The Layover - Cassie Cross Page 0,1

was set to leave Port City. Finding someone and falling in love with them like that is rare.

“You’ve been talking about her coming home for months,” Evan says, quickly stealing Lindsay’s glass of red out of her hand. “I can’t believe you’re trying to talk her out of it.”

“I’m not,” she says to him, then turns to me. “I’m not. I’m just saying…you never know.”

Except I do know, and that isn’t happening.

“How’s the hotel?” Evan asks, sensing my desperation to change the subject.

Little does he know, rescuing me like this has earned him the finest bottle of champagne I can fit into my overstuffed suitcase.

“It’s really nice. I have a suite! There’s a kitchen in here.”

Lindsay laughs first, because I’m definitely not a cook. I once accidentally started a fire when I was trying to heat up a frozen pizza. I have no desire to burn this hotel down.

“Gonna use it to store your suitcases?” she teases.

I narrow my eyes. “Maybe.”

“Show us the rest of the place.”

I place the container the potatoes were in down on the small side table next to me, then show them the tiny but nicely decorated living area, the kitchen I’m not going to be using, the bathroom with its weird European shower, and finally the bedroom.

“Those pillow cases are so cute!” she says, zeroing in on the bedding. I move closer so that she can get a better look at them. They are pretty cute, crisp white with bunches of lavender embroidered on them.

On my screen, Evan’s brows scrunch together and he leans in.

“What are those spots?”

I hadn’t noticed any, but upon closer inspection… “Maybe they’re gnats? The window’s open and there isn’t a screen.”

No, definitely not gnats.

After years of frequently visiting hotels, I’ve come face-to-face with a foe I’ve only ever seen pictures of.

“Oh my god, they’re bedbugs.” I think I manage to stay pretty calm about it. I’m also pleased that I was too lazy to wheel my bags back here and have only sat on the iron chair outside. I should be pest free. “Let me call you back.”

Lindsay nods frantically as I end our call. I don’t even bother to go and get my heavenly potato container, just shove my phone in my pocket, grab the handles on my bags and wheel them down the hallway like a bat out of hell.

At the front desk, a very kind man with a thick accent is doing his best to help me. I repeatedly try to explain the issue to him, but he either doesn’t know what bedbugs are or is pretending that he doesn’t. I fumble around some elementary French, hoping that his native tongue will get through to him. No luck.

There are quite a few people milling around the lobby, so I try to keep my voice light for the first five times I explain my predicament. On my sixth try, BEDBUGS comes out loudly enough to grab the attention of everyone in the room.

The look on his face at my outburst tells me that he knows exactly what I’m talking about. I apologize, and he tells me that there aren’t any other rooms available tonight. Not here, and not at either of their sister hotels.

Apparently it’s fashion week, a thing that I did not know, because my idea of fashion is the most comfortable pair of jeans that I can get away with wearing in public.

My only options are to leave or to go back to my room and hope I don’t become the feast of a lifetime for my creepy-crawly little friends upstairs.

I decide not to chance it, and leave the hotel with my bags and a refund for my stay, minus tonight’s rate.

The hotel is at a fairly busy intersection in the 7th Arrondissement. There isn’t anywhere to sit, so I decide to park myself at a well-lit corner and sit on my biggest suitcase while I look for a place to stay. Lindsay must sense my distress long-distance, because she calls right as I sit down.

“What happened?” she asks.

“It’s fashion week. My hotel’s booked, so are the ones that the nice man at the front desk called for me.”

“Where are you now?”

“Sitting on my suitcase on a corner.”

“Why didn’t you stay in the lobby?”

“Because of the bedbugs,” I tell her. “They could be anywhere.”

I hear her stifle her laugh. “Lemme see if I can find a place for you. That way I’ll know if anyone tries to roll you away.”

“Thanks, Linds.”

She looks for a solid ten