Questions for Answers

Chapter Twenty Two

I grabbed my bag, handed him the keys to Natalia's car and he drove us to the hotel he booked. Once we got inside the room, we settled in. Instead of sitting on the beds to talk to each other, both of us sat down on the floor right next to one another. I turned to him and smiled, "It's seriously so good to see you."

He smiled in return, "Missed you too, love. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you...I did a little decorating around the house. I think you're really gonna like what I did."

I squinted at him, "Did you touch my room?"

"I didn't, I swear. Scout's honor", he said while doing the hand sign.

I scoffed, "You weren't even a scout!"

He chuckled, "Have some imagination. Anyway...I'm hoping we can leave either tomorrow or the day after. I didn't purchase the tickets yet cause I wanted to see who had the better options."

As soon as I heard him say that, my eyes shifted away. I cleared my throat, "I mean...do we have to leave that soon? There's still some stuff you said you wanted to do here, right? We could still explore a little."

He gave me a confused expression, "River, what are you saying? It's too dangerous to stay any longer. Plus, I didn't take that much time off because I was planning on just coming here, getting you, and going back. There's nothing left for us here, it's over."

I knew he was right and I didn't want to argue, so I just nodded in agreement. I was regretting my phone call with him. If I had just kept my mouth shut about everything that happened, he would've been more prone to stay a bit longer and explore still. But instead, because I told him of the danger, he wanted to leave as soon as possible. I didn't blame him, but it sucked just a little.

He was already on his way here when we talked on the phone. There was no way I could've anticipated that he would show up. I thought I was going to be alone for at least another week until I could solve this. I wasn't expecting him to just show up out of the blue and try to get me to go back home. Now I had to work on his schedule? It wasn't fair.

For the rest of the night, we continued to talk and catch up. Even though we'd spoken over the phone almost every day, nothing beat in-person talking. It wasn't fair to him to be upset at his surprise. I did want him here, let's make that abundantly clear. For the first time in a long time, he held me in his arms and I drifted away into my sleep.

~*~

"Checkout's at eleven o'clock, love. You gotta wake up", I heard Tristen say as I lied down with my eyes still shut.

I wasn't asleep. I had woken up around 4 am and couldn't go back to sleep. I'd just been lying down with my eyes closed hoping I could. Being back in a hotel with him reminded me of when I almost left without him in the middle of the night. Looking back, I know that was the wrong thing to do, even if I didn't go through with it. But the only reason I didn't was because he woke up and confronted me.

Even if I knew how he'd respond, we just didn't keep things from each other. I knew I would have to bring it up sooner or later to him. I didn't know if I could convince him, but I thought maybe a little food would help the situation.

I finally sat up and looked at him, "I'm up. Can we get breakfast though?"

"You want hotel breakfast or do you want to go to an actual restaurant?" He questioned.

"Definitely a restaurant. I never liked the way that hotel breakfast tastes", I admitted.

"You just haven't been to the right ones. There's still time if you want to shower really quick, but after that, we gotta go. I'll put your bag on your bed so you can grab it and go", he said as he took a seat on his bed.