He gestured toward me, and the bewildered manager looked over.
I bristled at being described as terrified as if I were some damsel in distress. If anything, Cameron had been more afraid than me, but I figured there was no point in trying to stop Hugh once he was on a roll.
“I’m so sorry, sir. And madam. And... sir.” The manager nodded at Cameron. “I honestly didn’t know the doors were sealed; I’ll have it attended to as soon as we get you free.”
“Fine, but I’ll be checking up on you,” Hugh said, and he meant it.
I could see why the man got up people’s noses, but I also understood why he was so annoyed; as beautiful as it was in the bungalow, it clearly wasn’t safe.
“Um, yes. Well, in the meantime, here’s a package of fresh-baked goodies for breakfast and some bits and pieces to have for your lunch. Let’s hope we have you out before dinner time.” He held up a bag, which presumably contained breakfast.
“Yes, let’s,” Hugh replied dryly.
The man scurried away, and Hugh’s frown immediately turned into a bright smile as he eyed the contents of the bag. “Ooh, an apple Danish, perfect.”
We each grabbed something sweet to eat and settled down on the couches. As we chatted, I loosened up a bit, making sure to stay away from any topic that could even possibly lead to us talking about last night. We stuck to stories from our school days, and we passed a pleasant couple of hours that way until a familiar face appeared at the window.
“Jasmine!” I ran over to open the window for my friend.
“Hey. I heard you were trapped; I’ll be honest, I imagined something more dramatic than being stuck in a cute bungalow...” Jasmine then lowered her voice to a whisper and added, “...with a pair of hotties.”
“Shhh.” I couldn’t help but laugh at my ever-unsubtle friend.
Once she’d arrived, I really wanted to tell Jas what had happened. I needed advice, and for all her faults, Jasmine was the go-to girl for relationship problem-solving. I swear she could have gotten Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt back together, if only they’d had the sense to come to her.
She was truly the best. But I couldn’t easily lean out, not with the screen in place, and of course, I couldn’t let Cameron and Hugh hear what I wanted to say. I tried to get the message across to Jasmine through a series of facial expressions and small hand gestures, but she just looked confused.
“What are you doing? Is this some sort of dance you’ve made up? Have you got cabin fever already? Watch out, y’all; she’s cracking up.”
I blushed scarlet as Jasmine shouted across at the guys, but they were deep into one of their friendly debates and barely paid us any attention.
“Look, I’ll tell you later,” I hissed at her, and her eyes widened.
“Oh, so that was code for something secret? Well, it was terrible. You could never be a spy, Muriel. You’re going to have to tell me—properly—later; I’ve got to go and see my mom now.”
“That’ll be nice.”
I received a scowl in return. “You have met my mother, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I have.” I remembered the last time I encountered the senior Ms. Bailey. “Perhaps nice is a strong word. But I’m sure you’ll survive.”
My enthusiastic thumbs up received a middle finger in reply.
Jasmine promised to stop by later, and just seeing her had calmed me down.
The French press called to me, so I headed toward the kitchen, but as I passed the two guys, Cameron pulled me down between them on the sofa.
“We need to talk,” he said, seriously.
I always assumed that the phrase ‘we need to talk’ only sounded scary in the context of break-ups, but we weren’t even together, and the words made me want to run a mile. Still, I figured I owed them an explanation for my behavior since it was so different from the night before. But I wasn’t sure I had an explanation, and didn’t have the time or space to figure it out, so I’d just have to roll with it.
“About last night. Did you enjoy yourself?” The sincerity in Hugh’s voice hurt my heart. Why would he ask? How could they think for a second that I didn’t enjoy what we shared?
I swallowed hard. “It was the best night of my life. Seriously, it was incredible.”
“Great. We thought so too,” Cameron said brightly.
But Hugh held up his hand. “And there’s a ‘but’ coming.” He was astute, as usual.
“There is. Last night was amazing, but—” What was I going to say? “It was a one off. It’s not going to work. It can’t work. It was a terrible, wonderful mistake that can never happen again.” Well, that was definitive; on auto-pilot, it seemed I opted for the ‘rip off the Band-Aid’ approach to sharing bad news.