Page 57 of Last Night Was Fun

“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 cotton 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 shakyenough 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.