Page 88 of The Heartbreak Hotel
“And if there’s nothing I can’t share with you…” I say, leaning back to find her eyes. I swipe at my tears, and Goldie raises her eyebrows. “I do need to get back to Colorado, like,now. But I have a good reason.”
Thirty-Five
“Excuse me!” Mei tugs methrough the terminal, rolling suitcase clicking behind her. “We’ve gotta go see about a guy!” She shoots me a shit-eating grin over one shoulder. “I love saying that.”
“I can tell,” I say, but I squeeze her hand.
We landed back in Denver a little past five, dark ridge of mountains just visible as the wheels hit the tarmac. All I heard from Henry while we were in Ohio was a couple confirmations of check-ins and one very respectfulI hope everything’s going all right.There’s so much I want to tell him—that I should never have lied to him, that I don’t need to push him, that I’ll take whatever he’s ready to give me for as long as he’s willing to give it to me—that I can’t say it over text. It’s a conversation we need to have in person. These are things I need to say straight to his disarming blue eyes, to his lip tugged between his teeth, to the concerned line between his eyebrows.
“What do you think he’ll do when he sees you?” Mei says. We step through the sliding doors onto the walkway towardlong-term parking, and a frigid wind blows my coat open. “I think propose.”
I shriek a laugh, and Mei giggles ferociously. We’re high on the impulsiveness of this plan—on the speed with which we rebooked our plane tickets, hauled our asses to the airport, drafted a speech for me to win Henry back. And partaking in Mei’s excitement is easier than slipping into my fear—because what happens if Henry’snotthrilled to see me? What if I pushed him too far, and the damage is done?
“I don’t know,” I say, shaking out my hands. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I just need to get there and see him and I’ll figure it out as I go.”
“Totally.” Mei nods seriously. “We’re gonna read the room. We’re gonna gauge his body language. But I’m pretty sure it’ll say:Let me ravish you immediately.”
I smack her in the arm, exhaling a laugh that condenses in the cold air between us. After the past couple days, it feels good—better than good—to laugh.
Goldie and Quinn stayed in Ohio; she’d already taken the week off work and wanted to spend a few more days with Mom. Usually it’s me handling the emotional fallout after the logistics are in order. I’m relieved and grateful and not a little weepy to see Goldie step up and do it instead.
Go get him, she’d said, walking me to my cab outside our Columbus hotel.We’ve got things under control here. When I hugged Quinn, savoring his warmth and his softness and his smell, he’d echoed her:We got this, Lou-Lou.
“I’m driving,” Mei says now. She plucks my car keys out of my hand and opens the trunk. “I’m way too worked up to sit still for an hour and a half.”
When I slide my suitcase into the trunk, she flaps her hands at me. “Hurry! We have places to be!”
“What if he hates me?” I say, slamming the hatch and walking around to the passenger seat. We slide in at the same time, hunching into the stale cold of the car. “What if he never wants to see me again?”
“What if an asteroid the exact size of the Comeback Inn catapults through the atmosphere and blows it up at the precise moment we pull into the driveway?” Mei throws the car into reverse and shoots me a withering look. “Don’t be stupid. Let’s go see about a guy.”
The house is all litup when we get there, nearly seven o’clock. Someone’s hung string lights on the porch, and I can see a Christmas tree glowing from the entryway. Picturing Henry doing all this turns my heart into a bloody pulp. Or maybe it was Nan? But she wouldn’t know where the decorations are kept, tucked into cardboard boxes in the far corner of the murder basement. She wouldn’t know to string lights on the fiddle leaf in the living room—a tradition I told Henry about when we were wrapped, sweaty and spent, in those blankets on Thanksgiving. I can see it through the narrow window by the staircase, sparse and sparkling, and feel it like a fist clenched around my throat.
“His car’s not here,” I manage. Mei parks in my usual spot and peers up at the house through the windshield.
“Maybe he ran to the store?” She looks over at me. “So you surprise him when he gets back?”
“Maybe,” I say, but my hands are already shaking. “Maybethis was stupid.God.Maybe I should have called first, Mei, I mean, what were we thinking? He could be—”
“Stop.” She grabs for my hand, looking at me seriously. Her face is mostly in shadow, lit on one side by the warm glow from the house. “This isn’t stupid, it’s romantic as hell. We’re going to go inside, and figure out where he is, and take it from there. Okay?”
I nod once, sharply. I feel like I’m going to come out of my skin. “Okay.”
“Okay,” she repeats, and then she reaches across my body and pushes open my door.
I hear voices as soon as we step into the foyer—laughter and warm murmuring and the low notes of holiday jazz over the living room speaker. The smell of the house breathes through me like a lullaby, stilling every live nerve under my skin.
“Hello?” Nan’s voice rises, and the others peter out. “Who is it?”
“It’s Lou,” I say, kicking off my boots. By the time I round the corner toward the living room Nan’s made it to the hallway to meet me. There are three other women sitting by the fire—Pauline among them—and I wave distractedly in their direction.
“Lou!” Nan says. She’s wearing a cable-knit sweater and fuzzy socks. Her hands land on my arms. “You’re back!” Then, as if remembering something awful, she takes a sharp intake of breath and presses a hand to her mouth. She looks at the other women, wide-eyed. “Oh no,” she breathes.
“What?” I say. Distantly, I’m aware of Mei walking up behind me. “Where’s Henry?”
Nan’s gaze comes back up to mine. Her fingers are still covering her lips when she repeats, “Oh no.”
“Nan,” Mei says, and Nan’s eyes dart to her. “What’s going on?”
