Page 226 of Red Marked

I have no choice.

63

Flint

I’m packed in five minutes. I do a slow turn of the room to check that I have everything.

Downstairs, the receptionist who checked us in asks if everything was to my satisfaction. I tell her it was. She asks about the second room. I tell her my colleague already checked out.

Colleague.

I take the elevator down to the parking garage.

I’ve got this nagging feeling that won’t go away.

Why did Star say Koa?

Koa isn’t with Scarlet. Koa is on Draig Island.

It was a slip. That’s all. Star is back with her family. She meant Willow, or Fenn, or any of the others. She probably doesn’t even know she said it.

I throw the duffel onto the back seat.

Say hi for me, babe.

I grind my teeth. I hoped she’d spend the night at her folks’ house. They’re back together.

Fuck!

More than likely in his bed…their bed. I need to get that straight in my head.

Then I think of all the calls and messages. It isn’t like her not to respond or even look at her phone. The last time I didn’t check my phone for a long-ass time was because I’d spent the night with Star and nothing outside that room existed.

So that’s probably it.

First her family, and now him. She got her whole life back in one day. I’m not thinking about it anymore. I’m driving myself nuts. I need to get over it already.

I didn’t eat last night either. I meant to. I lay on that bed with my boots on instead, and now I’m seriously hungry.

There’s a diner two blocks from the hotel. I park outside and take a booth by the window.

The waiter is a kid with a pen behind his ear.

“Coffee,” I tell him. “Black. And the big breakfast. Eggs over easy, bacon, whatever else comes with it.”

“Toast or hash browns?”

“Both.”

He goes to put in my order. I look out at the traffic. Then I look at my phone. I put the phone back down on the table and look at the traffic again.

That voice keeps nagging at me.

Why won’t it stop?

The coffee comes. I wrap my hand around the mug, but I don’t drink it. My knee is bouncing under the table. I make it stop. Thirty seconds later, it’s going again. I want to look at my phone, but I don’t. Nothing has happened in the last couple of minutes.

I can’t leave like this.