Heists and Vengeance

Thirty-One

Lana

It was one in the afternoon, and Ryder and Lana had just returned from an hour of dining with snobby guests. They returned to their room exhausted (who knew making small talk with stuck-up people was so tiring?) and laughing. Well, really, Lana was laughing – Ryder was just staring at her amusedly – and she thought that the reason for her uncontrollable gigggle part may have been due to the amount of champagne she'd downed. Though, to be fair, no one wanted to listen to someone prattle on about how politicians were oh-so boring and oh-so dense.

Lana stumbled in the room, slightly dizzy, and Ryder had to catch her around the waist to keep her from falling. Normally, she would have blushed, or felt slightly uncomfortable, but now she just laughed, and twirled away from him.

"Did you see the guy on the other side of the table complain about there not being enough salt on the table?" she asked him, barely containing her giggles. "There was a salt shaker right in front of him, yet he couldn't raise his hand to shake some on his food."

"I saw," Ryder said. He stood there, looking at her fondly, hands in his pockets. "You drank a lot, didn't you?"

She rolled her eyes. "I had to. Salt Snob and his wife – the one with the large fur stole on her neck – were trying to talk to us, despite the fact that we were making it abundantly clear that we weren't interested." She flumped back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was plain white, with a small chandelier hanging from it – while not as fancy as the one in the foyer, it was still impressive.

After a moment, Ryder sat down next to her. "You do realize that you were talking to the mayor? As in, the mayor of Plexmont?"

She sat up so quickly that her head spun. Ryder noticed her wooziness and reached for her, but she batted his hand away, cold dread overtaking her. "I'm fine. Oh, God. Was that really the mayor?"

"You didn't know?" He was smiling, as if this was funny to him. Why was he smiling? This was a disaster.

She pulled her knees up to her and wrapped her arms around them. "Oh my God. Oh my God."

Ryder placed an arm around her shoulders. "Hey... it wasn't actually that bad."

She stared up at him. "Did you not hear what I said to him?"

He laughed, momentarily disarming her. "Yeah. And it was pretty funny."

She shrugged his arm off her. "It was so not funny!"

"I mean..."

"Ryder. He was talking so much about how boring the politicians were, and I said: 'Wow. Now you must know what it feels like when people talk with you.'" She stared at him. "I said that to the mayor!" She laid back down on the bed and groaned, her hands covering her face. "I'm so embarrassed."

Ryder chuckled. "Well...you did shut them up. And besides, after you said it, you laughed, and they seemed to think you were joking."

She looked through the gaps between her fingers to see him looking down at her, a twinkle in his eyes. "I guess you're right."

He was still smiling at her, his lips curved into a perfect arc, eyes bright with amusement. "Huh," she said.

He tilted his head to the side. "What?"

"Nothing. It's just...I don't think I've seen you this happy. Then again, I've only known you about two weeks, so..." she trailed off when Ryder scooted up the bed, until he could reach his hand out to touch her face.