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“Jo! Will!” Kellyjean was the first person off the bus, most likely because she’d been the last person to climb on board, thanks to her missing wrap. She’d apparently found it, because a shimmery gold shawl was loosely tossed around her shoulders. “There you are! I was wondering where you two had disappeared to.”

“Excuse me.” Frannie pushed past her, anxious to get insideand catch the last few minutes of her ball game. “Hi, Jo, hi, Will. Excuse me, but I have to go. Bye.”

“Bye.” I watched as Frannie disappeared inside the hotel. “Um, so, yeah.” I turned toward Saul, who was the next to disembark from the bus. “We found Garrett. He’s fine. He was in his room here at the hotel the whole time.”

“Oh, hey! That’s great.” Saul looked over his shoulder at Jerome, who was climbing down from the bus behind him. “Hey, Jarvis. Newcombe was in his room the whole time. Pay up.”

Jerome let out a colorful expletive and reached into his pocket. “I fell right into that one,” he said as he ruefully peeled a twenty from the wad of bills in his wallet and handed it to Saul.

“So how’d he do it?” Bernadette was the last author off the bus. She was carrying a to-go cup of what looked like champagne. “Did he have someone waiting under the dock with a boat?”

I shook my head. “Scuba. Saul was right.”

“Darn it!” Saul looked angry. “I’m hardly ever right about anything, and the one time I am, Frannie isn’t around to hear about it. Well, anyway.” He held up the twenty-dollar bill he’d just won. “Who’s up for a drink by the pool? I’m buying!”

“Oh, uh, I’d love to,” I said. “But we’re going to drive Lauren back to her hotel. Rain check?”

Saul wasn’t the only one who gave me an odd look. Bernadette was smirking at me, too, over the rim of her to-go cup, as if to say,Sure, driving the kid back to her hotel.That’sall you’re doing.Only Jerome acted halfway normal, waving as he walked into the hotel and calling, “Okay! Well, see you later, then.”

It was Kellyjean, of course, who had to wiggle two fingers at Will and me and squeal, “Oh, y’all are justso cutetogether! No wonder the entire Internet is calling the two of you literature’s new hottest couple.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Do you want to explain to me what that was all about?” Will asked after I returned to the car from walking Lauren all the way back to her room.

“Oh,” I said, as I fastened my seat belt. “I hardly know where to start.”

A very sleepy-looking Cassidy—apparently the girls were sharing one room, their mothers another—hadn’t looked too appreciative about my waking her by knocking on the door (of course Lauren had lost her key).

“Oh,thereyou are. We were starting to wonder,” she said when she saw Lauren. Her eyes—much smaller-looking now that she’d peeled off the faux lashes—bulged a little when she saw me. “Ms. Wright! What areyoudoing here?”

“Just dropping off a package.” I gave Lauren a little shove that sent her stumbling through the doorway of her hotel room and into a surprised-looking Cassidy’s waiting arms. “See you in the morning, girls.”

“Please don’t break up Kitty ’n’ Rex, Jo,” Lauren begged. “They’re the OTP!”

“Break up Kitty and Rex?” Cassidy stared at me. “What’s she talking about?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Good night, girls!”

Down in Will’s car, I explained, “There’s this rumor going around that last year at Novel Con a male author was hitting on female fans. Some people think it might have been Garrett.” Or you, I thought, but didn’t add aloud. And that person was me.

But not anymore.

Will’s dark eyebrows practically leaped off his face, he raised them so high. “Are you serious? I never heard anything like that. If I had, we never would have invited him here.”

“Well, that’s the thing about rumors,” I said. “Until they’re confirmed, how are you supposed to know whether or not they’re true? I think after what we just witnessed, though, we can pretty much assume Garrett isn’t one of the good guys.”

“I suppose.” Will squinted through the windshield at a group of hotel guests who were stumbling past us into the Marriot’s lobby, tired and happy after a night of carousing. “But that actually wasn’t what I was asking about. I was wondering if you could explain what Kellyjean was talking about back there when she said the entire Internet is calling us literature’s hottest new couple.”

Whiskers! I pulled down the passenger-side sun visor to check my reflection in the mirror, just so I could have time to collect my thoughts. “Oh, that?”

“Yes, that.” I didn’t dare glance in Will’s direction, but Iwas relieved to hear that there was a note of amusement in his voice. “Any idea what she meant?”

I saw that most of my eyeliner and lipstick had vanished, so I reached into my bag. “Oh, it’s nothing. Someone posted those photographs that kid took of us earlier today at the signing, and a few people think we look good together.” Try tens of thousands of people. Or more.

Will watched as I fiddled with my makeup. “That’s it?”

“Of course that’s it.” Done fixing my face, I risked a glance at him. “Why, what did you think? You thinkIposted it?”