Chapter Thirteen
Declan and I walk through the hallway, bumps rising on my arms that are only marginally related to how cold it feels out of the hot tub.
The elevator takes a minute to arrive, then the doors open slowly.
I hold up four fingers, and he presses buttons for both of our floors.
We stand side by side, staring forward until we arrive on the third.
I nudge my arm against his shoulder in a brief farewell.
“See you in a few?” Declan asks, waiting for my nod before he steps out of the elevator.
As the silver doors close, I’m confronted by a hazy reflection of my own cheesy grin.
I don’t have the key, so I knock on the hotel room door twice before calling my sister. She takes her time letting me in, stifling a big yawn and wearing an oversized green Audubon College T-shirt.
“Were you asleep already?” I ask.
“No,” she admits, plopping back into bed to continue scrolling. She says something else, so I have to walk closer to catch her repetition since I still don’t have my hearing aids in. “How was the pool?”
“You could’ve said goodbye.” I shake my head. “But can I borrow your laptop?”
She doesn’t look up from her phone. “What? Why?”
“Declan and I are going to work on the road trip game we’ve been brainstorming.”
“Isn’t it late?” Amelia yawns again.
“It’s not even eleven yet. I see why you drink so much caffeine.”
She closes her eyes briefly. “This hotel better have decent coffee tomorrow morning.”
“I’m guessing you don’t want to come hang out?” I almost add again to guilt her into it, but given that she’s horizontal right now, the odds of her leaving this room are slim. Plus, doesn’t part of me sort of hope it could just be me and Declan tonight?
“Nah, I’ve spent enough time with Grady today.” Oh, right, Grady will be in Declan’s room. She raises an arm and points across the room to where her backpack is on the corner chair. “But my laptop’s over there.”
“Thank you.”
I dig out my pajamas—sweatpants and a similar oversized tee—and go shower, untangling the knots and rinsing all the pool water from my hair and then standing there in the steam wondering if my sister has even the slightest suspicion that I’ve kissed Declan.
As I dry out my ears and put my hearing aids back in, I ask Amelia, “Are you sure you want to stay here?”
“Don’t forget to take the key with you,” she says, pointing again to her backpack, then to the dresser where the two room cards are.
.....
I text Declan that I’m on my way to the third floor, and he meets me by the elevator. He’s wearing athletic shorts and a Jurassic Park shirt and holding a few soda bottles from the vending machine. “I hope you’re hungry, because Grady can never resist playing host.”
“Oh, really?” I ask, reaching for one of the drinks.
Declan and I approach the identical room, almost directly below where Amelia is upstairs, where Grady has an assortment of chips, crackers, and cookies on the wooden hotel table. He’s sitting in the rolling chair, ankle crossed over his knee, halfway through a pack of Doritos.
“You kids left the pool to do homework?” Grady smirks, holding up his cheesy fingers pressed together, hand outstretched like he’s in the middle of a stump speech.
“Hey, there’s a deadline,” Declan says. “We don’t have much time to throw this together.”
Now, standing shoulder to shoulder with Declan, I once again wonder if it’s obvious that we’ve kissed. Declan takes a seat atop the comforter, and with Grady already in the chair, my only seating options are the other bed or next to Declan.
Or the floor, but that’s nasty.
I take my time getting Amelia’s laptop out of her backpack and plugging it into the wall before sitting on the edge of the bed, opposite Declan. Grady tosses me some Oreos before opening his own laptop to do some other work of his own while Declan and I lean together to share a screen.
It only takes an hour or so to consolidate our individual notes and get an initial picture of how this board will come together.
“Like a country map,” Declan suggests, but not fully sold on the idea himself. “That seems a little too Ticket to Ride, you know?”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t want it to be too Monopoly or Life, either.” I frown at the document. Declan leans back on his elbows, against my legs. I take a slow breath. “I guess it depends on the outcomes. Are the players all going on the exact same trip, or are there variations?”
“It would be nice to have different paths. That’s something we could manage with cards, though,” he suggests.
“And dice,” I tease.
“I think Ticket to Ride has a dice expansion, though…” He runs the back of his hand against his scrunched-up forehead, trying to think. “I mean, we’re not going to be reinventing the wheel here.”
“True.” If we’re having trouble differentiating enough anyway, maybe we need to pull even more familiar inspiration.
An idea strikes then, and I’m giddy. “What if we combine it with something like Battleship? Like, what if there’s aliens on the ground on the road but navigators that are up in the sky, and it’s more of a cooperative game, but one that’s high risk because you don’t know if you’re going to be helpful or, like, accidentally smite your teammate somehow? ”
Declan matches my energy immediately, sitting back up and pointing to the screen. “Then we can do maps, but separate ones that other players can’t see rather than a shared one on the table.”
“Exactly.”
We lock eyes, and I’m so entranced by how well we’re working together that I almost forget where we are—until Grady bursts out laughing at something on his computer. Declan and I smile, looking away, but his fingers graze across my hand on the keyboard.
Another two hours pass in a matter of minutes, and we’ve planned out this entire board game, complete with a quick mock-up we can print and assemble after more fine-tuning back home.
But it’s definitely time to get some sleep because of the very real road we have to traverse tomorrow.
Well, today, since it’s nearly two in the morning, not to get annoying-kid-at-the-sleepover about this.
“All that’s left is to figure out a name,” I say.
“That’s tricky.” Declan hides a yawn in his shoulder, mirroring the roaring dinosaur on his tee. “I’m not great with coming up with names.”
“Yeah, Numbers, I know that.” I save the files and reluctantly slip off the bed to put the laptop back in the backpack. “I’m sure we’ll think of something on the way.”
“And see if we can convince Amelia and Grady to make a stop or two,” he agrees. We researched and found some weird little roadside attractions as inspiration to incorporate into the game, a few of which might be reasonable to see in person on our final driving stretch back to Omaha.
Grady gets up to go to the bathroom and brush his teeth as I head over to the door and step into my shoes.
“Need me to walk you back to your room?” Declan asks, standing as well.
“Not really…” Until it dawns on me half a second later. “Oh, sure.”
“To the elevator, at least,” Declan says, grabbing his hotel key card and following me out the door.
Grady shouts something after us, which I can only guess must’ve been “Smooth!” So it seems he has sensed the dynamic shift.
Declan and I make our way down the hall, and it’s like I forget how to be around him.
We walk several feet apart, not looking at each other or saying anything, and then out of nervousness, I hit the call button right away.
I probably could’ve waited a minute or two to do that, but when I spin back around to face him, we fall into each other’s arms again, ignoring the elevator doors opening and closing behind us.
.....
At the breakfast area the next morning, there are a few business travelers filling up bowls and plates with pastries and cereal before taking seats at the tables scattered around the lobby dining area.
There’s a family with young toddlers, but no one else our age around, at least until Declan and Grady walk into the lobby, too, with their bags in tow, ready to leave after we eat.
Amelia passes me a plate and grabs one for herself. “What looks good?” she asks, leaning over a tray of muffins to observe more closely.
“Those are chocolate chip. And maybe bran. I can’t tell what the other ones are,” I narrate, taking a step closer to her. “A couple different cereal options. Oatmeal. Pancake machine.”
My sister perks up at the challenge of making her own one-minute fresh breakfast. “Where’s the pancakes?”
“Straight ahead on the counter.” I stick a bowl underneath the cinnamon cereal, which spills down in a larger quantity than I’ll be able to stomach this morning, as I squint toward the pancake-making device. “I think you put the plate underneath on the right, then press the button on the left.”
“Easy enough,” Amelia says. “Want one?”
“Nah.”
Back at the table, we all settle in to eat and plan the day. Grady has three bananas stacked next to his plate, which I assume are to be brought with for later, but it’ll be amusing if he tries to eat them all right now. That’s got to be too much potassium.
I slide my phone across to Amelia, with one of the roadside attractions pulled up on the map.
Yet the only thing my sister seems to notice is how much time it adds to our journey. “You really want to delay getting home by at least forty-five minutes?” She pinches the screen to zoom in and read what I’ve added to the route. “Just to see some mustard?”
I reach forward to grab back my phone. “It’s the world’s largest bottle of mustard, thank you very much.” With a chuckle, I add, “The aliens find it fascinating.”
“You’re not making any sense.” Amelia rolls her eyes and takes a slow sip of her coffee, and I know she won’t be receptive right now to further explanations about the board game development.
“It won’t take that long,” I reassure her. “No more than a twenty-minute detour at most.”
She takes another long sip. “Each way. That’s an hour.”
“You’re terrible at math.”
“I’m tired, and I want to get home. It was an exhausting week of finals, and this is terrible coffee.”
Grady peels open his first banana. “I’m more of a catsup guy myself,” he jokes.
Amelia rolls her eyes. “Even when spelled the other way, it’s still pronounced ketchup.”
“Is she always this grumpy in the mornings?” Grady asks me, but the only answer is Amelia’s knife loudly scraping her plate as she cuts into the pancake again.
Declan blinks a few times in the ensuing silence, jaw tightening as he tries to keep the peace. “If it’s too out of the way, we don’t have to make the stop.”
“No, really,” I insist, remembering how much fun we had laughing about this last night, and having already envisioned us stopping there for a picture, I’m not letting go of it that easily. “It’s really not a problem. What’s the point of a road trip if we don’t make a few stops along the way?”
“This isn’t a road trip, though,” Amelia says. “We’re driving the car home from school.”
“On the road,” I say. “Sounds like a trip.”
“As long as it really doesn’t add too much time,” Grady says, turning to his brother. “Mom and Dad are waiting for us to get back.”
“All the more reason I’m happy to take my time,” Declan mutters, eyes narrowed and forehead wrinkled. Grady gives him a skeptical look but doesn’t press.
Amelia likes to get in the final word. “It’s fine. One stop. That mustard better be worth it.”
I smile wide, already envisioning her frustration when we drive out of the way only for it to almost certainly not meet her expectations of what’s worth it. “That’s a lot of pressure on a roadside attraction.”