Page 101 of Ten Years and Then…
They’d broken each other’s hearts before and he managed to function afterwards. It would be miserable, but he could do it again.
What other choice did he have?
Nora, a few hours later
Nora was impressed, both at the demonstration the Gateway people had put on, and also at the way they’d managed to throw it together on almost no notice, on a weekend.
If they could really do everything they talked about, they could be looking at massive growth. Of course, the whole point of today had been to sell her on that.
Well, mission accomplished. What she’d seen today was enough to guarantee them a cover story—and a very positive one. There was no way Mr. Brooks could argue against it.
She was back at the Prairie Gate Inn, in her room overlooking the parking lot. Not that the view from any other side of the building would have been any better. It was just as well she was in a quiet hotel in a quiet neighborhood. She had a lot of work to do tonight, translating all her interview notes into something more legible, then shaping them into a story, before going to bed early so she could be up at four-thirty in the morning to get to the airport tomorrow.
She wondered if it was just company policy to book the cheapest flight, or if she was being punished, because her flight took off at six o’clock, and it went to Dallas of all places, where she’d connect to a flight to Boston and finally land at three-thirty in the afternoon.
She checked the pager; no messages, still. She tried his cell phone again and got no answer, just like last night; so she left another message.
It made no sense. Why didn’t he answer her? Had something happened to him? He could have had an accident. One of his team members had sprained her ankle; who’s to say he didn’t break a bone or something yesterday? Things like that happened every day. If he was in the hospital, or resting in his hotel room whacked out on painkillers he wouldn’t be answering his phone.
Or it could be a work crisis—something with his booth, or maybe he’d even been called back to the office. She couldn’t imagine why—but before she’d taken her chance with Bill Whitaker, she couldn’t have imagined being in a hotel room in South Dakota right now, either.
There were plenty of logical—if unlikely—possibilities. She’d just have to wait and find out which one it was when he finally called. In the meantime—if she could force herself to concentrate—she had a hundred pages of notes to go through.
Daniel, nine o’clock in the evening
His team was at the barbecue place across the street from the Marriott—Hickory Moon—for another team dinner. Daniel didn’t really want to go, but sitting alone in his room would have been far more depressing.
It took two pitchers of margaritas for him to finally talk about Nora’s leaving. “I don’t get it. She was so excited for this conference—and then she just vanishes?”
Edward opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get a word out, Red and Blue shouted, almost in unison, “Shut up, Edward!”
“What? I didn’t even say anything?”
“Good,” Blue said. “Keep it that way. And, Daniel, I know it’s weird, but I’m sure there’s a logical reason.”
He didn’t bother to say that he’d already thought of every logical explanation, and a lot of illogical ones. “Yeah. Or maybe one night was all we were allowed to have. Maybe I should think of it as a gift, and just enjoy it for what it was. Right?”
He could see that nobody agreed with that, but they all nodded along with him anyway, and then Thomas changed the subject. Daniel appreciated that.
But the more he thought about it, while half-listening to the team talk about which other booths they liked the best, the more he felt like he had his answer. God or the universe or whoever decided these things, gave them one night together, just so they could remember what love felt like. And comfort. And safety. And all the other things they’d been for each other.
They both needed that reminder—Nora wasn’t having any more luck having a social life since graduation than he was. Maybe they’d been given one night as a gentle push to get out of their ruts and start actually living again.
Or maybe that was nonsense, because it was easier to pretend he believed the universe had a plan than to admit he didn’t have a clue what had gone wrong.
They stayed at the restaurant until nearly ten o’clock. When they got back to the hotel, Bryce asked Daniel to borrow his phone. “My girlfriend likes for me to call around this time.”
Daniel handed it over. “No problem. But where’s yours?”
Bryce shrugged. “Yeah, about that. I kind of slipped on the bathroom floor last night, and it sort of went flying out of my hands into the sink. And the sink was half full of water.” He had the decency to look down as he was telling the story. “There were some sparks. And a really loud pop. And then a little bang, and some smoke. I’m pretty sure it’s dead.”
Mr. Kincaid couldn’t blame Daniel for that, could he? He was responsible for his team, but he could hardly be expected to prevent his co-workers from having accidents in their own bathroom, right?
“Stuff happens, Bryce. I’m sure you’re not the first one to kill a phone when you’re travelling.”
Bryce gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks, boss. I appreciate it.” He unfolded Daniel’s phone, and looked curiously at it. “Uh—this is my phone. That’s my number.”
Daniel took it back, and he saw Bryce was right. The number written there below the tiny screen wasn’t the number he remembered. “Yesterday morning, before my panel. Our phones were both on the main podium. I must have grabbed yours by mistake.”
