a full sentence without laughing again by the end.
I’ve never seen him turn this red, and I am loving it.
He did the best he could to secure the room when we first arrived, but when he’d attempted to drag a dresser in front of the door, we’d discovered that the mirror wasn’t the only thing bolted down.
There’s no couch for him to sleep on, and the floor is not an option. The amount of dead skin cells and toenails ground into that thing is already going to give me nightmares.
“Are you sure this is better than pushing through the last couple hours of the drive?” I ask, standing near the edge of the bed. I force myself not to look up so we can talk through the absurdity of this plan without me giggling my way through it.
“I’m not planning to sleep much tonight, anyway,” he says.
I cast my eyes up to the mirror, then raise a brow at him, cocking my head to the side with a ridiculous grin.
“Did you make that decision before or after seeing what we’re working with here? Because I think we both know this room is definitely not made for sleeping, is it?” I can’t help but laugh, and then laugh harder when one spills out of him, too.
“Your brother would murder me if he knew we were checked into a honeymoon suite with a mirror over the bed.” He rubs his jaw, studying me, but continues grinning from ear to ear. It makes those butterflies wake back up and attempt to take flight.
“Your sister can never find out.”
We both nod, formalizing an agreement.
“I think the stress of this last week is finally catching up with me,” I tell him. “I’m going to change into my pajamas. Best if the lights are out when I come back because I really don’t want to see what’s underneath those covers before we have to sleep in them.”
“I’ll take the lips,” he announces, casting his eyes toward what was probably once a bright red soaker tub shaped like a pair of open lips in the corner. But it looks like it has a permanent white film across the whole bottom half of it now.
“If you even step foot in that thing, you’re not allowed back in the car tomorrow,” I tell him. “God knows what type of airborne illnesses are going to be released if you climb into it. Even without turning on the water.”
He stands to examine the nasty red plastic, then rears back like he’s seen something bad.
“I think it’d be fine,” he says, looking closer and absolutely not fine. “Better than sleeping under that.” He points up at the mirror.
“Oh, this old thing?” I ask, pointing with him, barely holding back a laugh.
“It’s my favorite part about this place.
If I wasn’t swayed to stay here by looking at that tub, one second with this mirror and .
. .” He steps closer to the tub to inspect another something I don’t want to know about.
“Back away from the tub, Rhett,” I bark.
“Before something jumps up and takes us both out.”
This time, he listens and moves away, but when he sits down on the edge of the mattress, it tilts down. The ancient set of springs screams to life beneath his weight, and the whole thing creaks long and loud like it’s dying.
He bounces a few times, smirking at me while the bed shrieks and groans.
“Think these springs have seen some action?” he asks, giving it a few more shakes. It sounds like a string quartet that’s trying to play but is too busy getting murdered. “I think they’re in pain.”
“I’ll take a few squeaky springs over death by airborne hot tub illnesses,” I answer.
“You’re probably used to much fancier accommodations than this.”
“I think most people are used to fancier accommodations than this,” I point out. “Yourself included. Listen, I’m going to get changed real fast, then we’ll see what’s on TV. Maybe it’ll distract us from the bedbugs that you and I both know are lying in wait under those sheets right now.”
He jolts off the bed.
“Don’t even joke about those,” he says, studying the yellowed bed sheets. “If you’re looking for the one thing that I’m deathly afraid of, you’ve found it.”
I raise a brow.
“War, stalkers, and drowning, all fine. But give you a few bedbugs and—”
“Stop saying bedbugs.”
I grin, pressing my lips together like I’m about to say it again, but he takes one of the nasty pillows off the head of the bed and chucks it at me.
I scream when I’m too late to swat it away, and the pillow makes contact.
“Nooo,” I moan, wiping my mouth with the back of my wrist. “It touched my lips.”
Using my elbow, I shove the pillow off the bed from where it landed beside me, then kick it against the wall.
“We might need to ball up some of our clothes to use as pillows,” I grumble. “That thing had a stain on it. Like, a gross one.”
“All stains are gross,” he argues.
“No, but that one was like—”
“Okay, yes. Don’t need to describe it. A truce, then,” he says, holding out his hand. “No more double-B word. And no more pillows to the mouth. No more talk of stains, either.”
I wipe my lips again, slightly amused that I’ve found a few things to make Rhett squirm.
“Truce,” I say, shaking his hand while realizing that Rhett’s hand is the most comforting thing in this whole room.
Probably in the whole building. Although I can’t believe my poor luck that the one and only time I’ll ever share a bed with this man will be in a room that could not be worse.
“I promise to refrain from the double-B word if you promise to stop throwing pillows at my face and you promise not to sleep in that.”
I point to the tub.
“Deal. Go change and I’ll see what’s on TV.”
When I emerge from the bathroom a few minutes later, wearing a set of pajamas I’d packed, thinking I’d have my own hotel room tonight, Rhett has the covers pulled back with a row of paper-flat pillows lined up down the middle.
Dateline is playing on the TV while he searches in his bag for his own tee and sweats to change into.
Without waiting for my cue, I hop into my side of the bed, praying he’s already done a thorough check for bugs.
A few minutes later, Rhett steps out of the bathroom wearing only a pair of gray sweatpants and socks.
No shirt.
I’m holding the TV remote up, about to make a joke regarding the three local channels we have here, all playing different variations of murder shows: Dateline, 20/20, and Forensic Files — the perfect complement to the mood of this place — but freeze when I see the bare skin of his chest and shoulders.
It’s the first time I’ve seen Rhett without a shirt since he landed in New York. There are three big scars. Two on the front of one shoulder, up near his collarbone, and one about twelve inches lower than those, beneath his ribs.
From what Hollis had told me, the lower scar is from the one bullet that managed to get through his ballistic vest while his shoulder was hit by shrapnel from a blast nearby.
The scar by his ribs is from the bullet that had nearly killed him.
A lump takes root at the back of my throat, blocking any words from coming out.
His eyes harden.
“I hate them, too,” he says, following my gaze. Then he turns to throw his change of clothes into the bag near the corner of the room. “Forgot the shirt I was going to sleep in.”
He grabs one off the top of a pile of clothes and nearly pulls it on.
“No, wait, come here,” I say, motioning him to the bed. “I haven’t seen these.”
He turns his back, setting his toiletry bag down near the TV, and I catch sight of the fourth scar, the entry spot for the one beneath his ribs on the front.
It tore through his back and out the front of him after Cory went down when he was trying to protect the kid in the car without any cover. The shooter was close enough that his vest didn’t stop it.
Every bullet had miraculously missed the kid, who made it out perfectly unharmed after Rhett was pushed on top of him as his team scrambled to get them all out before anyone else went down. By the time they were a safe distance away, Rhett was in rough shape, and Cory was already gone.
The skin beneath his ribs is wavy and slightly darker than the rest of him, and I don’t want to imagine the pain it must have caused, or how he’d felt trying to protect the kid while fighting for his own life.
The story was horrific. It makes me feel sick to picture any of it, and my heart burns for what he had to face when he woke up in that hospital bed.
When he turns, facing me, our eyes meet. His are filled with fresh pain, like he’s reliving the whole thing through my gaze as I take in the sight of him. Then the words just start tumbling out of my mouth before I can stop any of them.