“Try me.”
“—but I’ve been robbed.”
“We’ve been over this. You threw your own wallet into Lake Como. You mugged yourself.”
“Not that!” he snapped over Lillith’s giggles, then had to grin because, yeah, the whole thing was absurd, but he could see the humor in it. Sort of.
“Listen, my bank accounts are empty. I don’t know if it’s an online snafu or an accounting screwup or just a mistake, but technically, I’m broke.”
“And he won’t borrow from me,” Lillith put in. “Out of a misguided notion of—uh—actually, I don’t know why he won’t borrow.”
Because, among other things, you couldn’t go anywhere or do anything in Venice for less than twenty euros. He wouldn’t embarrass her by asking for money she didn’t have. “Keep your snow-shoveling money.” To Delaney: “Like I said, technically, I’m broke.”
“Technically, that must suck.”
“It does suck,” he agreed. “I’m sure it’ll get straightened out in a day or two, but in the meantime I can’t reach my family and … I … we…” He glanced at Lillith, the hotel, and Delaney. The sun was setting, turning the canal gorgeous shades of orange and pink and cream, and tourists rushed around and past them, intent on dinner and, later, the night life. He wanted to be one of them very, very badly.
Come on, Delaney. Pick up on the hint. It’s been the most humbling day of my life, and that’s counting the time I fell asleep in Bio and fell face-first into my dissected frog. I had frog kidneys stuck to my cheek until lunch! Nobody told me!
Nope. No joy. She was opening the lobby door now, and walking toward the elevators. He hesitated, having no clue what to do next, and nearly wept in relief when Lillith said, “He hates borrowing and he’s too proud to ask if we can stay with you tonight. He doesn’t know you’ll say yes.”
“Oh my God I love you,” he muttered under his breath, earning another giggle from Lillith the Great and Powerful.
Delaney glanced back and said, “Well, come on, then.”
“Nice work,” he whispered, and Lillith smiled at him, then let out a yelp as he practically lifted her off her feet as he galloped to Delaney.
Yessssss! She was leading him to her room! Her bed! Oh dear God, her shower! He might never come out. He might sleep in the shower, eat in the shower. He might vacation in the shower, grow old and die in the shower.
Of course, if Delaney wanted him in her bed, that was completely fine. Yes, she spent an annoying amount of time laughing at his troubles, but she was also the only real help he’d had since he woke up (besides the homeless teenager who’d lent him a phone). And he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like the look of her: those long legs, those clear gray eyes, that wide, pretty mouth, that … um … that mouth …
Oh, but … Lillith.
Right. No nooky with a kid looking on. No anything with a kid looking on.
First things first. He’d beg a shower, they’d figure out sleeping arrangements, he’d eat something, and he’d get the scoop on the kid and finally hear about the sequence of events that led to three strangers bunking in a Venetian Best Western for the night.
Then: He’d get his life back.
Y’know, eventually.
Twelve
“What the hell is all this?” he asked, staring so hard that he thought his eyeballs might dry out.
“Cover,” Delaney said shortly. She had brought them up to her room and, while Lillith used the bathroom, had gone straight to a safe underneath the coffeepot. She keyed in the combo, checked to make sure something was in there
(passport?)
then rummaged around and closed it again; when she stood, her hands were empty.
“What?”
“Cover,” she replied. “Did you lose your hearing along with your money?”
“No, but the way this day’s been, it wouldn’t surprise me if I spontaneously went deaf from full-body exposure to toxic canal water.”
Delaney snorted, because she was a heartless wench.
Rake looked around her room, which was too big to be a standard and too small to be a suite, at the serviceable desk and chair, a lovely big bed with the de rigueur padded headboard, a small kitchen area, and a great big window overlooking the hotel garden. All of which was eclipsed by the Easter baskets, toys, candy, and school supplies on every surface save the bed. And Peeps. Loads and loads of Peeps, pink Peeps and yellow Peeps and blue and lavender Peeps, Peeps as far as the eye could see, a goddamned rainbow of Peeps. He had drowned in the canal and this was Hell.
“Cover for what, exactly?” Was Delaney some kind of rogue Easter bunny? With a Peep fetish?
“Never mind.”
“Oh, okay. Not too mysterious.”
The toilet flushed and Delaney lowered her voice. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do about Lillith?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” he replied, and he was pretty sure he’d never uttered a truer statement. “And why would I? We don’t even know if I’m her dad! Which I’m probably not, since I never knew anyone named Donna. Where’s her mother? Surely she can straighten this out.”
“Ah. That. It’s a long story.”
“And a mysterious one, too, I’m betting. Because that’s the way things are going.”
“It hasn’t been fun and games for Lillith, either,” she snapped. “You could try thinking about someone who isn’t you. Just for a change of pace. Just to see if you like it.”
He made a concerted effort to stomp on his temper. “This is the third time I’ve asked for details about her and/or her mysteriously missing mother and been put off.”
“Third?”
“I asked Lillith while we were walking over here.”
“You—you did?”
“Well. Yeah. It was a three-mile walk. The conversation was lagging.”
Delaney looked and sounded—could it be?—tentative. “What’d she say?”
“That she didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh. What’d you say?”
“I said okay, and we didn’t talk about it. Then I took a break to dry-heave into a bush, and we continued on until we got here, where we’re still not talking about it.”
“Well.” She leaned against the dresser, knocking packs of Peeps onto the floor as she did so. “You can’t blame her.”
“I have no idea whether or not to blame her, because I don’t know what’s going on! You can’t pop up out of nowhere—twice—and then dump a kid on me you think might be mine and expect me to have her enrolled in Meadows by the end of the day. Especially since, hello, I’m not exactly equipped to do the dad thing, especially today.”
“Enroll in what?”
He waved away the Meadows School. “It’s a pricey private school in Vegas. Although it wouldn’t be my first choice, ’cause I wouldn’t want her to grow up into an entitled rich d— We’re getting off track.”
“That’s a fair point about my word,” she admitted. “But you won’t have to take my word for it much longer—”