Page 113 of Betting on the Best Friend
We take a crammed elevator up to the eighth floor. I wouldn’t mind because it keeps me close to Charlie, which is my favorite spot wherever it occurs, and which I am still regretting not figuring out sooner. Except it also keeps me brushing against the loud middle-aged man next to me if I breathe too deeply. He seems to belong to a group of guys talking about the Rockets game tonight until they get off on the floor before us.
When we exit onto Charlie’s, he takes my suitcase and turns left. “This way. At least now we know why the hotels are so full.”
“I heard there are 4500 people at the conference.”
“Yeah, but also, the Rockets are playing the Spurs tonight.”
“Ohhhh.” It’s an ugly rivalry, likely to bring people three hours down I-10 from San Antonio, and this hotel is right between the arena and the conference center. “Great. There will be no last-minute downtown Houston room miracles.”
He stops in front of his room but instead of opening the door, he pulls out his phone. “How many hotel rooms are in Houston?” he asks it.
The phone answers, “The Houston area is home to approximately 800 hotels and 77,000 rooms.”
He cuts off the rest of the answer and slips his phone in his pocket to pull out his room key. “We got this.”
It only takes a few minutes on our laptops inside his small room to determine we don’t “got this,” but we keep at it for another twenty minutes or so before Charlie closes his.
He’s sitting with his back against the headboard of the sole queen bed, his legs stretched in front of him. “Unless you suddenly have oil heiress money or the library decides its entire operating budget can go to a hotel room for you this weekend, there are no realistic options.”
I’m at the desk/TV stand and I swivel in the office chair to face him. “Speaking of funerals, there’s a room at a hotel near Humble. Good reviews. Fits the budget. It’ll just be a twenty-mile drive.”
“Meaning an hour on the interstate each way.” He frowns. “Wait, what does that have to do with funerals?”
“It’s right next to the National Museum of Funeral History.”
He gives a small grunt.
“You want to go now, don’t you?” I guess.
“Yeah. But no to staying all the way out there. Just stay—”
“Don’t say it.” I already know where this is going. “Please don’t force me to be a movie cliché.”
“People love the one-bed trope.”
“I meant the evil mastermind cliché where you secretly believe I engineered this whole situation to force you to spend time with me.” The masterminding—non-evil—comes into play tomorrow.
He cocks his head. “Hadn’t considered that, but now I am.”
I glare at him.
“Just stay here,” he says.
“Still too clichéd.”
“You’re thinkingThe ProposalorLeap Year.That’s amateur time.” He laces his fingers behind his head. “Consider the one-bed trope in the hands of a true auteur.”
I study him, stretched out comfortably, teasing me into one of our favorite games, and wonder how my conscious brain was too dumb to realize that my subconscious brain wants this man with every fiber of my being, and twice as intensely when Charlie uses words like “auteur.”
“The one-bed trope is the one-bed trope in any hands,” I argue, so happy to be in this beloved, never-taking-it-for-granted-again rhythm. “Alfred Hitchcock. Not an amateur.”
His forehead furrows for a moment then smooths. “North by Northwest.Cary Grant has to hide in what’s-her-face’s sleeper car.”
“Eve Marie Saint, you uncultured hooligan.”
“Do many uncultured hooligans go to library conferences?” he muses.
“Just you.”
