“Not really.”
He leaned over, his breathing labored. “Can you open the window?”
“I can turn up the air conditioning.”
He began gasping. “Window.”
I ran for the window and opened the sheer curtains and then fumbled for the handle, praying nobody outside could see me in my underwear.
When I turned around, I found Dalton sitting on the carpet, his spine curved and his head between his knees.
What was this new side of him all about? He’d gone so quickly from joking about fucking a dozen roses to being a nervous wreck. I thought being overwhelmed with emotion was my job.
“Dalton?”
He just kept rocking.
I sat behind him and rubbed his back. His skin felt feverishly warm. “You’re having a panic attack. I used to get these at college. You’re okay. Just keep breathing.”
Between gasps, he said, “I can’t breathe.”
I put my arm around him, the way other people had comforted me when I got upset. “I’m right here, and we’re not going to move or do anything until you feel ready. Want me to cancel lunch?”
He rocked forward and back, emitting no words, just a low groan.
“Can I get you some water?” I asked.
He shrugged away my hand, flinching from my touch.
I stood up, not sure what to do next. My mother was just down the hall. What would she do? It was almost one o’clock already, and I could sense my mother getting ready to knock on our door for lunch.
Dalton kept rocking, lost in his own world.
I grabbed the bedspread and tossed the clothes off, then carefully draped the bedspread, fuzzy side down, over Dalton.
“You’re getting a Time Out,” I said gently. “For as long as you need, and nobody’s going to bug you.”
I stood with my hands on my hips, wondering if I was doing the right thing. Should I be calling for medical assistance? Or trying to find Vern?
From deep within the blanket, came a feeble, “Thank you.”
“Are you good in there? In your blanket?”
“Yup.”
“It’s almost one o’clock. Do you want me to go down to the lunch without you, or do you want me to stay here?”
Brightly, he said, “You go.”
“Okay. I’ll be wearing the green shirt, FYI. With a purple skirt, because I’m crazy like that. Woo! Green and purple. With silver sandals.”
I got dressed, one eye on the rocking blanket.
“You look pretty,” he said.
“You’re under a blanket and you can’t see me.”
“You’re always pretty.”
I looked around the room and did a last-minute mirror check on my hair and makeup. “Dalton? Do you want me to stay here with you?”
The blanket answered, “No, you can go. I might have a nap.”
“Don’t fall asleep under the blanket and suffocate.”
Sounding very calm now, he said, “I’ll get into the bed and tuck myself in.”
Pretending this wasn’t the weirdest fucking thing ever, I went to the door and said, “Okay, I’m off to lunch with my parents and your father, whom I’ve never met before. We’re just going to…”
The blanket didn’t move. “Have fun!”
I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, muttering, “We’re just going to have the world’s most awkward lunch, ever.”
My parents emerged from their room down and across the hall, wearing entirely new outfits.
My mother asked where my fiancé was. I explained that he was in the room, exhausted from work, and having a nap. She seemed more than a little disappointed, and I had to push her down the hall, away from the door.
Once we were a few doors away, I explained, “He’s having a panic attack about seeing everyone, so I gave him a Time Out.”
She nodded and said I did the right thing, as if leaving your fiancé in a room with a blanket over his head was a completely normal thing. My father just kept on walking, more interested by the portholes in the floor than anything else. In light of the recent revelations, about him hiding his true feelings about my underwear modeling contract, his nonchalance did seem suspicious to me.
We walked into the resort’s dining room, ready to meet Dalton’s father, the porn star.
CHAPTER 27
We got to the resort’s dining room, where we had little challenge spotting Dalton’s father.
Was he the round-faced, bald man reading the same thriller novel my father had brought on the plane? Was he the silver-haired man walking through and leaning shakily on a cane? Or was he the man with the jet-black hair and his first three shirt buttons undone, a gold medallion worn proudly against his tanned skin, flirting with not one, but two waitresses at the same time?