Mason said nothing.
Yep, everything back to nice and normal.
The clerk stammered his apologies as Mason tuned him out. He was dialing Marcia.
“How did it go?” she asked as she picked up.
“Like shit. She stormed off to her own room.”
“Mason! What did you say to her?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? As in, actually nothing? None of the things you told me?”
“No.”
“Well, then of course she stormed out. I told you it was very important to talk to her and say everything you said you wanted to say and ask her if it was okay if you shared a room, since you’re traveling on business after all. Did you say any of it?”
“We didn’t have a chance to even talk, since you didn’t rent me a car—like you were supposed to.”
“Mason.” He could hear the exaggerated patience in her voice. “That wouldn’t have been a very good idea even if there had been a rental place nearby. You trying to have a conversation, especially that conversation, while you were driving was a recipe for a five-car pile-up. Unless she was driving, I guess. But even then she probably would have insisted the four of you take the car, not just you and her.”
“So instead we piled in some van thing, all four of us, and next thing I know we’re at the hotel, and you’re talking to her on the phone as we got out. When was I exactly supposed to talk to her?”
“Before you got in the van. And definitely before the room clerk gave the two of you one room. Take her aside or something. How were her parents, by the way? They seem so sweet.”
“Yeah, and thanks for the heads-up on that, by the way.”
“I didn’t want you to panic.”
“I didn’t,” he muttered. “But they’ve been all over her since we got here. Taking her aside didn’t exactly work.”
“Come on. They’re her family. Her plane crash-landed. They’re going to want to reassure themselves she’s okay.”
“Yeah, well, my plane crash-landed, too, and I was taking care of her just fine.”
“Well, all I can say is without talking to Camilla beforehand, I can imagine she didn’t appreciate finding out in real time that we’d booked one room for the two of you.”
“See, that’s the part I don’t get. We already slept together. More than once. A lot.”
“Mason!” Now he could hear the exaggerated loss of patience in her voice. “Also, are you having this conversation in front of the desk clerk?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Then you shouldn’t be saying in front of him you already slept with her.”
He glanced at the clerk, who was studiously eying his computer screen. “He’s not listening.”
“He’s pretending not to listen.”
“I called to find out what to do. Just get on with it,” he snapped, instigating a long silence on the other end, which with Marcia was never good.
“You shouldn’t even be talking to me about this,” she finally said, “but I took pity on you, since you sounded, well, not like you.”
“Thanks. You’re all heart. So what now?” He felt more lost than when he and Camilla had been trudging forward in the mud. All he knew was he wanted to be with her, like they had been together in the last day, and it had all gone so wrong for reasons he couldn’t quite understand. Her damn family was everywhere he turned, and suddenly she was back to treating him like the boss and being mad at him, like they’d started out on the plane yesterday.
“You like the woman, Mason. I’ve never heard you talk about anyone the way you did about her.”
That annoyed him. “I don’t even know what I said to you,” he muttered.
“Exactly.”
Another one of those long silences.
“So were you polite to her parents?”
“I don’t think I even said anything.”
“That’s not good.”
“Oh and her father was standing right next to her when she blew up about the room. Or standing there for a minute, anyway. He walked away before she got going.”
“The clerk didn’t say it in front of her father, did he?”
“I guess, but that wasn’t the problem.”
“That was sure as hell part of the problem.” She sighed. “You don’t know fathers and daughters.”
“God, there are so many rules with this,” he complained.
“Look, at this point, I’m probably doing more harm than good. You’re going to have to figure this one out for yourself, my boy. Good luck.”
And then she hung up on him, which surprisingly she rarely did. From the few occasions it had happened, though, he knew calling back would be fruitless. She would never answer, even if he tried it a hundred times, which he actually had once for the hell of it. Why not? He had redial.