It Takes Two to Mango

Three

The lid to the green smoothie popped off with a flick of her thumb and Grace had it turned upside down over his head in half a second. Pineapple and banana scents washed over her from the growing puddle of green spreading across the white bath towel. Pineapple had always been her favorite. The carnivorous fruit always made her feel that even if people cut her up and took pieces of her for their own purposes she'd still take her own chunk out of them.

"The audacity you must have to walk over here and think we could just talk like old friends absolutely blows me away," she hissed. The empty cup dropped from her hand to splash the last few drops across his shoes. "You don't talk to me, don't look at me, don't even breathe my air."

"How am I meant to not breathe your-"

Grace cut him off by flinging the lid at his face like a miniature frisbee. "Go breathe somewhere else and stop contaminating my air," she snapped. "Knock on my door again and I'll show you what those talented feet taste like." The door slammed, echoing through her room. Her legs slowly gave way and Grace sank to the floor in a silently sobbing puddle.

Reid's retreating footsteps were just audible from the other side of the door. Once another door had slammed down the hall, she reached out and tugged the towel, mess and all, back inside the room. Hopefully it hadn't had time to absorb into the hotel carpeting. One more deadpan stare from the custodian would probably kill her at this point.

What the hell was he thinking? She may have been young and stupid when they met but that was forever ago. If anyone should have expected her to grow up fast it should have been the man who showed her the world was just waiting to tear her down.

"Asshole," she muttered. The empty room absorbed her insult better than the towel absorbed the smoothie. The pineapple smell was starting to overwhelm her. If it hadn't been for the empty stomach she might have started feeling nauseous right then.

Grace carefully folded the towel and dropped it into the shower to rinse off the offending green sludge. It swirled down the drain like a cyclone. At least that mess could go away with a little water, aside from the green stain. Reid, the tornado that had rearranged her life twice, was back for another round. A little water wasn't going to get rid of him in any legal way.

Damn the world for non refundable deposits. Her bags were still packed except for the clothes she'd changed into after her bath but this wasn't some luxury she could afford to blow off. Years of hard work and sacrifice weighed on her shoulders at even the thought of running home.

"It's not like we're in the same room. I can avoid him for a week," she told herself. There were business locations to look at, massages to have, maybe even a scandalous romance to have. Anything was preferable to hiding in her room like a coward.

Grace shut off the shower and left the towel up to dry. The staff would come gather it in the morning and add the damage charge to her bill no doubt. Speaking of staff, the bag of cookies Alan had brought were still waiting for her on the chair by the door. He might have been a scummy idiot but the cookies hadn't done anything. She dragged the entire thing onto the bed and hid under the blankets like it was a fort.

That was her go to comfort zone for bad days. It reminded her of camping in Joshua Tree with her parents. Just the three of them roasting sausages in the early morning and naming stars at night. She'd never learned the proper names until an astronomy class in college. The made up names were still better in her opinion.

Unwelcome memories of Reid came along with those of camping and stars. He'd insisted on a road trip just before they started dating. Fresh tears started as she remembered how he'd surprised her with a telescope. It was just some cheap kid's toy but it worked well enough to see the constellations. He really had infected every part of her life. All these years working to block him out and now it was like he'd never left.

Smoothies.

Stars.

Camping.

All these years working to block him out and now it was like he'd never left. Except he had. Worst yet, he'd left without her.

Now he was going to leave his mark on Hawaii too. Her hands hovered over her phone, already thinking up all of the things she could text to everyone she knew. They all vanished as soon as she had the phone open. Everyone must be tired of hearing about Reid by now. She would be. There was no point in subjecting everyone to it all over again.

Inside her isolated makeshift fort, Grace lined up the boxes of cookies and tore through the plastic packages one by one. She turned the television to the first non romance movie that came on and settled in for a long night of regret. After a night of cookies, she was sure she'd regret the morning too.