the right thing to do.
On our way out of the café, I grab Calix's wallet before he can put it away, and I grab the last few hundreds inside. Two of them go in a tip jar on the host stand, and the other two go into a plastic slot on an animal shelter donation box.
I barely get up the steps before I turn and look down at Calix, two steps behind me. We're on eye level now.
“Let's get a room at the Crescent Hotel,” I blurt as my chest aches with fatigue. I don't have much longer, I know, before I have to go back. But I'm not ready, not yet. “Tonight, we can go on a ghost tour together. Tomorrow, we can tour one of the local caves. Let's … buy an expensive piece of art together and pretend for a moment like we don't hate each other.”
Calix stares at me like I've lost my fucking mind.
“On Monday, we can go back to school and then, when everyone's looking and you feel most ashamed, you can ignore me.”
“Karma,” Calix says, taking the last two steps, until we're nearly standing toe to toe. “I was never ashamed of you.” He puts one hand on the side of my face, his dark eyes still virtually unreadable.
“You could've fooled me,” I reply softly, hardly daring to breathe. My head swims with exhaustion, but I push the feeling back, in favor of listening to my heart beat wildly.
“I lied to someone on Devils' Day last year,” he tells me, his own face softening. “You can pretend it wasn't you for now, and we can try this lame-ass ghost tour. I can't promise anything about tomorrow.”
“Sometimes tomorrow never comes,” I remind him, but then he wraps his arms around me and pulls me close.
The Crescent Hotel looms above us, a veritable castle in its own right. It shares the same name as our school, but I'm not sure, exactly, what the meaning behind it is. I’m going to be whimsical for a moment and pretend they were both named after the sharp shape of the Devils’ Day moon.
“This is one of the most haunted hotels in America,” I tell Calix, glancing over at him as we stand in the parking lot, a crescent moon sculpture guarding the front steps of the hotel. My heart flip-flops in my chest and butterflies take flight in my belly. He glances back at me, his face carefully blank, but not empty.
There's too much between us for him to pretend right now, especially not with Pearl's death hanging over both our heads. My eyes are sticky with fatigue, and I keep watching the time tick by, wondering how long the universe is going to let me get away with this.
“If you believe in that sort of thing,” Calix adds, turning back to the hotel. I'm just sort of assuming he has a credit card to pay for the room and the ghost tour. Goddess knows I don't have any money.
“Even if you don't, it's fun to pretend sometimes.” Looking down, I spot his pale hand resting near the leg of his leather pants. Before I can second-guess my intuition, I reach down and curl my fingers around it.
Calix stiffens up, but he doesn't pull away. Instead, he starts forward, dragging me along behind him toward the entrance. A doorman steps up and opens it for us, letting us into the grand lobby with its glorious fireplace, flames crackling merrily. There's even a cat sitting in the middle of the floor runner, staring back at us cheekily. There must be some Devils' Day sorcery in this scheme, a time loop crafted of magic and trickery. If there is, this cat is certainly a part of it.
I resist the urge to flip it off, and it yawns at me, standing up and stretching before sauntering off like it owns the place. For all I know, maybe it does?
“Can I help you?” the man behind the counter asks as Calix pulls me up to the window, leaning his elbow on the counter. The way he moves, acts, it reminds me of that fucking cat. Imperious. Domineering. Masterful. It's both part of his charm and his Achilles’ heel, all wrapped up in one darkly beautiful package.
“We need a room for the night,” Calix purrs, his eyes narrowed slightly. He yawns, just like the cat, and even that has a haughty air to it. “For me and my lover.” He gestures back at