Page 65 of Grand Escape

“What’s up? Am I too sweaty?” I pretended to sniff under my arms.

He smiled. “Never.”

“So, what’s up? You look weird. Everything okay?”

“Sure. All good. Checking out how busy we are and what’s happening today.”

After chugging some water, I nodded. “Big wedding this weekend. Funny, it’s one of the guys you set Adam up with to golf. Remember that?”

Tony only lifted his chin in response. He hated when I talked about Adam. Maybe it was the melancholy that had dogged me since Adam left, or my stubbornness when it came to him.

I couldn’t help the sadness creeping through my veins no matter what I did, yet I was the one who had refused to take any of Adam’s calls after he left. Eventually, I’d blocked him, and it had been peaceful for me since then.

Since then, I’d become an even firmer believer in what happened on vacation, stayed on vacation. I wasn’t suggesting it to marketing, but I was living it.

“I heard management is over the moon,” Tony said. “Dogging you day and night to move into event planning after scoring this wedding deal. You never let on they were chasing after you again for that. I mean, after you brought Sam’s coffee to their attention, they were hot on you. Now they must be fiery.”

Lifting a finger in the air, I said, “One sec.” I ran into the lobby and grabbed a coffee. A moment later, I toasted him with it. “I’m back.”

Tony frowned at me. “You can’t avoid the subject.”

Shaking my head, I took a swig of java. “I know, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to do event planning or any of that BS. I didn’t want to do it back when they first offered the job to me, and I don’t want to do it now. Organizing this wedding was a fun project, but I like my job.”

“You’d be good. Maybe the change would be a challenge,” he said.

“I don’t want a challenge. I lived a challenge the first eighteen years of my life.”

“Okay, okay. Just asking.”

“Besides, this was a lucky score. I met those guys through Adam, and Chewy—the one getting married—fell for my margarita. He insisted the wedding be here with me at the bar back in June. That’s it.”

Downing some more coffee, I wondered if any of the guys would ask about Adam. I doubted it. Our encounter was also chucked into the vacation sentiment and locked up there.

Chewy had brought Sarah here for a weekend in June, and they’d decided they had to get married with me. I fought them on it, but they won.

“Seems like the hotel is filled with their wedding party. A hundred rooms. That’s about two hundred people for a destination wedding.”

I nodded. I knew because we had six bartenders working the wedding. We had to pull one from the restaurant, assuming it wouldn’t be packed since practically everyone staying at the hotel would be at the wedding.

“Teddi is super excited,” I said. “That girl is a bottle of eternal optimism. She’s been sucking up to the bride and groom since they arrived on Wednesday. Thinks they’re some big shots, which they are, but that has nothing to do with her. She’s got pie-in-the-sky dreams of someone sweeping her out of here and making her their She-E-O.”

“She’s something.” Tony didn’t have to agree with me for me to know how he felt about love. He avoided Shell at all costs now.

“So, what’s happening? A lot of airport runs?” I asked Tony while finishing up my coffee and checking my watch again. I was working at the pool this morning, and then off to help the staff get organized for the wedding tomorrow.

He nodded. “The Jeep and town cars have been running nonstop. A few guests have rented their own luxury cars, and of course, this afternoon is a major golf outing.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. I’m sure you’re ready to hit the gym later.” I was already walking away when Tony called my name. Half turning, I said, “Yeah?”

“I wasn’t on last night.”

“So? I worked at the beach and then helped close the pool. Anything happen?”

He swallowed, then said softly, “No. I just wanted you to know I was with Shell. She had some things she needed to tell me. Her business, not yours.”

“Good. She’s a good person, and so are you. You both deserve to be happy,” I said sincerely.

I didn’t mean happy in the fake kind of we-work-in-paradise way, but truly happy. I’d learned the hard way that really being happy didn’t exist for me in the path I’d chosen, nor for my parents in theirs.

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