“Just what?” Beatriz demanded. “Just you and Henry pulling this college-boy bros-before-hoes bullshit again?”
“What are you talking about?” Ben asked.
“Back in college, you and Henry just went off and decided you and I shouldn’t be together. And now Henry’s decided to dump Claudia and you’re taking his side.”
“I’m not taking his side, Bea. I’m just saying he has one.”
“So you’re saying he’s right? That Claudia’s cheating on him?”
“I’m not saying that.” Ben raised both his hands in surrender. “I’m saying something set him off.”
“He’s decided to lose his fucking mind four days before the wedding. That’s what set him off, Ben. You want to take his side?” Beatriz pointed at the door. “It’s out there. Go find it. And when you find him, you two just have a nice life together. We’re done with you both.”
Ben stared at Beatriz. She could see the shock and the hurt on his face.
“Look, you’re right to be pissed at me,” Ben said.
“Yes, I am. And that should be the end of your sentence,” Beatriz said. Ben opened his mouth and closed it again. He turned his back on her and walked out. Nothing surprising there. He’d done it before. She should have known he’d do it again. “Hasta la madre…I swear if Henry doesn’t get his ass back here…”
“I can’t tell everyone this is happening. I can’t,” Claudia said and Beatriz turned her attention back to her sister. “Everyone will freak out. Mom will have a heart attack.”
“Oh, God, she will,” Beatriz said. Their mother had burst into sobs last night just at the sight of Claudia and Beatriz standing side by side for the first time in over a year. Her girls, she cried. Her two beautiful girls…Mom cried at the drop of a hat. This constituted far worse than a simple hat drop.
“We’ll tell everyone you’ve got mild food poisoning and you’re not going to be able to leave your hotel room for a day or so,” Beatriz said. “No one will know anything’s up. They’ll just think you and Henry are holed up while you’re puking your guts out. Okay?”
“Okay,” Claudia said and blew her nose extravagantly. “You and Ben were fucking when I knocked on the door, weren’t you?”
“Like demon bunnies,” Beatriz admitted. She gave Claudia a kiss on the forehead as she stood up.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We were 99 percent finished by that point.” She handed Claudia a bottle of water and a tissue. “And we’re 100 percent finished now.”
Chapter Ten
In the hallway outside Beatriz’s room, Ben stood with his back resting on the wall and his hands balled up into fists. He would beat Henry to death for pulling this bullshit on them all. Things were going so well with Beatriz, and Henry had to go and fuck it all up by flipping out on everyone. And Claudia was in there sobbing her heart out while he was standing in the hallway eating his heart out. And Beatriz was pissed. Pissed enough to bust out the Spanish and that meant business.
That was it. Henry was a dead man.
Ben checked the internet for all the hotels within a twenty-five-mile radius. He’d find Henry and haul him back by the scruff of his neck and throw him at Beatriz and Claudia’s feet. Let her accuse him of the bros before hoes mentality then.
Luckily Henry and Claudia had chosen this area of upstate New York for its small town beauty and unspoiled river vistas. That meant he had only ten hotels to comb through in the area on his hunt for Henry. Five were within walking distance. The other five would require cabbing it or renting a car. He started with the furthest one out that he could reach by foot. No luck at the Umstead. No one claimed to have seen a deranged but roguishly handsome twenty-six-year-old man walking around accusing innocent women of mysterious crimes. Ben flashed everyone at the desk a picture of Henry and Claudia he had on his phone. No dice. The Capital Inn was also a big fail. He also struck out at the Pinehurst and the Washington. He bribed every clerk at every hotel to call him if Henry showed up.
Disappointed and disgusted, Ben returned to the Hotel Essex. The Essex desk clerk helped him round up a rental car, and Ben headed out again to the next town over and the other five hotels he wanted to check out. If he failed there, he didn’t know what to do. Check the airport maybe? Call the police? Hire a hit man?
Hit man—that sounded about right. “Henry, you asshole,” Ben growled as he turned out of the hotel parking lot. Ben knew he should be seven inches inside Beatriz right at this moment, not out hunting down a runaway groom who’d decided to break up with his fiancée and reality on the same day.