Serious Moonlight(81)

Once I got to work, he’d already been dragged into a security meeting with all the other employees who reported directly to Mr. Kenneth. It had something to do with SARG, the animal rights group. They’d staged another protest earlier today, outside the hotel, and this time the local news covered it.

“They dropped a huge banner from the second-floor windows,” Daniel whispered at the side of the registration desk later during a rare interlude, checking to see that no guests or employees were in hearing range. A couple of businessmen lounged on one of the sofas in the middle of the lobby, but they were caught up in their own conversation.

“A banner?” I repeated.

“Apparently, during the protest out front, two of their members checked in under false names in adjoining rooms and hung a banner out the window that said ‘Octavia Is a Prisoner,’?” Daniel explained. “No one in the hotel noticed for an entire hour. Management says SARG is becoming a PR disaster, and we have to watch out for their members. Gotta admit, though—I’m sort of admiring what they’re doing. They have pluck.”

I felt the same way. Just before ten p.m., I’d checked out an entire women’s soccer team, who were taking a red-eye flight back to Chicago, and their manager was fussy about every line item on the bill. They’d also rented five goldfish, and one of the players admitted that she’d knocked over the goldfish bowl and by the time she’d found the fish on the floor under the bed, it was dead, so she’d flushed it.

So, yeah. Maybe the animal rights group had some valid beefs with us.

“By the way,” I said, a little hesitant. “I wanted to ask . . . How’s your mom?”

“We’re not speaking at the moment.” He glanced at the guilt on my face that I couldn’t hide and added, “Don’t worry. We shun each other when we’re fighting. I always let her make the first move, since she’s supposed to be the adult. Anyway, it’s a ton easier to do when we’re staying in two different houses, so all hail Green Gables.”

He was trying to sound nonchalant. I could recognize it now in the little double swish of his eyelashes. The mannered shrug of his shoulder.

“I’m sorry you’re not speaking,” I said. I felt awful about it.

His lips parted as though he was going to respond, but nothing came out. His eyes roamed over my face for a long moment—so long my heart started racing madly and my chest got warm.

“Want to see a trick?” he asked, digging a deck of cards from the inside of his hotel zip-up jacket. Impossibly quick fingers shuffled the cards and fanned them out for my perusal. “Pick one.”

“Is this a marked deck?”

“You’re not supposed to ask that,” he said, mouth twisting upward. “Spoils the illusion. Just pick one.”

My fingers hovered over the worn blue corners of the cards. I slid one out.

“Don’t show it to me,” he said, flicking the remaining cards back together and palming them. “Just look at it and memorize it.”

I held my hands together, shielding the card from his eyes, and peeked.

“Got it?” he asked.

It was the two of hearts, and over the middle of the card were block letters, written by hand in Sharpie. It said: LOOK UP.

I did just that—right as his mouth pressed against mine.

Misdirection.

It was completely unexpected, and I kissed him back without thinking. His lips were soft and warm. He was still palming the deck of cards, and they were now pressing against the back of my neck. Pleasure flooded my limbs. Then he was pulling away, and when my hands left the mooring of his chest, I wobbled, cheeks hot, dizzy with the surprise of it all.

“We forgot to do that last night,” he said in a gravelly voice.

All I could do was make a noise to answer him, but it sounded more like a whimper than an acknowledgment. “That was a mean trick. How am I supposed to work now?”

“Never trust a magician, Birdie,” he said, smiling with his eyes. He dumped the deck of cards in a trash can behind the registration desk as he glanced over his shoulder. One of the businessmen sitting in the lobby was getting up and headed this way.

“See you after work,” Daniel whispered. “Pie for breakfast. One positive about fighting with my mom is that she can’t complain about when I come home.”

I watched Daniel stride across the lobby, heat still thrumming through me, toes curling inside my shoes. These were not feelings I should be feeling in public.

The businessman approached the desk and asked me for a pen. I dropped it twice, right as Chuck was coming out of the back offices. “Dopey strikes again,” he mumbled as he passed. “Wake up. It’s going to be a long night.”

Pasting on a smile for the guest, I waited until everyone was gone, and then quickly squatted in front of the trash can and fished out the cards Daniel had dumped. Every single one said the same thing: LOOK UP.

This was not how friends were supposed to act.

I imagined him marking all the cards, perhaps sitting on that old green couch, and wondered how long it had taken. Then I thought of him and Cherry not speaking, and it felt like my fault. If Daniel and I were going to be friends, I didn’t want her hating me. He shouldn’t have to choose me over his own mother.

What are you doing with my son?

Maybe I had a better answer for her now.