Sure Thing

by Jana Aston

  Yet.

  But I will.

  Maybe it’s cocky, but I know enough.

  I know enough to know what we could be together.

  We have a connection and sometimes the intangible force between two people is stronger than reason. Stronger than time and logic. Stronger than knowing things like what flavor crisps they like best. Or their favorite show. Or if they’ve got especially strong opinions on which way the loo roll hangs.

  Wait—I do know one of those things. Barbecue crisps, she said. I know amusement rides make her dizzy. I know she’s got no game for picking up men. I know she wants a dog someday but that it must come from a rescue. I know she’s got a quirk about germs in hotel rooms.

  I know she’s smart. Has a great sense of humor. I know I’m happier when I’m around her. I know she’s a game-changer.

  Yet…

  Sometimes I don’t know her at all. Sometimes she’s guarded. Puts a wall up. Gets nervous when I ask too many questions.

  Sometimes she’s like an entirely different person.

  I know there’s still something she’s lying about.

  What is it?

  Perhaps she’s just cagey after her last relationship. Perhaps she’s anxious about where this is going.

  Except it’s something more than that. Something else. Something I’m not getting.

  Maybe she’s in massive amounts of debt or gets sacked a lot. She’s a mediocre tour guide, if I’m honest. She didn’t play any of the scheduled company videos she was meant to during the bus rides. There were a few basic answers she didn’t have for guests. She was more nervous than confident most of the trip—anytime she was in charge, really.

  But she said she was new at this, didn’t she? Design is what she normally does. Or wants to do.

  Perhaps she changes her mind often?

  She’s twenty-six. Perhaps she’s not ready for the things I’m ready for.

  I don’t give a toss about any of that other shite. There’s no amount of debt she could have that I couldn’t pay off without a second thought. She can take all the time in the world to decide what she wants to do with her career. She can design or she can blog or she can open up a goddamned bakery shop for all I care.

  I can be there for her while she figures those things out.

  If she wants me to be.

  I sure as fuck wasn’t ready to commit to a relationship when I was her age. Hell, I wasn’t ready last week.

  She could move in with me. Of course she could—my house is bloody big enough for twelve. The second I have the thought, the idea of spending another night in it alone, without Daisy, is intolerable.

  The fact that I’ve not renovated it yet feels like kismet. She’s passionate about design—she’d want to oversee it herself, wouldn’t she? It’s fate. And as far as I’m concerned Daisy can do whatever she wants to the place.

  I’ll hire her to renovate it. Give her a reason to come to London. It’ll take her an age to do it. A year at least. Massive pile.

  I won’t even care if her style is dreadful, or if she insists on installing an American refrigerator big enough to walk in. Or turns bedrooms into walk-in closets and mounts a telly on the wall in every room.

  We’ll sort it out this evening.

  You know what happens to the best-laid plans, right?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Jennings

  We’re at the Liberty Bell when Nan starts to tire. She doesn’t say anything but I see it. Most of the time she’s so bloody energetic you’ve got to make sure she doesn’t zoom off without you. But she assures me she’s fine, so we carry on. She’s been going full tilt all week, I’m sure she’s looking forward to relaxing at Aunt Poppy’s.

  Daisy’s fidgety. She got a call as we were touring Independence Hall. She stepped outside to take it and I didn’t see her again until we’d finished that location and were crossing Chestnut Street.

  We have a final group dinner tonight. It promises to be as tedious as the others we’ve had this week, though Daisy’s promised tonight’s has proper silverware, so at least there’s that. I’d prefer having her to myself tonight, but as the guide she’s obligated to attend the farewell dinner.

  I’ll take her for drinks afterwards. She can order that ridiculous champagne cocktail and tell me she’s a sure thing. I laugh. How the hell was that only a week ago?

  I need to find out how soon she can pack up and join me in London. I can arrange to have all her shit crated and shipped over if she’s attached to it. I’d be content with tossing her on the plane with whatever she’s got with her, but women are fussy creatures.

  I get an email with her employment file from Rhys as the tour is wrapping up. The local guide, Gary, has led us to Franklin Square, which is our final stop. We’ve gathered at a fountain in the center of the park while Gary gives a brief history of the location, the group listening intently through their headsets. Daisy’s stepped some fifteen or twenty feet away to take another call.

  I’m half listening to Gary as he talks about the extensive renovation required to make the fountain operational again after it fell into disrepair in the nineteen seventies. He’s a great guide, engaging and comfortable with public speaking. He’s reading the group’s interest level and tailoring his approach at each stop. Confident in what he’s doing.

  Unlike Daisy.

  I need to ask Aunt Poppy who’s in charge of training for this division when I see her tomorrow. Something is off here. Corners are being cut somewhere. Daisy’s a sharp girl and charming on a one-to-one basis—but she’s lacking in presentation skills and tour knowledge. It’s troublesome that we’d not provide more training before putting her on a tour by herself. I should have paid more attention to it this week, but fuck it if I wasn’t distracted by her.

  We don’t normally employ guides this young, either. Not unless they’re exceptional. Not for a tour like this, one filled with a majority of older guests. The younger, less experienced guides would normally start on the adventure tours. Ones with high activity and a younger crowd.

  Daisy ends her call and takes over for Gary as he says his goodbyes. She’s reminding the group of the route back to the hotel and the meeting time for dinner. Pointing out gift shops and a carousel in the park. Places to get coffee or a light lunch. She seems fairly enthusiastic about Philadelphia. Comfortable, maybe? Or relieved her job this week is nearly done?

  I open the email with a tap of my thumb. There’s a file attached with Daisy’s name on it and a note from Rhys that I skim through.

  A home address placing her in Naperville, Illinois. Date of birth placing her at twenty-six. A hire date of… five years ago?

  She’s been working for Sutton Travel for five years?

  How?

  Didn’t she say this was a new job for her? That she started after her design job went bust? Isn’t that what she said? I glance at her speaking to the group. She doesn’t have her notebook today. It’s the first time I’ve seen her without it.

  I run a hand over the back of my neck to relieve the building tension as I pace. A new tour, she said, which I knew was a lie the moment it left her mouth. This tour has been on the schedule for years. A new tour for her, perhaps?

  How in the hell did she get hired at twenty-one, though?

  I turn my attention back to the email from Rhys.

  Exemplary employee, it says. Consistently high ratings from tour guests. Requests for repeat bookings with her specifically as their guide.

  In all honesty—that doesn’t sound accurate. And I’m sleeping with her. I read on with growing trepidation. She started as an intern, Rhys notes. A position that didn’t exist, but she sent a presentation to the head of the division making a case for herself. Created her own unpaid internship and convinced the company to hire her. She spent a summer shadowing the best tour guides we have. The division head was so impressed with her she had a job offer waiting when she finished college.

&
nbsp; That explains the timing. In part. It explains how someone her age is five years in, but what about the rest of it? Who puts in that much effort to land a job they’re not passionate about? It doesn’t add up to the Daisy I’ve just spent a week with.

  Then something else catches my eye.

  Arizona State.

  She graduated from Arizona State. With a degree in hospitality. Not urban planning. And I’m not too fucking British to know it doesn’t snow in Arizona. It’s the goddamned desert.

  Snow, she said. Frost. Ice. One of those things. She left early for class to allot time for the weather. Slipped and ripped open her trousers.

  Disgusted, I stop reading and slip the mobile into my pocket.

  She’s laughing at something Mrs. Delaine is saying. Behind her, the wind catches one of the jets of water in the fountain and the drops of water spread through the air like tiny crystals.

  She’s beautiful. A beautiful, deceitful little liar.

  Or possibly crazy.

  Who lies like that? For what purpose? Was this all a joke to her? Am I a joke to her? Or was it a lie that started in a hotel bar that she decided to keep running with? Or something she regularly does to amuse herself?

  Who in the bloody hell is this girl? What’s true and what’s a lie? She can’t have gone to university in both the snow and the desert. She can’t have majored in both urban planning and hospitality. She can’t have worked as both a tour guide and a designer during the same time periods.

  I knew she was lying about something. I knew something was off, but I ignored my better judgement. Thought perhaps it was something small or silly like a history of getting sacked or possibly an arrest for public drunkenness during uni. That sort of thing.

  Small lies, not a complete misrepresentation of who she is.

  She catches me staring at her and winks. She goddamned winks at me. I nod once in response and I can feel my jaw ticking from the strain of keeping my response to a simple nod. I need time to think before I talk to her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jennings

  “Where would you like to have lunch?” Nan and I are taking a leisurely walk back to the hotel. I offered to hail a taxi, but Nan would have none of it, insisting it’s a lovely day for walking.

  It is nice out and she seems to have regained her usual pep, so walking it is. It’s less than a mile to the hotel and Nan said she’d like to take another walk through the parks we passed on our walking tour.

  “I don’t mind, Jennings. Wherever you’d like.”

  That’s not exactly true. She’s quite particular, but I nod and keep an eye out for a Nan-suitable restaurant.

  “Wait, there is something I’d like to do.” She stops walking and looks around as if to ascertain what direction we’re walking.

  “Sure,” I agree, already pulling out my mobile to locate her request using GPS. “What is it?”

  “I’d like cheesesteak.”

  “A cheesesteak?” Surely I’ve misunderstood. Nan is not a cheesesteak type of grandmother.

  “Yes. I’d like to go to the Reading Terminal and have a proper cheesesteak.”

  I grin in reflex, my first thought being how much Daisy would enjoy the phrase ‘proper cheesesteak’ before remembering that when it comes to Daisy I should be doing a runner, not thinking about things that would make her smile.

  “All right then, a proper cheesesteak it is,” I agree while consulting my mobile. “Reading Terminal is a market of some sort?” I question as I open the maps app. “You’ve been before, have you?”

  “I have. Before you were born, I think it was.”

  “That’s quite a long time ago then, isn’t it? High time you had another.”

  We take a right onto Arch Street while Nan tells me about her trip to the States with my grandfather some several decades ago. They used to travel quite a bit and she misses it, misses him, I’m sure. When he passed my cousins and I began our tradition of taking her on a trip each year. This is my second rotation, as it were.

  “Tell me how you and Grandfather met. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the story.”

  “No?” We’re stopped at the crosswalk at 8th and Arch waiting for the light to change. She turns to me and gives me an appraising look. “Well I suppose you’re old enough now,” she finally says.

  I can’t help but laugh. “Why, Nan, was your courtship quite the scandal?”

  “Courtship? There wasn’t one. I knew my parents would object so we eloped before they had the chance.”

  “How have I never heard this story before?”

  “I don’t think your own father’s heard this story.”

  “Well, let’s have it then. I’ll be gutted if you hold out now.”

  We walk and Nan talks. Tells me all about having met my grandfather when she was a sheltered eighteen and he was a handsome rogue in his mid-twenties. She was madly in love with him but knew her parents would not approve of the match, so she convinced him to elope.

  “You convinced him?” I question.

  “I was quite convincing in my youth, yes.”

  I grin and let her continue, sure that I want to press for added details on that.

  She tells me that upon their return her mother was distraught that she’d missed her only child’s wedding, so her father insisted they pretend to be engaged, not married. Promised he’d give his new son-in-law a position at the travel company he’d just founded. Set them up with a good start for their married lives if they’d play along.

  “And did you? Play along?”

  “We did,” she says with a sigh. “It seemed the sensible thing.”

  “Well done then. A happy ending for all.”

  “Eventually yes. But they made me live at home for four months while we sorted the faux wedding. Your grandfather was obviously not welcome to stay, not in those days. I had a handsome new husband and we had to sneak around for the first four months of our marriage.”

  I cough a laugh into my fist as I hold the door for her at the Reading Terminal. It’s a chaotic market of some kind. Indoors with booths one after another. Food, flowers, coffee, sweets—and that’s just what I can see from the entrance.

  “This is where you wanted to lunch?” I double-check. Perhaps the place has changed in the forty years since she’s last been.

  But Nan is beaming and looks like she’s no intention of turning around now. So we find an empty wooden table—no small feat. Nan holds the table while I grab two Philly cheesesteaks and as many napkins as I can carry. Then we eat messy cheesesteaks with our hands and it makes Nan so happy that I don’t even mind not having proper utensils. Or a plate.

  When we’re done eating we walk around the market. Nan stops to buy a trinket or two while I run the information from Rhys’ email over and over in my mind, comparing it to everything I know—thought I knew—about Daisy.

  It doesn’t make any sense.

  It’s like two different people.

  Maybe she’s mentally disturbed? Off her meds or something? I rub my thumb across my bottom lip as I think. She doesn’t come across as a nutter though. No more so than most.

  I check the time on my mobile as we exit the market onto 12th Street, wondering if I’ll have time to talk to Daisy before this blasted group dinner this evening. I have so many questions for her. Why I think I’ll get honest answers I’ve no idea.

  “How far to the hotel do you think, Jennings?” Nan is glancing up and down 12th, trying to place our present location in relation to the hotel.

  “Let me take a look,” I respond as I open the map app on my mobile. “Are you ready to admit you’re tired? Shall I sort a ride back?”

  I’ve got my head down, tapping the hotel information into my mobile as I speak, so I hear the tires screeching before I see the car. I look up in time to catch the impact but it’s already too late.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Violet

  Where the hell
are they? The entire group—minus Jennings and his nan—are on the bus. We’re about to leave for the final group dinner and they’re late. I walk into the lobby and take another look around, casting a hopeful glance as the elevator doors open.

  It’s not them.

  We were supposed to leave five minutes ago. I’ve been stalling, waiting on Jennings, but he’s not here. They’ve not been late for anything this week, so they must not be coming.

  Maybe I misunderstood something? Maybe he was taking his nan out for a special dinner tonight? I know Jennings hates the group dinners. That must be it. He said we’d have dessert after—which honestly could have meant sugar or sex, I’m not sure. But he did mention it, so maybe he meant he wouldn’t see me at dinner?

  That must be it.

  Must be.

  So why do I feel a sense of unease?

  I make a final visual sweep as I exit the lobby. George is standing next to the open bus doors and he smiles at me as I approach. He’s been trying to make a move on me all week. Well, on Daisy. I feel like an asshole for rejecting him. I know he’s got to be confused about the cold shoulder I’m giving him when as far as he knew he was on good terms with Daisy. I hate feeling like I’m in the middle—even if it was a casual thing between them. It makes me feel responsible for his confusion when I’m not. Or maybe I am, since I’m the one delivering the rejection. Daisy said it was just sex between them, but he did switch tours with someone else to be here—to see her.

  So maybe he likes her more than she knows. Or maybe he just wants to get laid. What do I know?

  Maybe Jennings just wanted to get laid?

  Jesus, Violet, I silently lecture myself. I’m the one who just wanted to get laid. That’s what started this mess. I wanted a simple no-strings-attached one-night stand. I’m the one who smiled at Jennings and told him I was a sure thing. I’m the one who ran out the door the next morning.

  I cannot be upset if he disappears now.