She shook her head.

“Absolutely not, I’m not that delicate. Plus, the rooms are on me.”

He’d known she would insist on that.

“Yes, yes, fine, but, like, don’t you think handing over your credit card will make it more likely someone will recognize you? I’ll pay up front; you can pay me back.”

He’d thought she would argue with him about that, but instead she just opened the car door.

“Okay, that makes sense, but I still want to come in.”

There was no accounting for celebrity. Ben followed her out of the car and into the hotel lobby.

He walked up to the front desk and smiled at the woman staffing it.

“Hi, Niamh!” he said after a quick glance at her name tag.

She looked surprised.

“You know how to say my name! Everyone gets that wrong.”

He smiled at her.

“My cousin’s daughter is another Niamh, so I know the name well.”

She smiled back.

“Well, please tell your Niamh I said hi. Do you have a reservation?”

He shook his head.

“Unfortunately, we don’t, but is there any way my sister and I would be able to get two rooms for the night? I’m sorry we got here so late; it’s been a very long day.”

He gave her his best smile, but she shook her head at him.

“Welcome to Palm Springs, but we’re fully booked tonight! There’s a ton going on in town for the weekend. But you might have better luck at . . .” She turned to a computer and clicked around.

This was what he’d been afraid of. After Anna had told her mom she was staying at the Ace, he’d tried to book them rooms online but hadn’t been able to. He hadn’t known if that was because it was so late at night, or because they were booked, but he’d feared the latter. He’d almost told Anna that on the drive over here, but she’d seemed so stressed about everything he hadn’t wanted to make it harder on her. Now he needed to do something about this.

He leaned on the counter and dropped his smile into a steady gaze.

“Look,” he said, “if there’s any way you can help me out with rooms tonight, I’d really appreciate it. I’m going to level with you—we’re here because my sister and I were at the hospital; Dad collapsed in Joshua Tree today and we had to rush out here. We just left the hospital a few minutes ago. I know we should have called ahead, but . . .”

The clerk shook her head.

“Oh, that’s terrible! I understand why you didn’t call.”

Ben felt guilty that he was sort of lying to her, but most of what he’d said was the truth. It just wasn’t his dad.

“Thanks—it was pretty scary, but he’s going to be okay, we think, thank goodness.” He closed his eyes for a second and hoped Anna was taking note of his acting skills. “But I don’t have to tell you that we’re both exhausted after a long drive, and then the hospital, and driving around Palm Springs at night from hotel to hotel to see if anyone has room for us sounds like a nightmare that might last until dawn, and you could not possibly see two people more ready to fall into bed than the two of us.”

Niamh patted him on the hand.

“Let me see what I can do.”

At least this woman was the polar opposite of the hospital info-desk woman, who barely seemed sentient. After she clicked around for a few more minutes, she looked up at him with a big smile on her face.

“I thought so! Okay, we can take you!”

Ben cheered, and he heard a small “yay” from Anna behind him.

“Unfortunately, we only have one room—we were holding on to it for a VIP, but they canceled, so I can release it to you. You don’t mind that it’s only one room, since you’re family?”

Well, shit.

“Actually, Niamh—”

“Anything is great, thank you so much,” Anna said from behind him.

He turned around to argue with her, but she waved him off.

One room? He was going to have to spend the night in a hotel room with Anna and not touch her? This felt colossally unfair.

But what could he do? He handed over his credit card to Niamh, and she gave them two room keys and directions to their room.

“And I hope your dad feels a lot better!” she said as they walked out of the lobby.

“Thank you, so, so much,” Anna said over her shoulder.

They were silent for the first part of their walk through the sprawling property to their room.

“I see you’re also a fan of the ‘tell as much of the truth as you can’ form of lying,” Anna said, when they turned the corner toward the empty pool. She pushed back her hoodie and grinned at him.

It was good to see her smile, after how stressed she’d looked for the past few hours.

“Oh, I think I invented that form of lying,” Ben said. “It let me get away with a whole lot as a teenager. I rarely have reason to do it anymore, but it was good to keep those skills from rusting.”

Anna laughed.

“Well, you were excellent in there. Thanks.”

He handed her the key cards for the room.

“Hey—I can go somewhere else for the night; I’m sure there are other hotels where I can find a room. I was just saying all of that about not wanting to drive around so you could crash.”

She brushed that off.

“You’re the one who spent the past seven hours driving; you’re probably just as exhausted as I am. And you were right, the thought of driving around town to find another hotel made me want to burst into tears. I’m thrilled we got a room here, and all because of your knowledge of Irish names.”

Well, he’d tried. He gestured for her to precede him up the staircase that led to their room.

“Thank my cousin, who married an Irish guy.”

Oh God, he didn’t ask if it was one bed or two. If it was one bed, he’d have to sleep on the floor. Either way it would suck. This felt like some sort of curse.

Anna let them into the room with the key card.

“Oh, thank God we’re here,” Anna said. “I’ve had to pee for the past two hours, but then I got distracted at the hospital and didn’t go when we were there. I’m dying here.”

She dropped her tote bag on the desk and raced into the bathroom.

Ben put his messenger bag down and sat on one of the beds. There were two, which should have made him feel relieved. Instead, he felt like he’d lost his last chance. Like he’d even had a chance.