Best Friend's Mother: Layover Lust at the Airport Hotel

Haley slumped in the stiff airport chair, glaring at the departure board as if sheer willpower could uncancel Flight 447. Twenty-two years old, fresh out of college with a suitcase full of dirty laundry and half-written job applications, she had just wanted to get home. Instead, a freak thunderstorm had grounded everything east of the Rockies. The terminal reeked of burnt coffee and despair. She was scrolling through overpriced hotel apps when a familiar, throaty laugh cut through the noise.

“Haley Rose Carter, you look like someone stole your last French fry.”

Vanessa Delgado stood there in a tailored cream blazer that somehow still looked runway-ready after six hours of delays, dark hair cascading over one shoulder, red lips curved in that knowing smirk Haley had seen a hundred times at her best friend Jenna’s house. Forty-two, divorced two years, and unfairly gorgeous—the kind of woman who made yoga pants illegal in certain zip codes. Jenna’s mom. The glamorous, witty divorcee who always had a dirty joke and a bottle of something expensive.

“Mrs. Delgado? What are you doing here?”

“Vanessa, sweetheart. ‘Mrs.’ makes me feel like I should be baking cookies instead of escaping a sales conference from hell. My connection to Denver died the same death as your flight home. I snagged the last room at the airport Marriott—king bed, minibar, actual hot water. You’re crashing with me. No arguments. Jenna would murder me if I left her bestie to the mercy of those plastic chairs.”

Haley’s stomach flipped. Sharing a room with Vanessa. The woman whose perfume she used to sneak spritzes of in high school. She stood, grabbing her bag, trying not to notice how Vanessa’s skirt hugged hips that had no business looking that good at forty-two. “You’re a lifesaver. I’ll take the floor. Or the bathtub. Whatever.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Vanessa linked arms with her, steering them toward the hotel shuttle with the confidence of someone who always got upgraded. “We’ll share the bed like civilized adults. Or uncivilized ones. Depends how good the free wine is.”