(Connie's POV)
The hotel's nicer than I expected, which annoys me slightly, because I'd half-assumed Sean would book something loud and ostentatious just to prove some unspoken point about who's paying for what on this trip.
Instead it's clean, warm, unfussy in the specific way expensive places get when they've stopped needing to announce themselves. The lobby smells like cedar.
My room, when I finally get up to it, smells like cedar too, and I stand there a second longer than necessary just breathing it in, letting eighteen hours of travel finally settle out of my shoulders.
My room's on a different floor from Sean's. I clock that fact within about four seconds of checking in and decide, immediately, that it counts as a professional courtesy from the universe — one small mercy in a we
