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I feel silly, but I do as he says and stay right where I am, the promise of his hands on me enough to keep me in place.

Maddox answers the door, speaking in hushed tones with Luca. After a few tense words, he closes the door and comes back, looking irritated. “You’re not going to believe this.”

At this point, I’ll believe just about anything. “Try me.”

Maddox holds out a hand, taking mine and pulling me up off the bed. “Butch is here and ready to talk about everything he knows.”

I think I understand how Luca felt when Butch showed up at the restaurant yesterday, because the guy is turning out to be kind of a cock block. “So I’m guessing this means you’re gonna give me a rain check, right?”

“You can have as many rain checks as you want.” Maddox pulls me close, pressing a kiss to my lips. “But I don’t know how long this is going to take. It could be an hour. It could be three.”

“I’ll be fine.” I look around the room I’ve spent the majority of my time in recently. “I’ll probably take a shower and straighten up a little bit. Maybe call and check in at work.”

Maddox’s expression tightens at the last bit. “Don’t tell them where you are.”

“I know.” I grab him by the shoulders, turning him toward the door. The sooner he gets this done, the faster they can hunt down Becca’s sister and kill everyone involved in her abduction.

And the sooner I can go home. Wherever that is.

Maddox stops to give me one more kiss and then he slips out the door, ducking into Luca and Owen’s room next door.

Turning back to my own room, I blow out a loud breath. “Guess it’s just you and me again.”

I decide to hit the shower first. I didn’t have as much to drink last night as Becca, but I’ve still got a little bit of a headache, and the hot water will probably ease that.

Going into the bathroom, I flip on the light and scowl.

I’ve skipped housekeeping since it’s weird to hang out while someone cleans your mess, but we’ve been here long enough that it’s probably time to get some fresh towels.

I don’t mind using the same one a few times, but they’re starting to get a little past their prime.

While I wait for housekeeping to start making rounds, I decide to move on with my to-do list. Grabbing Maddox’s cell phone, I call Ginny.

When she doesn’t answer, I leave a message, asking her to call me back.

Then I try Dane. He’s on the schedule today, so he should be able to fill me in on how things are going.

But his phone also goes to voicemail. I leave him the same message I left Ginny, then I sit at the desk for a minute, completely unmotivated to make the bed or collect trash.

It's still a little early, but I decide to poke my head out into the hall anyway, hoping I’ll get lucky and the housekeeping staff will be making their way through the rooms, but there’s no one in sight.

I should just suck it up and start cleaning, but I can’t make myself do it. Instead, I go to the phone on the nightstand and dial the front desk, planning to ask them to bring towels. It rings a crazy number of times before someone finally answers and puts me on hold. I wait. And wait. And wait.

I finally give up and decide I could probably use the exercise anyway. Grabbing the room key, I head out to place my request for more towels in person.

The halls are quiet as I make my way down to the main floor, but once I get there, I see why I had so much trouble getting through to the front desk. There are teenagers everywhere. They’re loud. They’re rowdy.

They’re making my head hurt.

I start to turn back to my room, but the prospect of picking up and organizing the same things I’ve picked up and organized countless times over the past few days is way less appealing than whatever this is, so I make my way through the crowd.

The line at the desk is pretty long, but eventually I step up to the counter.

After giving the overwhelmed looking woman on the other side a smile, I put in my towel request. Then I ask, “What’s going on? ”

She sighs. “They’re hosting the Future Farmers of America conference here this year, and somehow they got the dates wrong. Everyone showed up a day early and now they don’t have anything to do, so they’ve turned the lobby into their personal hangout spot.”

I cringe. “What a nightmare.”

She shakes her head. “You have no idea.”

Her phone starts to ring, and I step away, barely making it a foot before my own phone—technically Maddox’s—starts to ring. Dane’s number flashes across the screen, and I roll my eyes, because it would figure he’d be the one I’d have to talk to.

I connect the call and answer. “Hey.”

The noise of the kids is astronomical, and now the woman behind the counter is practically yelling as she answers her phone, so I plug my opposite ear and tell Dane, “Hang on for a second.” I quickly walk out of the lobby, making it to a quieter area before asking, “Can you hear me?”

“I can now.” He laughs. “Are you at some sort of a party?”

“Yeah. Because I’m such a party animal.” I dodge a few wayward teenagers. “How are things going?”

“Good. The store is clean and everybody’s showing up for their shifts.” He snorts. “Ginny’s acting like a dictator, but I wouldn’t have expected anything less.”

Me either. That’s why I put her in charge and not him.

Ginny’s younger than Dane by a few years, but she’s way more responsible and doesn’t mind if people get mad when she tells them what they have to do.

And that’s a big part of my job. Telling people what they have to do.

Because it’s shocking how many adults seem unable to figure that out on their own.

“I’m glad everything’s going well because I don’t know when I’m going to be able to make it back in. I’ve emailed corporate so they already know. I just wanted to touch base and make sure you guys were doing okay.”

There’s the chance I may never be going back to Birch and Ivy, and I don’t know how I feel about that. If I don’t go back, it’s because I’ve moved away. And that means I’m staying with Maddox, which sounds fantastic.

But I don’t want to give up working. Especially if Maddox travels a lot. I gave up my life once, and I don’t want to do it again. I trust Maddox completely, but I don’t want to lose myself.

Especially when I’m finally getting to know her.