The Resort by Bentley Little

hard they tried to maintain the carefree innocence of the past two days, it was ruined, gone, and the rest of their trip would be tainted by the events of last night.
    Damn that Blodgett.
    Lowell wondered what the asshole looked like. In his mind, he imagined a heavy, beefy man with a jowly angry face and a bulbous alcoholic’s nose, a man not unlike Mr. Mack, his high school science teacher. Mean, petty and vindictive, Mack pretty much had it in for any student who wasn’t a member of the geology club or whose life didn’t revolve around the physical sciences, and Lowell and his friends had hated the teacher. Hell, half the school had. And although Lowell hadn’t been in on the senior prank that had resulted in sugar being poured into Mr. Mack’s gas tank, ruining the engine of his brand new Buick LeSabre, he had secretly applauded the incident from afar.
    Mr. Mack. Jesus, he hadn’t thought of that old bastard in years.
    Lowell wondered if he was still alive.
    Rachel stood and walked over to one of the bathroom sinks to wash the muffin crumbs off her hands. “Are you really going to try and exercise?”
    â€œYeah. Why not.”
    â€œThen take your key,” she told him. “Ryan and I are going out to the big pool to keep an eye on the twins. We probably won’t be here when you get back.”
    â€œWhat’s the plan for lunch?”
    â€œSnacks. We have the chips and salsa that we brought, and I think there’s one of those cheese samplers in the minibar. Besides, it’s hot. You don’t eat much when it’s hot, you just drink a lot.”
    â€œSpeak for yourself.”
    â€œWe’ll have a real dinner. Maybe we should check the menu at that Grille.”
    â€œThat’s the one disadvantage of this place. We can’t just drive over to some take-out place or something. We’re stuck with the food on hand.”
    She looked at him meaningfully. “The one disadvantage?”
    â€œWe just got off on the wrong foot,” he said, for his own sake as much as hers. “It’s all uphill from here.”
    â€œMaybe we’ll reverse it tomorrow. Go to Tucson or one of the tourist destinations, have a real, reasonably priced lunch, and then snack for dinner by the pool.”
    â€œYeah!” Ryan said. “Burger King!”
    Lowell smiled at them. “Sounds like a plan.”
    He couldn’t remember where the building that housed the pool and weight room was located, so after changing into his bathing suit and slipping on a pair of sandals, he opened the leather Welcome binder next to the phone on the end table and turned the pages until he found a map of the resort. A walkway led from their building to what was referred to as the “Exercise Center” two parking lots down. As long as he stayed on course and didn’t take any of the forks or side paths, he’d be there in three minutes. He slammed the binder shut, took another muffin to eat on the way, grabbed a bottle of water and picked up his key card.
    â€œSee you later.” He gave Rachel a quick kiss, then ran a hand through Ryan’s close-cropped hair. “Meet you at the big pool, buddy. Tell Curtis and Owen they have to let you play or they can’t swim. Tell them I said so.”
    Ryan grinned.
    Outside it was hot already. Eight thirty and the temperature had to be well above eighty. Lowell was not the most heat-tolerant man on the planet—one reason he was grateful to work in an air-conditioned environment—but there was something very pleasant about vacationing in a spot where a person could swim comfortably in the early morning or late evening. It was humid, though, much more humid than yesterday, and he could tell from the wet gravel and the leaves on the ground that the predicted rain had arrived sometime last night. Despite that, today’s sky was clear, cloudless and an impossibly deep blue almost cheery enough to make him