Page 16 of Fireworks Flame
“I’ll ask Phoebe if I can stay with her.” The compromise offers no relief. Even if I didn’t mind Phoebe seeing my drool, I don’t want to be a burden on her. That kind of weakness ruins things, changing a relationship forever.
“Perfect,” Deiss says. “Just out of curiosity, do you think Mac will try to talk you into sleeping in his bed, or are you assuming the idea of two beautiful women on the bed next to him will be enough to make him opt for legroom?”
My stomach sinks. “Phoebe and Mac are staying together?”
“Yep.”
“You could have just said that.”
“I could’ve.” Deiss looks unfazed by the glare I shoot him.He pulls the car back onto the road, leaving the “guesthouse” behind.
“I can’t stay in your room, Deiss.”
“Then stay in Simone’s.” He offers the suggestion as if we weren’t both witness to the Sister Standoff of 2016, in which Simone and her little sister stopped speaking for nine whole months because Ashley showed up for a weekend visit. “She breathed like a crank caller,” Simone would grumble every time one of us would try to remind her how much she loves her only sibling. “She never breathes like that in public. It’s like she saved it all up and then came into my beautiful apartment and exhaled every germ she’d accumulated over the past month.” Her face would scrunch up with disgust. “And did I mention that she brought coffee inside? My living room smelled like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting for days after she finally left.”
“I will,” I say, convincing myself as much as him. “It’s one night. I’ll just wait until breakfast to drink any coffee.”
“And,” he prompts.
“And I’ll keep my breathing to a minimum.”
“And...”
It takes a minute to figure out what he’s referring to. Once I do, I shake my head.
“She doesn’t still do that,” I say. “She’s an adult now.”
“An adult who needs Disney music playing at full volume in order to sleep.” He smiles. “I could hear it from my balcony last night.”
I exhale loudly, my eyes fluttering closed. I am so unbelievably tired.
“Just stay with me,” Deiss says. “What’s the issue? It’s not like I’m going to cop a feel. You’d spear me with icicles if I tried.”
“I would not.”
He lifts an eyebrow.
“I’d use ice rays,” I say. “They beam out from my eyes.”
“See?” He grins. “You know I’m a self-preservationist. There’s absolutely nothing for you to worry about.”
Except waking up and accidentally torching you with my dragon’s breath.
“It’s settled then,” Deiss says, choosing to take my silence as affirmation. “You’ll stay with me, at least for tonight. Then tomorrow, when you haven’t just traveled from one continent to another and I haven’t spent six hours behind the wheel of a car, we’ll look into alternative options.”
“Right.” I don’t even think about what I’m agreeing to. I’m too distracted by the reminder that Deiss has wasted an entire day of his vacation on me.Of coursehe wants to get this settled so he doesn’t have to feel obligated to spend even more of his time finding a new place for me to stay. “Thank you,” I add, flushing with embarrassment. I can’t believe I’ve allowed myself to become such a burden. A needy woman is a weak woman. I know this, yet I’ve shown up on a trip where no one was expecting me and have forced them to take care of me.
It’s mortifying.
“No problem,” Deiss says, turning into the Elephant Lodge. Unlike the last place, this one has a real sign that’s lit by a spotlight shining up from the ground. It’s a perfect logo, the kind of thing I’d be proud to have created. It straddles a line between classic and rugged, exactly what you’d want to see when you’re playing adventurer but secretly hoping for all the comforts of home.
We park and, rather than walking toward the lobby door, Deiss leads me around the side of the building on a dimly lit,slatted-wood pathway. Palm trees rustle in the wind as we walk past, and a song that’s heavy on the bongos plays in the distance. Deiss pulls my bag behind him, and the wheels make little clacking sounds over the boards. The path branches off on either side every few yards, but we keep going until I begin to wonder if the joke is on me, and I’ve accidentally agreed to camp in the jungle.
“That way,” Deiss says, tilting his chin toward the last path on the right.
It leads to a small wooden hut. Deiss slides around me to unlock the door, and his shoulder brushes against mine, warm and hard. The contact sparks something inside my chest, a jolt of adrenaline reminding me that I’m not a person who shares small spaces. Even as a child, it was only me and a mother who was usually gone, working one of her two jobs. Most of the time, I had the house to myself. First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll find somewhere else more appropriate to stay.
“What do you think?” Deiss asks, flipping on the light. Inside, it’s less primitive than the outside led me to believe. White tiles line the floor, and a ceiling fan whirs above. There’s a hand-painted elephant above the bed, bookmarked on either side by woven basket lids. “Nice, right?”
