Page 5 of Twin Deception

She turned her beady stare to him. “You’re going to spoil your appetite before dinner.”

“Screw dinner, Molly. We’re not going to check in until midnight,” the dad said.

“Oh, but you have time to get junk food on the way to the line? WhileIpark the van and deal with the ticket?”

Ay, yi, yi.I fought not to roll my eyes or make a face. Standing so close to them was getting awkward, like walking past a trainwreck that was still smoking.

“He didn’t give it to me.” The boy pointed at me. “That hot lady did.”

Oh, Jesus.

I smiled weakly and waved.

“Hot lady?” she snarled. “Is that what you said?” She got in her husband’s face.

He shook his head as the toddler fussed. “No. I?—”

“I’m over here trying to get our family situated for our family vacation. And you’re checking outhot ladiesin line? Like you slept with thathot neighborwe used to rent next to? Huh?”

I stepped back, slowly, then a little more until I could get around the young businessman behind me. He looked up, brows raisedin question but oblivious to the domestic warzone because he had earbuds in.

“I’m just going to…” I whispered, pointing behind him. “You take my spot.”

Ten. Eleven. Whatever.I’d enjoy the peace away from them in line.

He shrugged, stepping forward as the woman harassed her husband. They fought so much more that they ultimately left the line.

Yay, back to ten ahead of me.

As soon as the dysfunctional family left the line, another staff member showed up to run the other computer for check-ins, and I was on my way up in an elevator ten minutes later.

I got in the elevator with the scrooge who wouldn’t let the dad move up. He grunted at me, noticing I was alone.

“Don’t ever get married,” he offered as unsolicited advice.

I laughed once.

“You’ll end up like that woman in the line. Unhappy and impossible.”

I wanted to doubt that couple representedallmarriages. “Ah. I currently have no prospects on the marriage front, so I am safe from that tragedy.”

One side of his lips rose in a smile at my sarcasm. “Life might be lonely. You might think you’re miserable on your own, but take it from me. Marriage ain’t worth it.”

I… never asked…

“I just left my fourth wife last month. And she is the last!”

I bit my lower lip to hold in laughter, but the second he got off at his floor, I cracked up.

Four times? “You didn’t learn the first or second round?”

I got to my room with his advice lingering in my mind, though. I wasn’t opposed to getting married, but I had to find someonetomarry first. Someone I really desired for the long term.

Loneliness was a curse, though, one I felt for most of my twenty-three years on this earth. I wasn’t sure whether I could label myself miserable to be on my own, but the whole reason I had taken a month off from work was to have a change of scenery. To switch up my life for the holidays to better mask how I had no one. And to tamp down the ache of wanting to havesomeone.

Ignoring how lonely I felt was manageable when I was busy working, but more often than not, lately, I had been obsessed with how incomplete I felt. How utterly singular I was in this world when deep in my heart, I was convinced I didn’t have to be.

Someone had to be out there for me. Somewhere.

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