Page 92 of Some Like It Hott

“I have a job I love that I’m good at,” I tell my mother. “I know it’s not what you want to do with your life, and you’ve made it abundantly clear that it’s not what you want me to do with my life. But I’m the only person who knows what makes me happy.”

I hear my own words then, and everything shifts into sharp relief.

“I gotta go,” I say, and then I’m running toward the lodge.

48

Natalie

The closer I get to my room, the more conviction I have about what I want to do next.

Except when I get there, Sonya, Ivy, and Reggie are standing in front of the door.

“What is this?” I ask. “An intervention?”

“No,” Sonya says at the same time Ivy says, “Yes,” and Reggie says, “Not exactly, but?—”

They all clamp their mouth shut.

“We want to take you somewhere special. To celebrate. You know. The first week of—events.”

“I can’t,” I say, reaching past Ivy to unlock my door and push inside.

“You can,” she says.

They follow me in without waiting for an invitation.

“Natalie,” Sonya says to my back as I pull my small suitcase from the closet, toss it onto the bed, and begin filling it haphazardly with my stuff. “You want to come with us.”

“You don’twantme to come with you,” I tell her. “You want me to pack this suitcase, go to New York, and tell Preston how I feel about him.”

All three of their mouths fall open.

“Don’t look so surprised,” I say sternly. “You knew this was coming, didn’t you?”

Ivy winces. “We might have…thought…”

“No,” Sonya says. “I mean, I hoped it was. I’d never seen Preston smile before you two started working together. If you’d told me I’d watch Preston wield a Nerf blaster and yell, ‘Yippee-ki-yay,’ I would have laughed my ass off. So I was rooting for you two. But I’d be lying if I said I thought the writing was on the wall. Relationships are way more complicated than that. And he does live in New York.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I don’t know if I can convince him to give this a shot.”

They exchange another glance.

“I think you can,” Sonya says. “I really do. But…before you do that, come with us to do this…thing…and then if you still think you need to go to New York, we’ll drive you to the airport.”

“What kind of thing?” I ask, cocking my head because now that I’ve decided to put everything on the line, I want to get it over with. In case he says no. Which he probably will, despite Sonya’s optimism. He’ll probably take one look at me and pat me kindly on the head and go back to whatever spreadsheet he’s making.

Another round of looks. “It’s like a?—”

“Aconcert,” Ivy says.

Sonya frowns.

“You got me Taylor Swift tickets!” I tease.

“Iwish,” Sonya breathes. “No. Don’t get your hopes up for anything like that. Nothing, you know, huge or expensive. Just—we wanted to do something nice for you. And…we’re going to do your hair and makeup. For the concert-thing.”

“Concert-thing,” I repeat, eyes narrowing. “Come on, guys, what’s going on?”

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