Page 50 of And Now, Back to You

The giggles start, like champagne bubbles in my chest.

Jackson grunts. “Let’s go.”

It takes me four minutes to get myself together enough to follow him. I’m laughing too hard.

“No,” he says, as soon as the door to the room swings open. “No. Absolutely not.”

It’s the fifth time he’s repeated that word since we’ve made our way up from what could loosely be described as check-in. There wasn’t anyone physically at the desk, but there was an envelope with my name on it, a cracked plastic key card held together with masking tape and mediocre vibes.

Liberty Hall is the antithesis of Wolf’s Lodge across the street. While the lodge is warm wood and arched ceilings, Liberty Hall is stained carpets and doors with boot-shaped dents. Old popcorn strewn across the hallway floor and a discarded pile of clothes, shoved in the corner. The elevator isn’t operational, so we trudge our way up the stairs with our suitcases, the single light bulb in the stairwell flickering ominously over our heads.

“Is it weird we haven’t seen another person?” I glance down the length of the hallway, half expecting to see a set of Victorian twins holding hands at the very end. “It’s kind of weird, right?”

Jackson is still staring into the depths of my new home for the next week. It smells vaguely like fried onions and something metallic. Pennies, wedged under a diesel truck car seat.

I lean my head in, careful to keep my feet in the hallway. Just in case. “Oh, look. There’s a bed. See? I’ll be fine.”

There’s also an unexplained crowbar, leaning up against the TV stand that does not feature a TV. Just some miscellaneous wires and a hole in the wall. “I bet I can use that crowbar as a doorstop.”

Fortifying myself to make the most of it, I pick up my suitcase and step into the room. Or I would, anyway, if Jackson didn’t immediately grab the back of my jacket and pull me into his chest.

“No,” he repeats, and I feel the puff of his breath across the top of my head.

“Jackson,” I sigh.

“Delilah,” he echoes back. “This is insane.”

It’s certainly not ideal, that’s for sure. “I need somewhere to stay, Jackson. And you heard Lottie. There are no other rooms.”

“Mark and I will bunk together. You can take my room.”

I’m already shaking my head. “Mark has sleep apnea. He wears this crazy machine to bed. Rooming with him is like sleeping next to a backfiring car.” I pause. “He also has pretty wild sleep terrors. When we roomed together on the Eastern Shore for the White Marlin Open, he threw all of my clothes into the hallway because he thought they were on fire.”

Mark has gotten his own room ever since.

“Then Mark can stay over here,” Jackson says, agitated.

“I’ll be fine,” I insist. “I don’t want to inconvenience anyone. I won’t be spending much time in my room anyway.”

Jackson gives me a dubious look. “You’re really going to sleep in that bed?”

I glance at it. There’s an unidentified lump on the left side. Only one pillow. No duvet as far as I can tell.

It requires a significant amount of effort to keep a smile on my face.

“It’ll be an adventure,” I say.

Jackson opens his mouth to respond, but something rustles in the closet. Our attention snaps toward the door.

Now the crowbar makes sense.

“Did you hear—”

“Yeah,” Jackson says, his voice dark. “Yeah, I did.”

The door suddenly bucks against the hinges and I shriek, already halfway down the hallway. Jackson is right behind me, the door to the hotel room slamming shut behind him.

“You are not staying here, Delilah.”