Chapter 3

"Get her here! How can the guest of honor not even show up today?"

Megan stared me down.

"Rachel, get changed. You're coming with us."

I blocked the doorway with my body.

"I'm not on shift today."

Sandra squeezed out from behind her.

"Whether you're on shift or not has nothing to do with you coming. It's your family's hotel. What does it look like if you're not even there?

"Quit stalling. The car's waiting downstairs, and everyone's already there. You're the only one left."

I braced myself against the door.

"I already told you, it's not my family's place. Whether I go or not..."

Before I could finish, two more old classmates squeezed past me, one grabbing my arm and the other shoving my back. Megan reached straight into my closet, yanked out a jacket, and threw it in my face.

"Put this on. Don't keep everyone waiting."

They dragged and shoved me into a seven-seat van waiting outside.

Sandra twisted around from the front passenger seat, grinning at me.

"Rachel, really? You had to make us come drag you out?"

Todd Eastwood gunned the engine from the driver's seat.

"No need to act so high and mighty with us."

Megan patted my shoulder from beside me.

"Come on, don't sulk. Cheer up today. Do it for your old classmates."

When we reached the hotel lobby, Megan shoved through the revolving door, tipped her chin up at the front desk, and barked out an order.

"Your biggest banquet hall!"

Todd was the first one to charge forward.

"The top-floor Skyview Suite! Give me four rooms! One for me, one for my girlfriend, one to change clothes in, and one to sleep off my drinks tonight!"

Sandra yanked the menu straight out of the manager's hands, flipped through it twice, and slapped her palm down on the seafood page.

"All of this. Everything on the page. Triple it per head."

Victoria Reynolds stood on her tiptoes and shouted.

"Five dessert tables for me! One for photos, and four to rearrange for different backgrounds!"

"And bring up a whole case of that '82 Lafite first. If it's not enough, we'll order more."

The whole group swarmed into the banquet hall like a plague of locusts.

Todd propped his feet up on the table.

"Waiter! Bring king crab sashimi to this table! If it's not enough, bring a whole other table! Grill the Wagyu slice by slice; we'll eat it as it comes off the grill!"

Brett Norton had brought his dog along with him. He let the leash go slack, and the golden retriever leapt onto the leather sofa and started digging at it until the legs went crooked.

Sandra held up a lobster in front of the camera.

"An old classmate's family owns this place, and we get to eat whatever we want!"

Beside her, Victoria cracked open two tins of caviar and spooned it straight into her mouth.

"It's just okay, honestly. Not quite as good as what I had in Paris."

Case after case of red wine got stacked on the tables. There wasn't even time to use a proper corkscrew; someone just jammed a fork straight through a cork. Wine splashed across the tablecloths, the carpet, and the walls. A few of the men clinked their glasses together, took one sip, and let half the glass slosh out with nobody bothering to wipe it up. They just opened another bottle.

Victoria speared an entire slab of Wagyu with her fork, dunked it in black truffle sauce three separate times, took one bite, and spat it back out.

"Too tough! Grill me a new one!"

Megan noticed I hadn't said anything and turned to me.

"Rachel, we're all classmates here. You're not actually upset about this, are you?"

Someone else immediately chimed in.

"Yeah, Rachel, you haven't said a word, and you haven't touched your fork. You're not mad, are you?"

"We don't get together like this often, and we came all this way to support you, and you're giving us attitude?"

"Just eat! Megan's paying for all of this today!"

"Rachel's probably going to profit off us anyway. No idea what she's got to be upset about."

They were right about one thing. I really didn't have anything to feel sorry about.

Tomorrow, when the bill came due, it wouldn't be me shedding any tears.

An hour later, Todd had drunk himself sick. Two people had to prop him up on either side and haul him toward the Skyview Suite, and he threw up the entire way down the hallway.

Brett's dog shattered the glass door of the Pool Suite, and water flooded out across half the corridor.

Sandra and Victoria got into a shoving match on the spiral staircase over who'd get the room with the best view, and knocked a framed painting clean off the wall. It cracked in half when it hit the floor.

The hotel didn't quiet down until three in the morning.

Sleep well, old classmates. This would be the last peaceful night's rest any of you got for a long while.

The next morning, sunlight streamed through the lobby's floor-to-ceiling windows at ten o'clock. Todd carried five boxes of truffle chocolates. Brett led his dog around, half a towel still hanging from its mouth. Sandra and Victoria had their arms full of spa vouchers and room passes.