Page 28 of I Can't Help It

That was a good answer, right?

I guess so because Ava smiles and takes the ice pack from me. “Go check in, and I’ll ice my head until the swelling level meets your approval, Doctor Tanner.”

Her green eyes tease me like they always do, and I have a hard time dragging myself back to the front desk. Doctor Tanner.

“Long time, no see,” Shy says with another friendly smile. “I pulled up that info for you, and it looks like a second reservation was added recently, right?”

“Uh, yeah, our boss changed his mind and decided to send both of us here.”

“Well, I have some good news and some bad news.” He gives me a hesitant look. “Should I tell you the bad first, and then we can move on to the good?”

Bad news? Bad news?

Before I can even process what this “bad news” might be, Shy is already telling me.

“So, it looks like someone approved Room 102 for the second reservation. However, the room is still unavailable due to some renovating that’s currently happening. We will have a different room for the second reservation, but it won’t be vacant until tomorrow afternoon.” He pauses to give me an apologetic wince. “And unfortunately, I don’t see any other open rooms for tonight. We usually have a little more space between reservations, but things have been crazy because of the festival.”

His words hit me like the final punch in a boxing match, and I grip the counter to keep myself from falling back. “You—you don’t have any other rooms? At all?”

While Shy apologizes and starts talking about the discounts he can give me for the rooms and our experience package, I’m just trying to breathe and stay calm.

Spoiler alert: I’m failing miserably.

If there aren’t any rooms left, that means Ava will have to share a room with me, and if Ava has to share a room with me…that means I’m in deep trouble.

Ava

I guess I hit my head harder than I thought because it sounded like Luke just told me that we have to share a room, since the room Colton reserved for me isn’t actually available.

He’s joking, right? There’s no freaking way I could get that lucky.

I blink at him. “What?”

“Let’s talk about it in the room,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll come down and grab our stuff afterward.”

Hearing “the room” and “our stuff” so close together has me feeling tingly all over, but I don’t show it as I follow Luke to the nearest staircase. What if we really do have to share a room? Is there an office rule against that?

“How’s your head?” Luke asks as we start to climb the stairs. “You should probably use the banister just in case.”

I’m still holding the ice pack to my forehead, but I could do without it, just like I could do without using the banister. However, Luke is clearly stressed about this one room thing, and I don’t want to make things worse, so I use the darn banister.

Truthfully? I almost lose my footing anyway.

Lucky for me, it was only a tiny misstep, so Luke doesn’t notice.

Also, if he’s stressed about us sharing a room…wouldn’t that mean he has some kind of interest in me? Something beyond just attraction or a work relationship?

Or am I delusional from hitting my head?

We clear the landing platform before going up the next length of stairs, which is thankfully only a few steps, and I attempt some conversation to ease the OBVIOUS tension. “The lobby was really pretty, huh?”

“Mmhmm.”

Oh no, he’s shutting down! We’re losing him!

Do something, Ava!

But for the life of me, I can’t think of anything else to say. I guess it doesn’t really matter, though, because Luke suddenly stops in front of a door that has “203” on it.

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