Well Played (Well Met #2)(75)

Which was why it was so crushing to come home to find my apartment exactly like it was when I’d left it. Half-empty coffee mug on the kitchen counter, cat snoozing in the same spot on the couch. My place had never looked so empty. I dropped my bag onto the coffee table and collapsed on the couch next to Benedick, who blinked sleepily at me.

Okay. Enough was enough. I pulled out my phone. What the hell is your problem—no. I erased that and started again. Are you really not speaking to me after—nope. For a long second I stared at the phone icon, my thumb hovering over it. But then I tossed my phone down. We were past texts. Past communicating via screens. If this was going to be a real relationship, we should be able to talk about our feelings, not just write about them. I didn’t want to be separated from Daniel anymore, even by a cell phone. We needed to fight this out like adults and move on. And we had to do it face-to-face.

Benedick rolled onto his side for a good long stretch and a yawn as I bounced up from the couch again, grabbing my bag and my keys. I didn’t even change out of my work scrubs; instead I drove to the hotel before I lost my nerve, marched up to Daniel’s door, and knocked.

He didn’t answer.

I knocked again, louder.

Nothing.

I frowned. Maybe he was in the shower or something? That was probably it. I dug in my bag for the keycard he’d given me. He wouldn’t have given it to me if I wasn’t supposed to use it, right?

I slid the keycard into the slot, but the red light didn’t turn green. Hmm. I tried again, slower this time. It still didn’t work. I groaned in annoyance after the third try, then headed toward the front desk. Thank God Julian was working tonight.

“Hey, Julian.” I slid the keycard across the counter. “This stopped working. Can you rekey it, please?”

“Sure.” He hit a couple keystrokes on his computer. “I didn’t realize you were staying here.” He frowned at his screen. “Uh, Stace? According to this, you aren’t staying here.”

“Oh, I’m not. I, uh . . .” Heat crept up the back of my neck. “A friend gave me a spare.”

“Friend,” he repeated. “Uh-huh.” His eyebrows crept up and his mouth twisted in a wicked smile. He knew exactly what kind of friend I was talking about. “Who’s that?”

I huffed. How did he not already know? Gossip usually moved so fast around here. “Room 212. Daniel MacLean.”

“Oh.” His brow furrowed as he shot me a curious look. “But . . .” He tapped at his keyboard again and peered at the screen. He cleared his throat a little nervously. “He’s not here, Stace.”

“Oh.” I looked over my shoulder toward the lobby doors, as though I could see his truck in the parking lot. I hadn’t noticed it when I drove in, but I hadn’t been looking for it either. “Did he go somewhere? I can wait here for a little bit if you need his okay to rekey the card.”

“No. I mean, he’s not here. He checked out this afternoon.”

“He . . .” I swallowed hard and tried to look pleasant. Normal. Not like my world had just started crumbling around the edges. “He left?”

“Yeah. I thought it was a little weird. You know, since Faire isn’t over till Sunday. But he said he was through here and it was time for him to go.” Julian shrugged. “Didn’t he tell you?”

“What? No. He . . .” God, that made me sound pathetic, didn’t it? I groped blindly for my phone in my bag and made a little show of checking it. “Oh my God! No, he totally did, look at that.” I flashed the screen in his direction, but quickly so he couldn’t see that there was nothing there. “My fault. I should have checked before coming over. I can be such a ditz sometimes.” My laugh echoed off the tile floor of the lobby, hollow and false.

But Julian had known me since grade school; he knew something was up. His expression softened. “Stacey . . .”

“So I’m gonna go.” I backed away a couple steps, my smile manically wide now. “Keep the card, obviously,” I added with another little laugh. “I don’t need it anymore.” That last sentence was a little too true, but I managed to hold it together until I pushed through the glass double doors and back out into the hot summer night. Tears splashed onto my hot cheeks, and I clutched my phone and tried to remember how to breathe.

There wasn’t going to be an apology. No romantic gesture. Daniel was just . . . gone.



* * *



? ? ?

Emily and I made a terrible pair of tavern wenches the next day at Faire.

Of course we weren’t really wenches anymore: we were a pirate’s bride and . . . well, whatever I was. But we still walked the grounds together, ducking into each of the taverns at different times of the day to make sure the servers weren’t in the weeds. This was the fourth weekend of Faire—the last weekend of the season—and the crowds were still pretty brisk. Well, as brisk as you could be in the mid-August heat.

But the heat wasn’t what made us so bad at our jobs that day. We were used to it, for the most part, and swigged as much water as we could and flapped our skirts for some airflow. But newlywed Emily’s mind was on her honeymoon, which started the moment Faire ended on Sunday night, so her grin was a little wilder than usual, and her attention span was nil. As for me . . . I was sad. And angry. And then sad again. Every time we walked in the vicinity of the Marlowe Stage, my heart leapt out of instinct and then sank almost immediately, because Daniel had left without even saying goodbye. Part of me wanted to storm over there and ask Dex what the hell had happened. But there’d already been enough of Dex coming between Daniel and me, and I didn’t feel right asking him about his cousin’s love life, even if that love life involved me.