I reach over the console and grab his hand. “It’s fine. You’re here now.”
After an hour of driving in mostly silence, I pull to a stop at a red light. I can feel him watching me from the passenger seat, so I glance over. He grins, and those eyes make my toes tingle.
“I really want to kiss you,” I say.
“Can’t.” He shakes his head. “That’s not what Sasha wants.”
Panic colors my vision. “What?” I thought we’d moved past this.
Elijah grins. “We’re technically on the next adventure, and she wants us to be kids, right?”
I let out my breath in a relieved laugh. “Right.”
That is exactly what her email said.
Black Bear Lodge is a kid’s ultimate vacation. There’s game rooms, the water park, an arcade, inflatable bounce houses and so much candy you want to eat until you throw up and then eat more. Black Bear Lodge was the essence of my childhood. We went twice a year, every year, and I always got to take my best friend with me. So although it’s kind of a haven for children, and you guys are almost adults, just be kids for the weekend, okay? I want Elijah to experience what it would have been like to be a kid in the Cade household. Also, there’s something I need you guys to do when you’re there, and being a kid will make all the difference.
The light turns green and I take one last look at him before turning my attention back to the road. “I agree. Let’s be kids.”
***
“Whoa.” Elijah is all but pressed against the glass, drooling like a five-year-old.
“Yeah, it’s pretty impressive,” I say, turning into the parking lot of Black Bear Lodge. Set on top of a hill, the mighty resort has fourteen floors of hotel rooms to one side and a massive water park to the other. In the center, two fifty-feet-tall concrete bears sit guarding the entrance on their steel-reinforced haunches. As a kid, it felt like you were arriving in a magical world when you walked between the bears. Something tells me that as an almost adult, it’ll feel just as surreal.
“Cute,” Elijah says, eyeing my suitcase as I heft it out of my trunk. It’s hot pink with emojis all over it. My only excuse for buying something so delightfully tacky is that it was on sale.
“Shut up,” I mutter.
Keeping a nice distance of at least three feet between us, I breathe slowly and concentrate on telling myself not to think about how cute he is, how great he smells, how I sort of love that innocent excitement in his eyes. This trip is not about how badly I want to make out with Elijah. It’s about pretending to be a kid for Sasha.
“Have you ever been to a place like this?” I ask, figuring it’s a perfectly acceptable platonic thing to say.
He stops right in the middle of the enormous entrance that looks more like it was built for giants and looks at me. “What do you think?”
The lodge feels cozier in November than in the summer. Fewer kids running all over the place, and more older couples who look like they came to get away from the headache of planning Thanksgiving dinner.
Elijah’s head wobbles all over the place as he tries to take in the sight. The ceiling is at least five stories high, and a forest canopy of fake trees almost covers the top. Winding stairways go up the tree trunks with little hideout spots to find along the way. Fairies zoom across the room on nearly invisible wires, and life-sized animatronic bears hide in between the fake trees. A waterfall pours straight from the ceiling, emptying into a concrete pond filled with fish you can feed from paper cups of fish food. I have to tug on Elijah’s shirt to get him to follow me to the reception desk.
“Your pretend-to-be-a-kid act is convincing,” I say, pulling him in between the velvet ropes that form a winding line to the check-in desk.
“Totally not an act,” he says, peering down at me. There’s a waterfall behind us and a big fake toucan hanging from a branch just above our heads. That single dimple in his cheek appears again. “I’m really psyched for this.”
Butterflies hop around in my stomach when I bring my printed reservation up to the front desk. What if we’re turned around, identified as frauds? A woman with Susan on her name tag gives me a warm smile and scans the barcode on my paper. The computer chimes, so that must be a good sign.
“You’re all set,” she says, sliding over two silver wristbands that are made to withstand the water park during your entire vacation. Relief floods through me and I reach for them. “Oh, wait,” Susan says, frowning. “There’s something else here in the reservation notes. Just a moment.”
Elijah slides the wristbands off the counter and slips one onto my wrist, then wraps the other one around his. “Why so freaked out?” he asks quietly, nudging me with his shoulder.
I lift my shoulders, eyes wide. “There’s some kind of problem,” I say, trying to decipher what Susan is saying to another woman when she points back at us. “What if this doesn’t work? Where will we go?”
“Relax, chicka. This is Sasha, remember?” I look up at him and he winks. “She won’t let us down.”
Susan slips into a back room and then returns a few seconds later, a white envelope in her hand. “This was sent here for you, Miss Clearwater. Now you’re all set. Please enjoy your stay at Black Bear Lodge!”
I reach for the envelope, my name in pink Sharpie scrawled across the front. I don’t have to look at Elijah to know he’s no doubt wearing a smirk the size of the parking lot. In the elevator, I go to rip it open, but stop when I see Sasha’s note written across the seal.
Do not open until you check out on Sunday!