She leaned in. “What? I couldn’t hear you. I thought for a second there you said Med Surg.”

I glanced at her. “I did. It’s Med Surg.”

She slapped her hands on her thighs and got up. “NOPE.”

“Come on!” I said, watching her walk to the door. “It can’t be that bad!”

She turned. “Med Surg and it can’t be that bad? Are you kidding me? Surgeons are assholes. They are assholes in direct proportion to how good they are. Can you imagine the absolute audacity of the doctors working there? The abuse we will be subjected to on a daily—No.” She shook her head. “I’m not doing it. Absolutely not.”

“They’re only assholes if you suck at your job—”

“They draw their energy from making nurses cry. We’ll be sacrificial lambs. And you know we’ll get all the crap assignments because we’re the newbies, they’ll float us three times a shift—No.”

I let out a slow breath. Then I set the laptop gently next to me. “I didn’t want to have to do this…”

She crossed her arms again. “Do what?”

“The trailer park.”

I let it hang there between us.

Her arms dropped. “You said you were never going to bring that up again,” she breathed.

“No, I said I was going to drop it. But I guess now I’m picking it up because you’ve given me no choice.”

“That was three years ago, Emma—”

“I agreed to a three-month stay in a luxury trailer home in a luxury trailer park in Utah with allllll the amenities—”

“Emma—”

“And when we got there, it was a two-thousand-year-old camper with no working AC, mice, a drained pool, and a creepy laundry room. No long-term rentals in sight because it was peak tourist season, so we were trapped in the RV from Breaking Bad for three months—”

“I found us a different place and you didn’t want it!”

“Really? The spare bedroom from the drunk guy you met in the ER who kept telling me I’d be prettier if I smiled more? That guy?”

She looked away from me. “I can’t believe you’re bringing this up,” she muttered.

I stood and walked slowly toward her, knowing I had her. “All I’m asking is to put off Hawaii for six more weeks. We get to stay in a gorgeous cottage on a lake, we have a boat for the summer, we get to cross Royaume off the bucket list. Yes, I realize Med Surg is less than ideal, but we’ll be working with some of the best surgeons in the world. And then I get to try this thing with this Justin guy—it’ll be an adventure.”

She didn’t reply.

“You can pick where we go for the following six months. You get two turns back-to-back.”

Her eyes slid to mine. “Can I pick the same place the whole time?”

This caught me by surprise. “We never stay at the same place for six months,” I said.

“Yeah, well we also never chose from a state not on our top twenty-five and we never skip turns.”

My heart started to pound. I don’t know why the thought of not moving made me feel slightly panicky. Maybe it was just the change in routine? We always moved on once a contract was up.

But I wanted this. It sounded fun. And if we waited until after Hawaii, we’d get to Minnesota when it started to get cold, and no way was I doing Minnesota in the winter no matter how cool Justin made it sound.

“Fine,” I said. “We can stay someplace for six months. Wherever you want.”

She drew in a deep breath and let it out before looking reluctantly at me. “Fine,” she mumbled. “We’ll go to Minnesota.”

I started bouncing all over the living room.

She jabbed a finger at me. “But you’re not allowed to bring up the trailer. Ever again. We are even. And you’re buying me cupcakes when we get there or the deal’s off.”

I bounced back to her and hugged her.

She shook her head. “Med Surg and no Hawaii, just so you can break up with some guy.”

“We’ve done stranger things.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, we have.”

I didn’t tell Justin about Minnesota. I wanted to surprise him. We talked and texted on and off for the next week and a half until Maddy and I packed up to make the two-day drive to our new state.

Our contact for the cottage was a woman named Maria. She worked for the owner, who had a full-time residence on the mainland of the lake. We’d be parking our car in his driveway and using his dock to come and go to our cottage.

When we pulled up to this house, five minutes early, we sat in our car and stared. It was huge. A mansion.

“What the hell does this guy do?” Maddy asked, shaking her head.

“I don’t know,” I breathed.

She looked at me. “How’d you find this place again?”

“The agency. The lady seemed like she knew someone. I think it was luck.”

I got out and shaded my eyes as I looked up at the house. I’d never seen anything like this in real life. It reminded me of a castle. Stone walls and minarets. I could see at least four chimneys.

“Maybe he’s a famous rapper?” Maddy said, “Or like, some big executive?”

“Jeff Bezos maybe?” I joked.

“He probably has a helipad on the roof.”

“He probably does…”

As we started pulling our bags from the trunk, a brown-haired middle-aged woman came out of the side of the three-car garage. “Are you Emma?” she said in a thick Mexican accent.