Page 7 of Orc'd At A Wedding
"We'll take it," she says, her voice determinedly bright.
The clerk beams.
"Wonderful! Let me just get you checked in."
CHAPTER 3
BLISS
The lift ride up to the fourteenth floor is the longest forty-five seconds of my life.
I stand next to Olog, who takes up approximately sixty percent of the available floor space, and stare at the gold-trimmed doors with the focused intensity of someone trying to astral-project out of their own body. The keycard is in my hand. The keycard to a suite with one bed. One California king bed that the clerk had described with the kind of reverent enthusiasm usually reserved for religious experiences, and which I am now imagining in vivid, unhelpful detail.
I chew my bottom lip until I taste lipstick.
"You're catastrophising," Olog says, without looking at me.
"I'm not catastrophising, I'm strategising."
"You've been silent for four minutes and your jaw is doing something concerning."
"My jaw is fine."
"Bliss."
I exhale through my nose. "It's one bed."
"Yes."
"That we both have to sleep in."
"Technically, only you have to sleep in it."
I turn to look at him fully for the first time since we left the reception desk, which is a mistake because he is standing approximately eight inches away from me and takes up the entire peripheral edge of my vision. Up close, the suit is even more absurdly well-made. The dark charcoal fabric pulls taut across his shoulders in a way that should probably be reported to someone.
"You are not sleeping on the floor," I say.
"I sleep on the floor regularly. I find it beneficial for lumbar support."
"That is insane."
"It's a very nice floor. Marble, by the look of it. Five-star establishments typically source premium stone."
The lift doors open, and I stride out into the corridor before I can say something genuinely unhinged, like offering to share the bed in some carefully negotiated, pillow-barricaded arrangement. I find room 1404 halfway down the hall, press the keycard against the lock, and push the door open.
The suite is, objectively, stunning. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame a panoramic sweep of the Atlantic, all hammered silver light and dark water, and the afternoon sun cuts long gold rectangles across the cream carpet. There's a sitting area with an actual chaise longue, a bathroom I can see through the open door that contains a freestanding soaking tub, and in the centre of the far wall, framed by linen curtains the colour of sea foam, the bed.
It is enormous. It is also very much one single bed.
I set my clutch on the console table and allow myself precisely three seconds of staring at it before I turn away and focus on the practical.
"Right," I say, pulling my phone out and scrolling to my emails. "The welcome mixer starts at six. It's on the south patio, which means Aunt Susan will arrive twenty minutes early toclaim the best sightlines and a tactical proximity to the bar. We need to be there before she establishes a perimeter."
Olog sets his overnight bag on the luggage rack with the unhurried efficiency of a man who has never once rushed anywhere in his life. He unzips it, and removes a folded suit carrier, a small leather wash bag, and what appears to be a compact, military-grade sleeping mat still in its thermal roll.
I point at it. "What is that?"
"Standard kit."
