Page 53 of Poetry of Flowers

Or is the love only an image I created,

Might our future already be fated?

ChapterSixteen

MATILDA

Okay, so this was a great reminder never to trust my best friend to find a motel for us ever again. The tiny motel looked like it was built in the Sixties, the walls were covered in ivy and inside the only decoration on the wallpaper was mold.

I’d seen mold plenty of times, even in my home after a winter storm. The walls had gotten wet behind our fridge, and we didn’t notice until it had started to smell. Patrick had to pay for it to get cleaned up. But surely motels needed some kind of hygiene license?

“Hi.” Kayden smiled at the lady behind the counter, wait… that was a girl, not a lady. She couldn’t be much older than me.

“Hey, have you booked online? If yes, what’s your name, pretty boy?”Pretty boy? Why would she flirt with him?

Kayden shook his head and pulled out his wallet. “Sadly, no, but do you have two rooms with twin beds?”

“Alright, let me just check.”

She winked at him before typing something on the computer in front of her. I didn’t like how she acted like she knew him. The way she curled her hair around her finger and stared at him like he was some sort of delicious food.

God! Was I jealous?

No. Why would I be jealous? I’d promised myself that whatever happened, as long as he was happy, I would be too. But for some reason, seeing him enjoy the attention made my face feel hot.

“Sorry, pretty boy, but we only got a family room. A queen-size bed and a double loft bed. Would that work?”

Of course, they didn’t have what we needed; this began to sound like a bad sitcom. I didn’t feel like sleeping in a bed in this motel anyway. I barely ever slept somewhere else than in my own bed at home. Not even at the Kidd house, at least not since that night.

“If this is all you got, then we’ll take it.”

She pulled a key out of a drawer and handed it to him. When their hands touched, she grinned from ear to ear.

“Kelly, can you empty the trash outside in the container? It’s full again” a voice called from the open door next to the counter. An older looking woman stepped out; her facial expression went soft as soon as she saw us.

The blond girl whose name was apparently Kelly rolled her eyes. “Mom, we have guests,” she spit back, clearly annoyed.

“Yeah, I can see that honey, what brings such young people to a motel in the middle of Spokane? Our guests are usually older” The older woman asked us nicely.

“Oh, we’re runaway kids, lost boys on the way to Neverland.” My cousin smiled at her.

You could blame her tipsy personality on the weed, but she was kind of always like this.

“I have to apologize for our Wendy here, we’re on the way to some friends of ours and need to take a break,” Theo explained to her.

Autumn scoffed, “He always has to have the last word. He’s annoying but so lovely,” my cousin whispered in my ear, making me smile. She was so in love with him.

“Don’t you kids have school? My Kelly’s new term just started yesterday.” She walked over and placed her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, leaning down to place a kiss on her hair, but Kelly pulled away.

“Mom, you’re embarrassing me!” she whined and buried her face in her hands.

“There is nothing embarrassing about accepting your mom’s love, don’t worry,” I told her quietly. As she looked up at me, her eyes scanned me from top to bottom twice.

“What do you know? I bet you still let your mommy braid your hair before school.”

Oh, so she could be nice to pretty boy, but not to me. Interesting. I went up to Kayden, hugged him around the waist, and leaned my head against his chest. He seemed surprised, but let me do it.

Kelly’s eyes formed small slits as her mother frowned behind her. “Kelly Lou! I dare you to talk to our guests like that.”

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