Page 94 of About Last Night

“It was not meaningless, and you are not helping.”

“If by ‘not helping’ you mean I’m not feeding into your delusions of one true love and grand gestures of reconciliation, then you’re absolutely right. I’m not helping.”

“I cannot wait until you fall in love and get your heart broken.” I grimaced. “OK, that came out really bad.”

Max laughed. “I know what you mean; when it happens you’re going to be a cold-hearted bitch, just like me. I own it. But I’m not going to be stupid enough to fall in love.”

“Famous last words, Max. Tell me what to do.”

“Nothing. The ball has been in her court since Christmas. Still is.” I heard Max shift around in her bed. When she spoke again her voice was a little muffled. “I think you should go to New Zealand, find a pretty woman who will be more than willing to take your mind off your heartbreak for a night or two.”

I gave some sort of non-committal grunt and told her my plane was boarding.

I purchased Wi-Fi on every leg of the journey, keeping my phone on and available for texts, hoping that maybe, just maybe, Audrey would text me.

She didn’t. Of course she didn’t. But like an idiot, I kept checking anyway, my heart breaking each time there wasn’t a new message.

Now, it’s twenty-eight hours of travel later and I’m waiting in the lobby of the hotel with the local tour operator to meet the trekkers who signed up for a ten-day inn-to-inn hiking tour of the west coast of New Zealand.

“Everyone’s here, right?” I ask Kaia Thomason, the owner of the company I am here to evaluate as a potential partner for Fourteener Trekking.

“We’re missing one. The woman who signed up yesterday.”

“I thought ten hikers was the limit. Do you make exceptions a lot?” I ask. All the potential safety issues that can arise from having too many people on a hike scroll through my mind, and I mentally put a tick in the con list of my evaluation.

“Never,” Kaia says.

“Then why?—”

“I’m here, I’m here! Don’t leave!”

My head jerks around and there’s Audrey, red-faced and out of breath, loaded down with enough camping and hiking gear to last two weeks on a through hike. She’s dressed head to toe in clothes from Fourteener’s upcoming fall line by the looks of it, and her hiking boots are so new the soles squeak when she walks. She has a multicolored bandanna tied around her long neck. Her backpack is top of the line, and is absolutely stuffed with God knows what because she has practically another backpack’s worth of gear hanging off of every possible hook on the outside of the pack.

She looks absolutely ridiculous, and she’s never looked more beautiful.

Everyone is stunned into silence by her appearance, including me. She looks around the group, in a bit of a panic, until her eyes find mine. I’m standing in the back of the room, trying like hell to slow my hammering heart. I don’t think she came all this way to chew me out about leaving her in my bed naked and wrecked and gorgeous with It was fun! but I also wouldn’t be surprised if she did. She smiles and her body sags in relief. For a second, I’m afraid that her gear is going to topple her over. I’m not entirely sure how she got it all on in the first place.

“Here, let me help you.” A man named George hops up and helps Audrey out of her pack and sets it against the wall next to her.

Audrey thanks him, rolls her shoulders a bit, and smiles.

One of the young women in the group who’s been on her phone the entire time raises her hand like we’re in school, and says, “Um, I, like thought that all the gear was included in the price?”

“It is,” Kaia says. “There must have been some miscommunication somewhere along the way.”

Audrey looks confused for a moment, gazing around at her fellow hikers, all of whom are dressed for the welcome dinner we are about to have at a local Maori restaurant, and not for hiking. She must see the grin I’m trying to hold back because I know exactly where the miscommunication came from. My sister.

Audrey grins and shakes her head. “Greta wanted to make sure I was prepared for every situation.”

“I can see that,” I say.

“As far as pranks go, it’s pretty epic. I didn’t know Greta had it in her.” Audrey’s expression turns hesitant, unsure. “Hi,” she says.

“Hi.” I feel like a teenager talking to a girl I’m crushing on at the school dance. “What are you doing here, Audrey? You hate hiking.”

A couple of people in the group gasp, and Audrey chuckles. She looks at them. “It’s true. I hate hiking.” She turns her gaze on me and our eyes lock. Everyone else in the room disappears. “But I love you, Toni Danzig, and I couldn’t let another day go by without telling you.”

My throat is clogged with emotion. I can’t speak; I can barely think. I can still hear, though, and after everyone has gasped in surprise, one of the young women in the group says in a stage whisper, “Oh my God, it’s a grand gesture.”

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