by Amy Vansant
Oh boy.
So much for staying out of it. Normally, she avoided confrontation, but today she felt fearless. It had to be a combination of vodka and being tired of Greta.
Greta’s lip curled. “Your bed must seem crowded, too. Does he say my name every time you think you’re alone?”
Emily crossed her arms against her chest. “No, I’ve never heard him shout out cheating bitch before.”
“Yeah!”
Emily turned to find Kady hovering behind her, holding up a palm for a high five. She lightly tapped it, so as not to leave her hanging.
Shameful.
But also strangely thrilling. Her friend’s presence emboldened her.
At least I have my own cheering section now.
Emily looked across the bar seating area and realized their war of words had caught the attention of the other contestants. All eyes trained on them.
Greta motioned an upturned palm toward the seat occupied by her preppy friend and Claire slid off the stool to make room for Emily.
“If you’re not scared, let’s play. Best out of ten, if you lose you take a shot,” said Greta.
“I’ll order the shots,” said Claire.
Emily squinted at Claire’s eagerness to support Greta with her own brand of classic “mean girl flunky” zeal. She wasn’t the only one to catch it. From behind her, Kady taunted.
“I see you have your dog trained well.”
Claire froze, glaring at Kady.
Unconcerned with insults thrown at Claire, Greta leaned on the bar and waved to the bartender, her pendulous breasts threatening to fall from her trademark plunging neckline. “We need ten shots.”
The bartender arched his eyebrows. “My choice?”
“Whatever you want, sexy,” she purred.
The bartender grinned and left to prepare Emily’s death-by-lemon-drop shot.
Attracted by the commotion, Sebastian appeared at Emily’s shoulder. “What’s going on? Is she messing with you?”
“She wants me to play that spot-the-difference photo game. Best out of ten, loser takes a shot each time.”
Sebastian touched her arm, leaning down until his lips brushed her ear. “She lives for this game. It’s all she does at bars.”
Whoops. Emily glanced at him. “Well. That sucks.”
“Need Sebby to fight your battles?” asked Greta.
Ugh. There it is. That infantile nickname.
Sebastian opened his mouth to say something and Emily put her hand on his chest.
“I’ve got this.”
She took her seat in front of the video game machine.
“Ready when you are.”
The other Minefield contestants erupted into cheers as they gathered to watch. Claire supplied Greta with a neat pile of dollars to feed the machine and the bartender lined ten shots across the bar.
Emily studied the row of shots, ranging from clear to golden to dark and murky. She wasn’t great at shots. She had trouble drinking water in big gulps, let alone alcohol.
This is such a bad idea.
Greta fed a dollar into the game and two sets of photos appeared on the screen. Before Emily realized they’d started, Greta circled two differences with her finger on the touchscreen. Her rowboat had two people inside in one photo, and one person in the other. There was a bird in a tree and then there wasn’t.
Emily had to force herself to look at her own set of photos. She’d only played the game once before. She didn’t go to bars to play video games. She went to play darts.
Shoot. I should have challenged her to darts. Duh.
Greta circled a dog with his head tilted differently from one photo to the next.
Oh! Missing flower!
Emily circled the gap where a daisy should have been. She needed a plan.
Okay maybe study the picture by quadrants...
“Done.”
Emily’s screen disappeared and the video game informed her she’d lost.
The crowd began to chant. “Shot, shot, shot...”
Forcing a smile, Emily picked up the first, relatively clear shot of liquid and threw it back.
Lemony and sweet. Not bad.
Maybe that’s all I needed.
“Go.”
The second game commenced.
Emily suffered four losses and finished four shots before she beat Greta with a photo of children playing in the park. The crowd erupted into cheers and Emily turned to wave, queen-like, at her adoring supporters.
Oh boy. I think the shots are kicking in.
Emily found her groove and the score flipped to four to four. They needed a tie-breaker. Emily braced herself for the last game. Thanks to the shots, neither of them were playing with the precision with which they’d begun, and she hoped that meant it was anybody’s game.
As game nine started, they began furiously circling differences on the screen.
“One more, Greta,” shouted Claire.
Emily felt her blood pressure hike as she also searched for her last difference. Stomach tied in knots, her gaze bounced around the screen like a pinball, searching for the last difference.
“Ah shoe!” Claire sneezed.
Emily heard it.
That wasn’t a sneeze.
That was a word.
It hadn’t even sounded like a real sneeze.
She glanced at Greta’s screen in time to watch her foe circle an empty spot on the floor of her second photo. Emily glanced up to compare that spot to the picture above it.
A shoe sat in the spot above.
“I win,” said Greta, raising her hands above her head.
The crowd roared, some cheering, some booing.
Emily’s eyes darted to Claire.
Claire smirked.
Emily took a deep breath, preparing to call out the cheater, and then released it without saying a word. It didn’t matter. It would only sound like sour grapes.
Emily smiled as graciously as possible and drank a shot of some sort of rum-laced fruit punch. It wasn’t half bad. Of course, at that point, she could probably drink Jager and tequila and think smooth...
Greta sat awash in smug satisfaction. “You lose.”
Emily put her glass on the bar. She slipped from her stool and Sebastian put his arm around her. Resting her head against his chest she smiled up at him, and then turned her grin on Greta.
“Did I, though?”
Greta’s expression fell.
Chapter Sixteen
“I think I’m going to go to bed,” said Emily. The bar seemed a lot more wobbly than she’d remembered it before the photo game.
Sebastian glanced at his brother, who sat at the other side of the bar, motioning to him to return to his seat. Sebastian held up an index finger for his brother to see and then looked at Emily. “I’ll walk you to the room.”
Emily shook her head. “Go see your brother. I’m fine. I’m just sleepy.”
“Are you sure? I think you just said you’re schleepy.”
She giggled. “Ssssleepy. See? I’m fine. I’m just walking to the room.”
He sighed. “You’re sure?
She nodded.
“Okay. I’ll be up in just a little bit anyway.”
He kissed her and she walked away, grinning. She was passing the front desk before she realized she probably looked insane, walking along, grinning like an idiot.
She waved at the woman behind the desk, who waved back, and then took the elevator to the third floor. When the doors opened, she made a left as usual, but when she put her keycard in the door, it didn’t work. Taking a step back, she peered at the door.
Three eighteen. She looked down the hall. Her room was always the room at the corner.
Wasn’t it?
She looked back down the hall. It did look familiar.
Did I walk the wrong way?
She wasn’t sure of her actual room number. She’d always found the door in the same spot—there hadn’t been any need to remember the number.
> Now it felt like the room number might be an important piece of information.
Her eyes drifted to her key. It had the number three nineteen engraved on it.
“Ha. I just Sherlock Holmes’d this problem,” she announced, pleased she’d found a way to locate her room.
By the number. So clever.
She looked around the empty hallway for her appreciative audience and found none.
She grunted to let the world know she didn’t need its approval.
Continuing down the hall, she traveled a few doors—noting the number on each—and made another left. She made another and another and passed the elevators.
“I remember you,” she said to them.
Another left had her in a spot that felt very familiar. She did the math and realized five lefts was a circle. The whole third floor was a square loop with tiny offshoots leading to rooms like 304 and 306, but no 319.
They do all start with a three though...I have to be on the right floor.
She made the loop again, falling back on an old video game skill requiring she make every possible left, down every notch and cranny, all the way around, to be sure she didn’t miss a turn.
Three nineteen wasn’t any of the rooms.
Hm.
I’ve officially lost my mind.
Admitting defeat, she took the elevator back to the first floor and walked to the front desk to ask where they’d hidden room 319.
The woman behind the desk stared back at her with eyes awash with pity.
Emily suddenly felt very self-conscious.
She’s looking at me like I’m a cat with its head caught in an empty can of baked beans.
“You have to go all the way back and through the doors to the other building,” the woman explained, pointing down the hall from which Emily had just come.
The other building. Right.
Embarrassed, Emily grinned and rolled her eyes to make it clear that she, too, knew she was an idiot. She nodded and waved for no apparent reason as if her parents were filming her during graduation, and then bolted down the hall.
The flash of joyous freedom she felt upon escaping the eyes of the desk lady dissipated as fast as it had manifested.
Nothing looked familiar.
Mouth hanging open in confusion, she turned to walk back toward the front desk. From across the lobby, Emily saw the woman behind the desk staring at her, pointing to the left, as if she’d been expecting Emily to reappear.
“That hallway.”
Emily tried to follow the woman’s gesture, but before she could identify the correct direction, the clerk left her post and arrived at her side.
Emily felt a bout of giggles rising in her chest. “You’re afraid I’m going to end up on a milk carton if you don’t help me, aren’t you?”
The woman shook her head. “It is confusing,” she said, though her tone said it clearly wasn’t confusing to most people.
Ushered by the clerk, Emily traveled down another hallway, past the elevator, out a door into another building and into the correct elevator.
As the stepped from one building to another, it all became clear.
I forgot there were two buildings, and then forgot how to get to the other building.
She’d been circling the wrong third floor.
Emily thanked the woman for her patience and let herself into her room. What seemed like a moment later, she was lying in bed, opening her eyes to watch Sebastian slip into bed beside her.
“Hey,” she mumbled, still half asleep. She looked at the clock. It was nearly midnight. “It’s late.”
He nodded. “Sorry. Garrett and I got to talking and then I spent a half an hour looking for the room.”
Emily opened her eyes a little wider. Something about what he’d said sounded familiar. “What did you say?”
“I took the elevator to the wrong third floor.”
She propped her head on her elbow. That sounded really familiar. “Seriously?”
He rolled on his side and propped his head up as well. “Yep. I forgot we were in this other building. It was one big loop of rooms and our room wasn’t any of them. It was so embarrassing—I kept stopping to smile and shrug at all the hall cameras.”
“Hall cameras?” Emily groaned, imagining somewhere on film the hotel had both her and Sebastian looping endlessly in search of a room that didn’t exist.
She scowled. She didn’t remember seeing any cameras, though, and felt as if she’d spent enough time on that floor to have noticed.
“Are you sure there were cameras?”
He squinted one eye and titled his head to the left. “They might have been fire alarms.”
“So every loop you stopped and smiled at all the fire alarms?”
“Probably. I might have missed a couple.”
“How did you escape? Did you give up and ask the lady at the front desk for help?”
“That was the worst part. She asked me which room I was in.”
“So?”
“I couldn’t remember, so I told her the one with my luggage in it.”
Emily giggled. “She must have been so impressed with us.”
“Us?”
“I did the same thing.”
He laughed. “No way.”
“Way. Maybe if we’d been together we would have figured it out.”
He rolled on his back, still chuckling. “I guess it’s a good thing we found each other. We share one brain.”
Emily sighed. She lay in the dark thinking about how ridiculous they must have looked and then realized something.
We’re alone.
“Hey,” she whispered.
Nothing.
“Hey.”
A light snoring sound responded. She chuckled.
Probably better. She was exhausted.
Chapter Seventeen
Sebastian woke up and now he couldn’t sleep. He stared at the ceiling in the dark, listening to Emily breathe. Just as well. Though he’d been looking forward to ravaging her, it seemed silly to wait all this time only to have their first time be when they were exhausted.
He stood and walked to the bathroom. On the way back he pulled Emily’s covers to her chin and kissed her forehead. She didn’t move. Her shot-filled photo battle with Greta had caught up with her. They’d had two rough nights in a row.
He brushed an errant hair from her face.
So pretty. So smart. What did I do to deserve this?
He straightened and wandered back to his side of the bed.
Now if I can just get home with her and away from the insanity that is this stupid—
His phone buzzed and he dove to grab it from the nightstand.
“Hello?” he whispered.
“Come downstairs. I need to talk to you.”
His stomach twisted. He recognized the voice.
“Greta, it’s two o’clock. I’m not coming down. No, I take that back—forget the time. It’s you asking, so I’m not coming down.”
“It’s important. You don’t understand. It’s so important.”
“You’re drunk. Go to bed.”
Her voice shifted into a grating whine. “I’m not drunk. You have to come talk to me.”
“See? That’s the funny part. I don’t. Good-bye—”
“I’m pregnant.”
He clicked off the phone and stood in the dark. Frozen.
Did she just say what I think she said?
He stared at his phone, doing math in his head. They hadn’t been apart that long. Was it possible? Of course, she’d been sleeping with Joe for who knows how long... And she’d been on birth control since he met her—
He looked at sleeping Emily.
No. No. Please don’t let this happen. Not now.
He walked into the hall and called Greta.
She answered. It sounded as if she were crying.
“Did you say what I think you said?”
She sniffed. “Yes. Come talk to me. I’m in room two-twenty.”
&n
bsp; “I’ll be there in a second. Oh… Main building?”
“Of course, main building. Did they put you and your cow in the barn?”
“Greta, I swear to—”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please come.”
Gritting his teeth, Sebastian hung up and walked to the elevator to ride down. His mind had gone blank, an icy dread running through his veins.
She’s lying. It’s Greta. She’s lying.
Stepping from the elevator he moved to the main building and took another to the second floor. He searched for Greta’s hotel door feeling as if he were on autopilot. Finding two-twenty, he knocked and the door moved—it had been left ajar.
“Come in.”
He pushed through and walked into a room that mirrored the layout of his own.
Greta sat on the bed, her legs tucked beneath her. She wore a sheer, black, baby doll nightgown that left little to the imagination. By the light of her bedside lamp he could see her pronounced pout.
Sebastian turned away. “Put some clothes on, Greta.”
He heard her move and felt her approach.
“Sebby,” she sobbed, wrapping her arms around his waist.
He turned, holding his hands over his head to avoid touching her as she buried her face in his chest.
“Jeeze, Greta, calm down. Come on. Let go of me. Is what you said true? Are you pregnant?”
She leaned back to stare into his eyes. He noted her makeup hadn’t run a bit. Crying sounds but no tears.
I’ve seen this before.
“Didn’t you wonder why I’ve been acting so crazy?”
“It’s hard to tell with you.”
He sniffed. The room smelled like a distillery. He put his hands on each of her biceps and peeled her back away from him, holding her at arm’s length.
“Wait a second. You just had a shot contest with Emily.”
She continued to stare at him as if she didn’t understand his point.
“I won,” she said after a beat. She couldn’t help but grin.
“Let’s be honest—you cheated. But that’s not the important part. You were drinking.”
“So?”
“You’re supposedly pregnant during a shot contest? You don’t see where I’m going with this?”
Her eyes grew wide. “Oh. I...I didn’t know then.”
He shook his head and looked away. He wasn’t sure which was worse—her touching him or her standing in front of him half-naked. It all felt wrong and it was time to go.
