Page 85 of The Main Event

“What did you do?”

“I said good morning and went on my way. I figured it was best to pretend I was supposed to be in there.”

“Okay.”

She was silent for a beat. Then she practically exploded. “Okay? That’s all you’re going to say? Okay?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Everybody is going to know, Jax.” I could practically picture Daisy loitering in some hotel corner wringing her hands. “News is going to spread like wildfire.”

Three weeks before, that would’ve seemed like the worst news in the world. Now, I found I wasn’t all that bothered by it. “It will be okay.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because we’re consenting adults. If people want to gossip, then that’s what they’re going to do. I mean … they gossip about everything here. I heard two of the kitchen workers gossiping about someone named Candy and saying that she was spreading crabs through the entire housekeeping staff.

“I had questions, of course,” I continued. “Like … was Candy spreading crabs to the men and the women, or just the men, or just the women. I didn’t ask, though.”

“Candy is part of the kitchen staff, and they probably meant that she was giving crab to the housekeeping staff when she wasn’t supposed to,” Daisy fired back. “Crab is in short supply right now.”

“Oh.” Realization dawned on me. “That makes a lot more sense than what I was thinking. I guess I’m going to have to talk to Candy about the disappearing crab.”

“Will you focus?” Daisy didn’t sound as if she was having a good time at all. “We’re going to be the talk of the hotel.”

“Are you embarrassed by what we’ve been doing?”

My question, asked in the calmest voice I had, seemed to throw her. “No. Of course not. You’re the boss, though.”

“Did I coerce you in any way? Did I force you into this relationship?” I didn’t even realize I was going to use the R-word until it was already out of my mouth, but I found it didn’t bother me to say. However it ended—if it was even going to end—we couldn’t pretend we weren’t in a relationship. If it had just been sex, we wouldn’t be going out of our way to spend time together with our clothes on. So far, we’d been to dinner in Boston four times, and she’d even taken me on a tour of the House of the Seven Gables. She let me hold her hand in the creepy attic and everything.

“Of course not.” Daisy’s voice softened. “Aren’t you worried what people are going to say about you, though? I mean…you’re one ofthoseHunters.”

I had no idea what she meant by that. “Who arethoseHunters?”

“The Hunters who have their fingers in a bunch of pies all over Boston. You’re famous in some circles.”

“Ah. And?”

“And what? I’m nobody.”

I didn’t particularly like her saying that. “You’re somebody to me, Daisy.” I didn’t care what people said. It was refreshing to realize that. I’d been desperate to keep what Daisy and I were doing on the down-low at the start, but that was no longer the case. The more time I spent with her, the more time I wanted to spend with her. That wasn’t likely to change.

“If people ask, tell them it’s none of their business,” I said. “I don’t think most of the workers here are going to have the guts to ask me about my personal life. You’re another story, though.”

“Oh, it’s cute that you think that,” she said. “The people here are going to ask. They’re busybodies.” Something occurred to her because she made a little gasping noise. “Oh, Levi is going to be so mad. He’s been asking me to go out with him for two straight weeks, and I’ve been making up excuses about being busy with work.”

“Well…” I was amused when she made an exasperated sound in her throat.

“I’ll deal with Levi,” she insisted. “He really has no ground to stand on, given the fact that he’s been hiding his relationship with Corey. I’ll just throw that in his face.”

“That sounds fun.” I ran my hand over the empty side of the bed she’d slept in the previous evening. “I don’t suppose you’ve calmed down enough to come back up here so we can talk about it, have you?”

“Oh, give me a break. You don’t want to talk. Now that you’re awake, you want to take a trip to pound town.”

It took a moment for that to register. Then I burst out laughing. “That’s one of my favorites.” Sentimentality took over. “You’re one of my favorites too. As for Tammy running her mouth, it is what it is. I refuse to get upset about it.”

“How can you be so calm?”

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