Page 34 of Never Thought I'd End Up Here
“… think thatIwould want to marry you?”
“Obviously not—”
“Because I’m in very high demand, Cyrus. I shit you not, there are at least thirty people I can name who wouldloveto be married to me. Hell, there was a literal prince who proposed to me when we were both only fifteen, and I was promised an extravagant wedding on a private island.”
“That’s hardly the point here—”
“No, but I feel like I need to make this clear to you. You shouldn’t sound so disgusted—”
“You sounded disgusted too—”
“I was stillpoliteabout my disgust—”
I sit up, disoriented, and creep back over to the doorway. I remember hearing somewhere that exhaustion can produce vivid hallucinations, but even for a hallucination, this conversation is bizarre. Slowly, I push the door open and find Oliver and Cyrus standing apart in the dull yellow wash of the corridor, arms crossed, expressions tense.
“What’s going on?” I ask, sticking my head out.
“They gave us thehoneymoon suite,” Oliver bursts out, his handsome features twisting in horror while I fight back the overwhelming urge to laugh. “It looks like Cupid hosted a massive party, got drunk, and threw up in there. Everything is all romantic and sensual.Sensual,” he emphasizes with a shudder, like the word contains within it a whole realm of unspeakable horrors. “There are rose petals covering every surface. The towels are folded into the shape of hearts. And there’s only one king-sized bed for the two of us. I need to sleep before my brain melts, and I can’t—”
“So do I,” Cyrus cuts in. “But your idea was terrible—”
“What’s wrong with sleeping face-to-feet?” he demands. “Would you rather we fall asleep staring deep into each other’s eyes, my dude?”
“I don’t want your feet anywhere within a five-foot radius of my face,” Cyrus says tightly.
“You see?” Oliver says to me, throwing his hands out like a defendant appealing to a jury. “This shit’s impossible. And don’t even get me started on that cursed bathroom wall—”
“It’s made of glass,” Cyrus says, also speaking to only me. “Pure glass. You can see everything on the other side of it. There might as well be no wall at all. The hotel simply doesn’t seem to believe that newlywed couples would care for something as frivolous as privacy.”
I’ve aborted any attempts to suppress my laughter by now—I double over, wheezing until my vision blurs with tears and the lines of the carpet start wobbling, my hysteria bubbling over my exhaustion.
Both of them stare at me, unamused.
“Sorry,” I choke out, clutching at my stomach. “Sorry, guys. I mean, if you look at it as an opportunity to really understand each other on a deeper level …”
“I think we already understand each other well enough,” Cyrus says. “In fact, I would argue that we understand each other a bittoowell.”
“So do I,” Oliver tells me. “I could take a whole trivia quiz on him and ace it. Like how he’s allergic to small talk, and refuses to drink anything except boiled water, and how he can’t stop talking about you—”
Cyrus cuts him a look I’m unable to decipher, and Oliver goes quiet.
I sober up at once, leaning forward with a kind of morbid curiosity, my heart beating oddly in my chest. “He talks about me?” I ask. “What does he say? Bad stuff?” It must be. I mentally fill the sudden silence between the three of us with long lists of criticisms. Even though I’ve never hated myself, there are plenty of things I hateaboutmyself, things I wish I could cover up with concealer like a stubborn blemish: my lazy streak, my vanity, my real laugh, my fake laugh, my inability to contribute anything interesting to a conversation, the one side of my face that’s slightly wider than the other. Sometimes, it feels like I’m just waiting for other people to catch up on my flaws.
But then Oliver shakes his head. Clears his throat. “No, good stuff.”
Surprise dances through me. My attention swings to Cyrus, but he’s rooted to the spot, wearing such a brilliant poker face that he could win any game of cards.
“Like what?” I ask.
Oliver’s gaze flickers to Cyrus as well, then back to me. “Yeah, uh, he’d kill me if I told you.”
I wouldn’t believe him. I wouldn’t dare believe that Cyrus Sui—Number One Enemy from my childhood, Stealer of Scrunchies, Destroyer of Lives—could have anything nice to say about me to my face, let alone behind my back, except he isn’t protesting outright.
Maybe it wasn’t guilt alone that was making him act so weirdly nice to me, then. Maybe my plan’s working already. Maybe he’s actually started to like me.
“You know what?” Cyrus says abruptly, turning toward their honeymoon suite with more eagerness than even a real newlywed. “I’ve decided that I don’t mind sleeping next to your feet, Oliver. Let’s just go back inside.”
“Oh, sonowyou have no problems with my feet—okay, bye, Leah,” Oliver says in a rush as Cyrus seizes his elbow mid-sentence and starts guiding him away.
