The room looked fancier, somehow. Maybe she’d never seen it in bright daylight. Well, maybe it had changed a bit. Or it hadn’t. There was definitely more lace on the pillows on Max’s rollaway in the living room. Maybe housekeeping had been in while they were at breakfast and changed the sheets. The rug looked newer. That was probably the effect of the light, too. It was the same rug, but it looked newer. And the coffee table was very polished, almost as if you could see your reflection in it.

She was quite startled when a boy’s voice said, “Hello.”

Colin was sitting on the living room couch as if he belonged there and didn’t realize he was intruding and that nobody had asked him in. Although he guessed it from the look on Tess’s face.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “Mother says I shouldn’t drop in on friends just because they’re staying with us. That I’m not supposed to go into their rooms unless I’m asked. It’s so peculiar though to have people staying with you, that I always forget. And I wanted to see you both.”

“Really?” said Tess, attitude in full force. “And how did you get in?”

Tess didn’t think people were supposed to walk into your hotel room uninvited even if, as he seemed to indicate, they owned the hotel. Especially if you aren’t even there when they drop in.

“How did you get in?” she asked again accusingly.

“You left the garden door unlocked,” said Colin, quietly and sheepishly. “I was playing there. And—and I wanted to see you both. And I touched the handle and it opened. And . . . I’m so sorry. I was just about to leave you a note.”

There was a piece of hotel stationery on the table in front of him. And a fancy fountain pen. The stationery was embossed and it said SANBORN HOUSE at the top. Just that, no address, no phone number, no email. Tess had noticed this before and thought it was sort of cool, like a printed note card. The stationery was very white, almost like parchment paper. And Tess had seen the envelopes for it, just the right size, in the desk drawer. On the back of the envelope was the same embossed name SANBORN HOUSE, also with no address below it. Fancy.

But Tess wasn’t sure how she felt about Colin yet. He was sweet, interesting, polite, intriguing, for sure, but there was something sad about him that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, fragile somehow. She also thought it was very cheeky of Colin, rude in fact, and inappropriate to have let himself into their room.