Bet on Me by Mia Hoddell Page B

know. It may have not been my place, yet if I had to take orders because of it I assumed it gave me some kind of rights.
    After he left me in the hallway it took me a full ten minutes to pull myself back together. I stared at the empty corridor the whole time, willing him to come back to me even though my head told me he wasn’t … ever. Part of me wanted to follow him and demand an explanation. However, I didn’t want to be that type of girl. If he could brush me off easily then I vowed to do the same and move on. After all, I’d sworn not to settle down, so in theory he’d done me a favour and saved me the hassle of asking him to leave at the end of the week.
    Telling myself that was one thing, convincing myself of it was another. And it didn’t stop it hurting the next day when faced with an empty hotel lobby.
    I’d been waiting for half an hour; the bus was five minutes from arriving to take us paragliding, and Cole still hadn’t appeared. I glanced across at Rose manning the reception desk. Striding over to her, she peered up on instinct when my shadow blocked out her sun.
    “Aren’t you meant to be leaving?”
    I nodded. “Can you check something for me? Cole’s supposed to meet me here and I think he may have checked out last night.”
    “Why would he have done that?”
    “Can you just check it, Rose? He stayed in room twenty-nine.” I glanced at the clock anxiously. If he hadn’t then I was going to have to rush up to his room.
    Rose’s perfectly manicured nails clacked against the keyboard then the mouse clicked as she scanned the information. When she peered up at me with pity filling her eyes she didn’t need to voice the words.
    Bastard.
    “It says he checked out at one a.m.”
    “I knew it. I knew he was telling me good-bye with his kiss.” The sound of a vehicle coming down the gravelled drive caught my attention as the tyres crunched against the stones.
    “Wait, what?” Rose latched on to my slip up instantly and I wanted to slam my hand down on the desk. Damn me and my big mouth.
    “I’ll tell you about it when I get back,” I shouted over my shoulder, the bus mercifully pulling to a stop and saving me from her.
    “You’re still going?” She sounded surprised by the thought for some unknown reason.
    Spinning around at the doors, I gave her a toothy grin. “Of course. This was always the plan, with or without Cole.”
    I don’t know if she bought the brave face I dredged up because the rueful shake of her head said otherwise. Without sparing her a second glance I jogged on to the bus. I chose a seat on the opposite side to the hotel, only allowing my expression to droop when I was settled and out of sight. Cole’s actions hurt. No matter how much I prayed not to be affected, he’d sliced me open. An emptiness filled my chest. My usual energy deserted me; the bubbly attitude that caused me to walk everywhere with a spring in my step dampened.
    I thought he would at least have had the guts to say good-bye in person.
    We’d only known each other for around a week, but I thought we got along. He seemed to like me, and although there were things he hid, he was still open with everything else. Was the word good-bye really so hard to speak?
    Folding my arms against my chest, I slumped down into the uncomfortable chair and rested my head on the glass. Had I known Cole wouldn’t show up then I would have brought something other than my camera to entertain myself. It was strange how quickly I’d become used to his presence so that it now felt strange for him not to be sitting next to me.
     
    * * *
     
    “When I tell you, I want you to run towards the edge of the cliff. Even when you go over the edge keep pumping your legs until I tell you to stop,” Vincent, my instructor said, a French accent breaking up his English. Strapped to him, very intimately I might add, in the tandem harness, we stood on top of one of the cliffs in Eze.
    Already my heart thrummed in my chest, pushing the