Well Played, стр. 41
He also knew when the performers had arrived and checked in to the hotel. So he could text me and let me know. And then I could come over here. That had been the first part of the plan.
The second part of the plan was waiting in the lobby, leaning on the check-in desk, scrolling through his phone. Black jeans, black T-shirt, black baseball cap covering a shock of red hair. My heels clicked their way toward Daniel, and my heart thudded harder with each step.
He looked up as I approached, and the molecules inside my body shifted when his eyes met mine. Part two of this plan was getting Daniel to admit that he’d been the one writing to me all this time, and that he wasn’t doing it as some kind of mouthpiece for Dex. Until this moment I hadn’t been sure how I’d wanted this conversation to go. Somewhere, down in the deepest part of my primitive lizard brain, I’d known that it hadn’t been Dex that I’d been getting to know all these months, and even more importantly, I hadn’t wanted it to be.
I wanted it to be Daniel.
But one step at a time.
“Stacey, hey.” Daniel’s voice was light, casual, and it gave me pause. This wasn’t the attitude of someone who knew that he was caught.
“Hi, Daniel.” My voice matched his for casualness, and I have myself a mental high-five. “What are you hanging out in the lobby for?”
“Oh. Some kind of mix-up with the rooms. The guy said he was working on it.” He glanced down at his phone, then over at Julian, who busied himself at his monitor, pointedly not looking at us.
“Hmmm.” I nodded, as though I hadn’t orchestrated the whole thing. “That’s weird.” It wasn’t weird. Julian was stalling Daniel, just as I’d asked him to. “But I’m glad to see you. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
“To me?” His eyes lit up with interest as he stowed his phone in his back pocket. He was still acting way too casual, and I wanted more than anything to trip him up.
“Sure,” I said. “After all these months, you know. All those emails, all the things we’ve said to each other. It’s nice to finally see you face to face.”
“Me? No.” There was a glimmer of something in his eyes, but he blinked it away fast. He was good. But he couldn’t hide the flush that crept up the back of his neck, which I saw as he turned his head to the side, away from me, to study the terrible artwork on the far wall. “No,” he said again. “You mean Dex.”
“Do I?” My eyes narrowed as I studied him. Even though I was confronting him with the truth, he was still denying it. He still wanted to nudge me toward his cousin. Was he just Dex’s mouthpiece after all?
“Well, yeah. You’ve been . . .” He glanced up at the ceiling now, and he swallowed hard. The casualness was gone from his expression, and he was starting to struggle. “You’ve been communicating with Dex. At least, that’s what he . . .”
“You know what, you’re right.” I shook my head with a hollow chuckle. “Silly me. Do you know where he . . . Never mind.” I dug in my bag now for my phone. “I have his number. I can just call him.”
“No!” Daniel took a step toward me, his hands raised, his eyes wide, and I knew I had him. Better yet, he knew I had him. But he still tried to keep up the pretense. “No, don’t. I . . . uh, I think he’s driving. You should probably . . .”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s fine. Let me just . . .” I pulled up my contacts and hit the green button next to Dex’s name. That green button I’d never had the nerve to hit, all these months. Then I watched the blood drain from Daniel’s face as his back pocket began to ring.
I raised an eyebrow. “Well? Aren’t you going to answer it?”
He pressed his lips together hard before making a sigh of defeat. Then he pulled his phone out of his back pocket, still ringing, my name on the display. He hit the red button on his phone at the same time I did on mine.
“I think we need to talk.” All the playfulness was gone from my voice, and he nodded.
“I think we should.” His voice was hushed, defeated.
“Why don’t you finish checking in,” I said. I glanced over at Julian, who winked at me and brandished a key card like it was a winning ace. “I think everything’s straightened out now. I’ll be in the bar; you can meet me there.”
“Okay.” Daniel had the look of someone who realized he’d been set up, but knew that he didn’t have the right to complain. “Yeah. I’m gonna need a beer.”
• • •
The hotel wasn’t anything fancy: one of those low-budget chain affairs, but it had a little restaurant connected to it. Not even a restaurant: more of a glorified bar with a burgers-and-sandwiches menu, but the important thing was that it had Guinness on tap. That was part three of the plan.
The clicking of my heels faded into the general noise of the bar, and I settled myself on a stool where I had a good view of the entrance. I ordered a glass of rosé for me and a pint of Guinness for him. And then I waited. Now that I knew that Daniel was the man on the other end of the phone, I knew his drink order. He’d told me weeks ago. He hadn’t been referring to this particular night, and he’d been making me believe he was someone else, but I knew his plans. I knew his routines. I knew him.
I just wasn’t a hundred percent certain who he actually was, or how much of what he told me was the real him. So the Guinness was