Page 54 of Devil in Disguise

“Where are we going?” she asked.

He glanced at her, then back at the road. “Place I found online. It’s close.”

She said, “Do you want to talk about this now? I mean, the guy-friends thing? The I-didn’t-cheat-but-I-possibly-flirted thing?”

“No. Not now.”

The hotel was called The Inn at the Market. Pike Place Market, to be exact, because it was right across the street. She asked, “Why is anyplace with ‘Inn’ in it always more expensive? Weren’t inns, like, motels in the old days?”

“You really want me to answer?”

“No. I’m just nervous.”

He smiled, then grabbed his stuff and handed the truck keys to a valet, who probably didn’t know what to think of Owen’s slightly battered and definitely dusty pickup, at least not until he got the tip, and then they headed inside. Owen carrying a little duffel, his plastic bag, and his cowboy hat, and Dyma carrying only her school backpack. A stop at Reception, where Owen dropped the duffel, pulled out his credit card, and said, “Johnson. I booked online. I want to change my room, though. Give me a high one, looking over the water. Whatever you call that.”

The clerk looked at him, then down at her computer. “I have a Deluxe Water View Room, and a Deluxe with Deck.”

“Give me the deck one.”

The barest hesitation. “That one’s four hundred seventy dollars plus tax.”

“Sounds good,” Owen said, and handed over the card. “Oh, and do you have one of those emergency toilet kits? He glanced at Dyma. “Toothbrush, anyway. Comb.”

The clerk wasn’t running Owen’s card. She was hesitating with her fingers on the keyboard. Finally, she said, “May I see some ID, miss?”

It took Dyma a second. “What?”

The clerk said, “It’s just a precaution.”

“Oh,” she said. “I get it. Trafficking. Because I look young, and he definitely doesn’t. Also because I don’t even have a comb. Hey, guess what, Owen, you’re a sex trafficker!” She had to laugh at the look on his face, and then she got her wallet out of her backpack and handed over her driver’s license. “Sorry. I mean, I know it’s serious, and good for you that you check, right? But here you go. Nineteen, see? Also not trafficked, so—yay!”

In the elevator, Owen said, “You know that spanking thing I told you about?”

“Mm.” She got up close to him, pulled his head down, and said, “Tell me after you kiss me.”

He was still doing it, his hand on her butt the way he liked to do, hauling her up so he could reach her better, when the doors opened. A throat cleared, and somebody said, “Excuse me.”

It was a family. Dad, mom, and two kids. Owen put Dyma down fast, and the mom pushed the button for the top floor and didn’t look at them.

“We’re going to the rooftop deck!” the smaller of the two kids, a girl of about four, informed Dyma. “We just got here, and it’s way past our bedtime, but we’re going to the roof first anyway, because we are on baycation!”

“Awesome,” she said as the doors closed.

“You aren’t ’posed to let a boy touch you on the bottom,” the girl told her next. “That’s bad touching.”

“Shh,” the boy said. “That’s her dad. You can tell because he has a beard and he’s way bigger. Dads can touch.”

Dyma was laughing, and Owen looked like he wanted to die. “No,” she said. “He’s not my dad. He’s my boyfriend. He gets to do bad touching.”

The mom made a little noise, the elevator stopped at the next-to-top floor, and Owen said, “Pardon me, ma’am,” to the woman, got his hand on Dyma’s back, and steered her out. Like she couldn’t have made it without his guidance, but she couldn’t be too mad about it, because Owen’s hands on her were …

Also, she had to laugh again. He was looking sopained.

“Think you’ve been turned in yet?” she asked him. “Is the Vice squad going to show up? Or maybe the media? I have to say, the hookers in this town must dressextremelycasually, if I’m one. Really? This is the look? Seriously?”

“Because you look about sixteen with no makeup,” he said.

“Because I was atwork.And before that, I was at the gym with the friends.”