Page 28 of Slumming It

"So I'll just payherto do my job."

Vivian frowned. "With what?"

"Don't worry," I said again. "I'll have the money."

Vivian's forehead creased with obvious concern as she shoved a nervous hand through her long, dark hair. "Meaning you don't have it now?"

"Yeah, but you knew that already. I mean, you just said it, right?"

"But how can you get it?" she asked. "You just told me you're taking a couple of weeks off."

Two weeks was just a guess. It could be twodaysfor all I knew. But estimating high had seemed the smarter choice. "I might not befullyoff," I reminded her. "I just said that I wasn't going to be working my regular shifts."

"But that's the same thing," Vivian said. "And starting when?"

Isodreaded telling her. "Um, tomorrow actually."

Her jaw dropped. "Tomorrow?"

"Uh, yeah."

She stared at me for a long, horrified moment. But then she slapped the counter and burst out laughing. As I stared in confusion, she laughed long and hard, making the otherwise empty lobby fill with the manic sounds of it.

It wasn't her normal laugh, and this made me just a little nervous as I asked, "What's so funny?"

"You." Her hazel eyes crinkled as she caught her breath. "You totally got me."

I wasn't following. "Got you how?"

"With your joke." She wiped a stray tear from her eye. "Like it would stop me from asking what you were doing in his room." She rolled her eyes. "For a minute there, I actually believed you – about the time off, I mean."

Shit.

She was in denial.

All my life, my sister had been the kind of person who faced reality head-on. But lately, whether because of the challenges with running the hotel or because things were going south with her long-term boyfriend, she'd been burying her head deeper and deeper in the sand.

And now I didn't know what to say.

As I struggled to come up with the words, Vivian said, "So come on. Tell me. What were you doing?"

My stomach twisted with new dread. "You mean in his hotel room?"

"Orin his shower."

"It wasn't the shower. Actually, I was…" I winced. "Hiding under his bed."

Hearing this, she gave me the same big-sister look she'd given me in grade school when I'd accidentally substituted salt for sugar while making lemonade. "Oh, like that's so much better."

"But it was," I insisted. "And it wasn't even my fault."

She was still giving me that look. "Oh, really? So whose fault was it? You can't tell mehis, because he was very clear about not wanting to be disturbed."

She'd told me this already. According to Vivian, Reese Murdock had been adamant yesterday when checking in – under a fake name, no less. While staying with us, he wanted no housekeeping whatsoever. No wiping of the bathroom countertop, no vacuuming of the carpet, no making of the bed. No nothing.

The only thing "Buddy Reed" had requested was his privacy.

So much forthat.