by A. P. Marie
The book keeps me interested enough that when Jacob knocks on my door a little later to tell me that there is dinner ready in the kitchen if I’m hungry, I decline. I spend the rest of the night stuck in a book haze with Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.
My third day at Hotel de Zander starts much like my second. Unfortunately, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy don’t make it through the whole day with me. By lunch time I start looking for something else to do.
When I leave my room in search of entertainment, Jacob is waiting for me the same as yesterday. We’re wandering around on the first floor somewhere when he speaks for the first time.
“Is something wrong with your chest?” His question surprises me, but not as much as the realization that I’m rubbing my chest. I must have unconsciously been trying to loosen the stress knot.
“I guess I’m just stressed out. I’ve been having this tightness in my chest.” I purposely remove my hand from my chest and keep walking. I know the home theatre is in this wing somewhere, I just can’t remember exactly where.
Jacob doesn’t respond, and really, why would he? He probably can’t even understand why I would be stressed out.
When I finally find the theatre, I get comfortable while Jacob finds the movie I ask for. His grimace was so funny when I jokingly mentioned Twilight that I vow to make him sit throw a showing of all of the movies. We only make it threw the first two before Jacob pulls out his phone and tells me dinner is ready in the kitchen.
Amazingly, Jacob never gets mad at my werewolf jokes to him. He’s actually a really good sport about it, and by the middle of the second movie I can tell he is having to try not to smile at my antics.
“Do you think if I wait until a little later, I can get leftovers?” I ask him. I can’t help but think a dinner with Zander would be incredibly awkward.
A shiver slithers across my skin when I remember how possessive he got the other night when he was telling me that I belonged to him.
“You can’t avoid him forever.” Unsurprisingly, Jacob seems to have caught on to my plan.
“I can certainly try.” I smirk at him and throw a piece of popcorn his way.
Despite my afternoon of popcorn, I am hungry, so I finally make my way to the kitchen. Thankfully, it is empty, and I can scarf down a piping hot plate of the best chicken alfredo I have ever had.
On the way back to my room that evening, I notice the tension in my chest slowly dissipating. I bask in the joy of finally getting that stupid lump to release, and lament that fact that all it took was some good old-fashioned comfort food, when I hear a voice from the other side of the door I am standing next to. Generally, I am an excellent snooper, Jacob, however, is not. As soon as I slow my steps, Jacob starts talking.
“Not trying to snoop are you?” I roll my eyes and look back at him.
“Don’t you have vampires to hunt down?” I mock.
My joke obviously does not offend him, as he snorts and shakes his head at me without responding. Shrugging, I head back to my room.
Day Four dawns as boring as the rest. I really need to get a hobby.
I go to the kitchen to eat breakfast, and this time I am almost disappointed not to see Zander. At this point, I’m so bored I really might go seek him out.
I try to find things to distract me, but nothing seems to work. I feel like I took speed or drank way too much caffeine. I pick a new book, and that works for about 5 minutes. I try to watch a movie and that doesn’t even make 5 minutes. I go to the hallway to harass Jacob, but apparently, he had something else to do today, because the man standing outside my door is decidedly not Jacob.
I start wandering the halls again for lack of anything better to do. On my second or third time past one of the living rooms I see Zander in there watching a movie. I’m confident that he hasn’t been here the whole time, but for some reason I found myself gravitating towards this part of the house today.
Standing in the door watching him is weird. This is weird, right? I should definitely say something or move on. Yeah, I should move on. Go find another part of the house to haunt. But man is he beautiful. If I knew I could stand here without getting caught, I would consider standing here watching him all day.
The TV is on the left wall and he is sitting on the couch facing it almost directly in front of me. I have a perfect view of him in profile, his messy brown locks, his straight nose, and despite everything I have to keep myself from drooling over him.
I’m still standing in the doorway like a weird kidnapped stalker when he speaks without ever looking over his shoulder.
“Do you want to join me?” Oddly, this is the most enticing idea I have had today.
“What are you watching?” I ask like it matters, but really, I couldn’t care less. I’m bored, Jacob is MIA, and nothing has held my interest as much as standing here checking him out.
“Someone recommended this Netflix show to me. I don’t normally have time to watch it, but lately I have had a little extra time on my hands.” He says it nonchalantly even though I know that extra time is because I am here.
“What’s it about?” I don’t care. I don’t want to watch the show. I want a reason to stand here and stare at him a little longer.
“This guy,” he uses the beer bottle in his hand to point towards the TV, “is a stalker. He finds these girls and obsesses over them.”
A very unladylike snort escapes me causing him to finally look up at me.
“Taking notes?” I quip.
He smirks at me and I swear it should be criminal. Men should not be able to look like that while they are smirking.
“I don’t obsess over girls. I obsess over a girl.” He says. “It’s different.”
“Oh, yeah. No doubt. I definitely see the difference.” By the time I finish speaking I’m plonking down onto the opposite end of the couch from him.
Zander starts the show over at the very beginning, and I get sucked in almost instantly. By the end of the fourth or fifth episode, I am invested. I start giving the characters advice out loud. At first, I almost forget Zander is in the room. For some reason I am more comfortable, right now than I have been in several days.
When the main character shows up where the female character is unannounced, I give her some very good advice.
“Stay the fuck away from him. He’s bat shit crazy.” I shake my head unhappily. “Don’t let him spin some pretty little story for you. He just showed up where you are completely unannounced. Not cool, Dude.”
This time, Zander chips in. “I don’t know. He was following her to make sure everything was okay. He’s just been trying to protect her.” I roll my eyes so hard it almost gives me a headache.
“Following people is creepy, Zander. If he was really worried about her, he should have just come and talked to her. She might have welcomed the help.” This time Zander shakes his head.
“She didn’t know everything. She didn’t even know she should be afraid. She wouldn’t have believed him.”
By this point we have completely given up the pretense of watching the show, but I’m not willing to miss any of it. So, I reach over Zander to the side table to grab the remote and pause the show. That’s when I realize that I am no longer leaning against the opposite arm rest as him. At some point, I had moved to the middle of the couch.
“Then he should have told her. She deserves to know everything, especially if it is about her own life. You can’t keep people in the dark to get what you want.”
Zander just watches me for a long time. Eventually, he nods his head then grabs the remote and presses play.
That night, we eat dinner together. Every other night dinner was a homecooked meal, but tonight we pop a frozen pizza in the oven. While it’s cooking, we discuss the show, Jacob, the house. We talk about our favorite movies and he tells me some of his favorite books. I tell him about a dream that I’ve had several nights in a row. It’s weird because I never remember all of it. Just bits and pieces, but enough to know that it is always the same
dream.
By the time we finish eating, I’m actually a little sad to head off to bed. I tell him goodnight and we head in separate directions. Immediately, I start to feel a little melancholy. Shaking myself out of it, I remind myself that he kidnapped me. I didn’t come here to hang out with him. With that thought the stress starts to reform in my chest, and I realize that I had managed to avoid the stress for most of the day. Guess my luck is over.
On day five, I seek Zander out. There is no sense in even pretending that I was doing anything else. Jacob is back and we spend the morning playing cards on the ground outside of my door. He is terrible at cards, and I’ve always been pretty good. There were times in my life where my shoes and clothes came from a lucky hand of cards. It served me to find a way to be lucky more.
By lunch, Jacob is tired of getting beat, so I go in search of Zander. Having never intentionally sought him out, I don’t even know where to start, so I just start wandering. As we walk, I tease Jacob and he ignores me, like normal.
“You know, you aren’t a half bad looking guy. This whole following someone around thing is kind of weird though. You’ll have to try a different technique if you find someone you want to date.” Glancing at him in peripheral vision, he has no reaction to my words. So, I keep trying.
“Maybe if you didn’t spend all of your time following me around, you would already have found someone. I could probably set you up with someone.” I scratch my chin pensively. I don’t know anyone that I could set Jacob up with. I can’t see any reason for him to know that though.
“Don’t.” Jacob is so shocked by my idea that he stops walking in the middle of the hallway. He must really not want me to set him up. Shrugging, I keep walking.
“I was just offering. It seems like you could use the help.” I say, as innocently as possible. There is no way he needs the help. A man that looks like him could have shit for brains and a terrible personality and he would still have women lined up around the block to date him.
Jacob rolls his eyes. We’ve reached the main living room when he says, “If you’re looking for Zander, he’s probably in his wing.” Jacob points up the stairs and to the right.
I was looking for Zander. I was just hoping to find him in a public room. Going to his personal space feels too personal. It must take me too long to make up my mind, because Jacob touches my elbow and gently guides me up the stairs.
When we get to the top of the stairs, Jacob just nods his head towards the right again. I take a step in that direction, but he does not follow me.
“Aren’t you coming?” Nervous energy swirls around me like static. Jacob is safe. Seeing Zander would be easier if Jacob were with me.
“I think you can handle it from here. Unless you need my help.” He smirks, reminding me about how much I have teased him about his seemingly lack of love life.
There is no way I can back down now. Instead I head through the arched, oversized doorway. The room I come into seems to be a formal sitting area. There are several doors off of the room, but since I have absolutely no idea where to search for Zander, I just stand there staring at the room.
The furniture is obviously expensive, like everything else in the house. There is no TV that I can see in here. The dark grey fabric couch, sits off to the left, facing matching chairs. There is a navy-blue rug under the coffee table. In fact, the whole room is tastefully decorated in grey and navy-blue. The whole thing has a very calming effect, and it clearly does its job, because the stress induced tightness in my chest begins to loosen again.
“Zander?” My voice barely makes it about normal speaking volume, but I immediately hear steps moving towards me.
Sure enough, a second later, one of the doors opens and out walks a very wet, mostly naked Zander. He has a towel wrapped around his lean hips, and water rolling down every clearly define ab. Swoon.
“Emily? Is everything okay?” Zander’s voice takes on a definite note of panic and it snaps me out of my ogling.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t realize you were busy. I can come back later.” I mumble out my apology and turn towards the door, my embarrassment burning my cheeks.
“It’s fine. You are welcome here any time. Give me a second and I’ll put some clothes on.” Zander turns and walks back through the door he just came through. He doesn’t shut the door behind him, and it takes everything I have not to follow him through the door into what is obviously is his bedroom.
Instead, I sit on the couch like a good little girl and wait. It doesn’t take Zander long to come back out with faded blue jeans handing low on his hips. He was clearly in a rush to see what I needed, because he forgot to put on a shirt.
He sits on the couch next to me and my breath catches in my throat. I can do this. I can definitely sit next to a guy on the couch without combusting on the spot. I’ve got this.
“What do you want to do today?” I’m grateful that Zander doesn’t ask my why I’m here. It was be mortifying to admit that I missed him and wanted to see him.
“Whatever you want. What were you doing before I came in?” I ask, before I realize how dumb that was. I know exactly what he was doing before I came in, and heat rushes to my cheeks again.
Zander smirks, but thankfully does not mention my idiocy, “I was probably just going to watch some TV. We could watch more episodes of the show we started yesterday.” He throws the idea out there, shrugging nonchalantly.
“That sounds perfect.” I smile in appreciation. Watching TV is something I can definitely handle. When I look at Zander, he is staring at me, his face almost completely blank.
Shaking himself, he stands up and leads me to another door off this room. This one leads to a more comfortable living room type room, with a monster TV hanging on the wall.
We spend the rest of the day watching TV and talking. We leave his room a few times to go get food but no matter where we go, we do it together. After one of our snack trips, I challenge Zander to a card game, but I left the cards in my room. Once we make it all of the way to my room, I set up the game on the coffee table in the sitting area of my room, instead of walking back across the house.
Zander settles onto the carpet across from me and we play whatever games we both know.
I can tell that despite my plan, I really am growing to like Zander. I could see us being good friends. Something about him seems really familiar, and my relationship with him reminds me a lot of my relationship with Caiden.
Thinking about Caiden causes a pang to run through my heart. He is the best friend I have ever had, and I miss his more than I thought I would. There is no way that I can contact him, and he probably doesn’t expect me to. But I still want to. I want to hear his voice and let him know that I am fine.
There is no way that Zander would give me a phone though, is there? When I look at him, he has such a melancholy look on his face, that I realize he must be struggling with something himself and now isn’t the time to bring any more of my troubles to him.
Resolving to ask him about using a phone later, I settle back in and finish the game. Zander stays later that night. I curl up on the couch as we’re talking and before I know what has happened, I’m opening my eyes to bright sunshine. Zander must have moved me from the couch to my bed, and all I can feel is gratitude. I do not want to deal with the sore muscles that come from sleeping on couches.
Day six, Zander and I are spending the afternoon in my room. I decide to read something I picked out this morning and he is playing a video game on the console he brought into my room. Apparently, he’s a big fan of them. Yawning, for what very well may be the hundredth time today, I put down my book to cover my gaping mouth.
“Did you not sleep well?” Zander asks without taking his eyes off his game. We are sitting on the couch facing the TV. He is sitting forward and I’m leaning with my back against the armrest with my feet resting in his lap.
“No. I keep having that stupid dream.” I say as I stifle another yawn. Zander pauses his game and turns towards me, pla
cing his hand on my foot. My stomach titters happily at his touch, and everywhere he touches me feels electric.
“About the jail cell?” The thing that I like the most about Zander is how much attention he pays.
I mentioned that dream several days ago in passing but he still remembers it. He so rarely gives me anything less than his undivided attention.
“Mmhmm.” I mumble a response as I go back to perusing my book.
“I felt it this time.” He says quietly. His response is quiet, and he isn’t making eye contact as he says it. If I didn’t know better, I would almost think he was ashamed, or worried about my response for some reason.
“You felt what?” Still partially reading the book, I begin to feel like I’m missing something. He has never seemed embarrassed or ashamed about anything since I’ve met him, but he’s definitely acting odd now.
“Your dream. It woke me up.” This time he does look at me. Closely. He’s looking for something in my face, but I can’t imagine there is anything to see except confusion.
“Wait. You felt my dream? And it woke you up?” Surely, I’m mixing some of what he said and what I read because that doesn’t make any sense at all. But even as I come to that conclusion, I see Zander nodding his head. “Umm. Is that normal?”
Clearly, it isn’t normal for humans. However, he did sort of mention that we aren’t human. I tend to ignore that because I fear it is one of the pieces of information that might send me off the deep end, but it seems like maybe this is a product of being ‘other’.
“It’s not unusual. Nothing about our pairing has been normal though so it’s a little hard to determine what will be normal for us. I wasn’t expecting our abilities to progress this quickly with the limited contact we have had.” I cannot even fathom a response, so I just wait. Hoping he takes pity on me and tells me what I’m missing. He does.
“Remember when I told you that mated pairs develop abilities by being near each other? And that their abilities don’t reach full strength until the final mating ritual has been completed?” I nod my assent. “Well, this is one of those abilities that normally wouldn’t have developed until we were fully mated. The abilities of our people are meant to complement each other. You can’t develop abilities until you are mated because a mated pairs ability always work together.”