by Emilia Finn
“So Rob was into Ariana?”
“Rob likes to keep his sexual proclivities to himself, for the most part. Ariana was mine too. And beside her, there used to be a poster of Katy Perry, but then she and Taylor Swift had a falling out, and I didn’t much enjoy either of them after that. I don’t like girl fights and cattiness. So I peaced out of that threesome and went back to Britney.”
“Noble of you,” I drawl. “So you spent a lot of time alone in this room with your fantasy girlfriends?” I turn a slow circle in an effort to take everything in before we’re banished again. Trophies, workout gear, boxing gloves, and something else that kind of resembles a boxing bag, but smaller, and a little more rectangular. “You pleasured yourself a lot?”
Luke chokes at my brazen question. “Stop analyzing me. I told you to quit that shit forever ago.”
“But you give me so much reason to analyze you.”
“There once was this mom!” Casey shouts from downstairs. I guess our twenty seconds is up. “Who bought enough Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to supply an entire town for Halloween.”
“Mom!” Luke shouts back. “I’m trying to find something in my closet. Cool your crazy for a damn second.”
“But the weather was still warm, so when that mom tossed her bag of loot into the back seat and forgot about them while she worked, those poor suckers melted.”
“Mom!” Luke works faster and tosses things out of his closet in his rush. A football helmet crashes to the floor by my feet, and a second after that, a dirty pair of cleats I’m certain wouldn’t even come close to fitting him now.
“But that mom doesn’t waste chocolate. Ever!” Casey turns louder. Louder.
“Mom!”
“Sunshine!” Luke’s dad snaps. “Don’t you dare.”
“Where is it, where is it?” Luke’s smile is gone, and now he chants and frantically searches for whatever he’s searching for.
“So when that mom and dad got home from the gym, and their grown-ass sons were not at the house, Mom took that bag of chocolate to the kitchen to see what she could save.”
“Mom! Stop it.”
“Sunshine!”
“Tink!” Kit cackles with a belly-bouncing giggle that almost makes me smile.
Almost.
“So Mom and Dad were in the house, alllllll alone with a bunch of melted chocolate. And you know moms don’t waste such delicacies, so she started peeling those packages open, slowly, tenderly.”
“Mom!”
“Sunshine!”
“Tink.” Kit snort-laughs. “Stop!”
“The melted chocolate was all over her fingers. Naturally, she placed one finger in her mouth and licked that sugary delight off.”
“Oh god.” Luke starts gagging in his closet. Chest heaving, chin trembling, and arms shaking as he makes a colossal mess and throws things to the floor. “I’m gonna spew.”
“Luke, honey?” Casey’s voice is singsong and perfect. “Wanna know what happened next?”
“No! Found it.” He grabs a small gift bag from somewhere deep in his closet, lobs it so it slaps against my chest, and snags a black hoodie from one of the few remaining hangers. “Mom! I found it. Stop telling your fuckin’ story. Come on.” He scrambles out of the mess and grabs my hand.
Dragging me out of his room and closing the door as though to lock away the filth, his chest heaves from exertion, and his eyes close, like her words were a visual torment. “Mom! I hate you.”
“She got down on her knees—”
“Mom!” Luke tears me along the hall and to the very top of the stairs to find Casey standing exactly where we left her. “Jesus, I wasn’t going in there to have sex! Fuck.”
“I know you weren’t. Pretty hard to have sex when you’re thinking about your mother in such provocative ways.” Her eyes come to mine as she grins. “Not in my house, sweetpea.”
“You need help!” Luke drags me down the stairs and takes a wide berth around his mother. “You need psychiatric intervention.”
I bring my hand up and press a finger to the tip of my nose. “Not it.”
Kit bursts out laughing.
“I hate you all. I got what I came here for, and now I’m going home to pour bleach into my fucking ears.”
“You cuss a lot, baby.” Casey snags Luke’s arm as we try to pass on the way to the front door. “How would Grandma feel about that if she heard you?”
“Grandma would whoop my ass and feed me to the cats. But you’re not her, and you don’t scare me.”
“I don’t?”
“No! You gross me out.” Luke makes us stop at the front door, replaces his scowl with a kind smile, and leans in to press a kiss to Casey’s cheek. “I love you, Momma. Even when you annoy the shit out of me.”
“Funny.” She steps in and wraps her arms around his torso for a hug. “I’ve said the same thing about you and your brother since you were born. I love the crap out of you, even though you annoy me. Be safe tonight, okay?” She pulls away but keeps one hand on his arm for a moment longer. “Don’t get caught stealing.”
“We’re actually anti-stealing. We’re returning.”
“Don’t get caught doing that either. Get your ass in, then out, then go home and be a good boy.”
“No explosives,” Jon steps up behind his wife and grumbles. “Everyone will know it was you as soon as they see the scorch marks.”
“I don’t appreciate the slander that goes on in this town,” Luke grumbles. “It’s unfair, and ripe for a lawsuit.”
“It’s not slander if it’s true,” Kit inserts and smiles for me when I glance her way. “Have fun, do something crazy, but don’t leave evidence.”
“Um… okay.” I hug the small gift bag to my chest and try to remain standing under the stare of these three people. “It was nice to meet you all.”
“You’re Sonia’s family.” Casey steps forward and gently takes my hand. She squeezes, when I was certain she might try to punch me in the face. “That automatically gives you a step up from any other woman my son has tried to introduce us to.”
“Oh… uh… wow, okay. Thank you.”
“If you’re gonna come back around here with him, then you’ll learn to laugh, deflect, or toss it back. And if you can’t do one of those three, then your time here will be miserable. How all this works out is up to you, but I’d like to think, being Sonia’s blood, you’ll do just fine.”
“Mom,” Luke groans and takes my hand back. “You’re getting all sappy and shit.”
“Stop swearing.” She whips a hand out and smacks her son on the stomach. “Dammit, Luke. Have we taught you no better?”
“You taught us to cuss in context, and only when we mean it. Goodbye, Momma.” He places one more kiss on her cheek, then he moves to Kit. “KitKat. Keep her inside tonight. We don’t need her up in our business, stinking up a crime scene.”
“I’ve got her on lock,” Kit laughs. “We’ll do ice cream and peanut butter cups.”
“Ugh!” Luke looks to his father and murders him with a glare. “You disgust me.”
“Me? I didn’t do a damn thing.”
“No. He only had to stand there.” Casey smirks and slides under her husband’s arm. “And then lay there.”
“Filth!” Luke drags me out of the house and onto the front porch, and a minute after that, he bundles me into the truck, slides in on his side, and slams the door. “I swear to all that is good in this world, I didn’t need to know about the peanut butter cups.”
“She was just teasing.” I set the small gift bag on top of Luke’s bundled hoodie between us, and fix my seatbelt as he pulls out of the driveway and slows at the security gate. “My mom has played games like that too. It’s basically the world’s most effective cock-block, because they know you aren’t getting busy while you’re hearing that story.”
“Well, you ain’t wrong about the not getting busy, and the cock-blocking. But I assure you,” his eyes come to mine as the gate slides open, “the peanut
butter cups are real. Casey Hart does not lie about sugar. Which means there really was a sale on Reese’s, and then she really did forget them in the hot car. And because she doesn’t waste, she really did have to find something to do with a bunch of melted chocolate.” He bounces his shoulders and starts through the open gate. “My father really did just have to lay there. Ugh!”
He digs a hand into his pocket and yanks out his phone. Hitting dial, we wait only seconds before Rob’s voice enters the cab of the truck.
“Yeah?”
“Mom gave Dad a melted chocolate BJ, and I feel sick about it.”
“Ugh! Why would you tell me that?” Rob gags on his side of the line. Retching, breath catching, the synchronized sounds make me want to sympathy-spew. “Luke! You sick prick. Why would you call to tell me that?”
“Because I had to hear about it, and I can’t take that on my own. I can’t carry that kind of heavy all by myself!”
“So call someone else! Get a fucking dog, and tell him.”
“Rob! I need you—”
“Fuck off!”
The line goes dead, and Luke’s grimace turns to a smile. “I feel so much better now. You gonna open your present?”
“My…” My eyes snap down to the gift bag, then back to Luke. “Wait. Go back. You feel better now? You were dry-retching just a second ago, and now you’re smiling.”
“I offloaded it to Rob. He’s wherever he is now, with whoever, and he’s thinking about the story. He took it from me, and now I’m good to roll on our activities for the day. Where do you live?”
“What?”
“Live? Where are you staying while in town?”
“Um… at the hotel over near the hospital.”
“You’re staying at a hotel?” His gaze whips back over to me. “What?”
“What?”
“You’ll be here for months, right?”
“Right?”
“Months! In a hotel. Are you rich and forgot to tell me?”
“No.” I sit back and smile as he turns a corner and heads toward the hospital. “I don’t know if you know, but apart from Christmastime, and only then because of the fight tournament, this town’s hotels aren’t all that in-demand. I got a deal on my room, so long as I clean it myself. It’s a studio, with a washer and a dryer down the hall, so I strip the bed and do all my laundry once a week. There’s a vacuum in the closet, and a tiny stove in the kitchenette, so I buy meat and salad for dinner.”
“You’re living in a hotel!” he exclaims. “Does Sonia know?”
“Well… I don’t know. I never mentioned it, and she didn’t ask.”
“You know the hotel over by the hospital is mainly used by transients, right? Out-of-town people visiting family in the hospital. Medical staff who have been brought in for specialist care or whatever. Hospital staff who wanna fuck and can’t do it in the storeroom while on shift.”
“Aren’t all hotels, by design, for transients? They’re rooms and beds people pay to use for a night. It’s literally part of the mission statement for hotels worldwide.”
“It’s unsafe,” Luke growls. “People are allowed to wander in and out whenever they please. The security is shoddy, and now you’re telling me you do your own cleaning, which means they won’t even be sending staff in once a day to check on you.”
“No, but I’ll be in Sonia’s office every day. If I get shanked by a transient and don’t show up for work, I’m certain Sonia will get word out.”
“Not funny.”
Luke pulls up outside the five-story brick building with ‘Hotel’ painted on the side in blue and white paint, and studying the place with a jittery eye, he taps his fingers on his steering wheel. “I don’t like it. Anyone could get into your room while you sleep.”
“Uh, I don’t know if you’ve heard about this new-fangled technology – since you’re still daydreaming about Britney Spears – but nowadays, we have these things called locks and keys. The lock is to keep people out, and the key is this tiny piece of metal with its own special design. It releases the lock and allows entry to the bearer. I’m the only one with the key.”
“You, and the hotel staff, the hotel staff’s son, his friends, and anyone else who has stayed in that room and never gave the key back.”
“Wait. You’re seriously worried about this?”
“Yes! Hotels are notoriously unsafe for single women staying alone. Do you set the chair in front of the door, at least? Do you set up pots and pans, or drinking glasses, or a party popper, or something to alert you when the door opens?”
“Well… no. But I will tonight, I guess.”
“We’ll get you party poppers before I bring you back here,” he growls out. “Dammit, Ally. Why’d you have to make me care, huh? Grab the bag.”
“The bag?” I scramble out of my side of the truck when Luke goes his way. “What?”
“The gift bag.” He slams his door and leans against the hood. “Your gift. Bring it inside.”
“That’s not my gift! It’s not possible.”
“It is possible, and it is yours. I bought it myself.”
“It was buried beneath cleats and gear you haven’t touched in a decade. It’s not possible.”
“Get the fucking bag, Allyson! Let’s go. We have to get Chester back home, and I need to eat before my body starts eating itself.”
“I wish you’d eat yourself.” I lean back into the cab of the truck and snatch up the gift bag that is easily a couple years old. The color is faded, the plastic tab on top is wilted and yellowed.
Pressing the package to my chest, I close the truck door again and meet Luke at the front. “You can wait here while I run in and get dressed.”
He scoffs and throws his arm over my shoulders again. “You’re insane if you think I’m not following you in. I’ve been waiting weeks to see you in your panties. Most girls give this shit up within the hour.”
“Charming,” I drawl and head toward the front door. “I’m glad you’ve bedded so many women in your short adult life that you have a bar to which you can compare me to ‘most girls’. You sure know how to make my heart go pitter-patter.”
“First of all, I was bedding women long before I was an adult.” He looks down and grins with such smugness that I’m tempted to ball my fist and show him what it looks like to lose a fight for once. “And second, you outshine them all, Allyson. You’re classy and beautiful and have a spine of steel. You’re gutsy, and you’re a thief – what, with stealing Chester while drunk.”
“I’m not entirely convinced I had anything to do with that. I do not remember it, so…”
“Lucky that I planned ahead.” He takes out his phone again, swipes to the gallery app, and just a moment later, as we head through the hotel doors and straight toward the stairs, he hits play on a video that could end my career before it even begins.
My drunken giggles echo around the concrete stairwell. My squeals of delight, and then my snorting laughter.
“I’m riding the llama?” I groan and look away from the horrifying video. “Not only did I steal it, but I rode it while you pulled us along the street?”
“You were soooo drunk,” he chuckles. “Drunk-Ally is funny as fuck. Sober-Ally is a wannabe-therapist, way too serious for her own health.”
“Drunk-me is a criminal who deserves to lose her license to practice.”
“Good thing you don’t have the license, then.” He looks up when we stop at the second-floor doorway that will lead into the hall. “Which floor is yours?”
“This one.”
I push the security door open and lethargically lead us into the parquet hall that would have looked nice when it was new – seventy years ago. Paintings hang on the walls, but all are cheap prints. Long rugs line the middle of the hall, but the brown they are now, I suspect, isn’t the color they were when they were new. This hotel boasts around twenty-five rooms, so we only have to walk the hall for a moment before we stop at my door and I slide the key in.
Thanks to Luke, I now think about intruders and what would happen if someone let themselves in while I slept.
“You’ve officially creeped me out, by the way.” I step into my room, and drop my key into a little blue bowl just by the door.
“Well, you ain’t the first woman to say that to me. It could be considered a badge of honor, really.”
“No, it can’t.” I set the small gift on the table beside the blue bowl, and though my curiosity is beating at me to open it, I can’t, so I walk away and step out of my heels as I go. “And I meant because of room security. I wasn’t worried before, but now I can’t stop seeing some creep letting themselves in while I sleep. You’ve ruined this whole space for me.”
He follows me in and watches me with none of the sarcasm I’ve come to know, and none of the glee or teasing. Rather, he watches me with a general kindness that feels like a hug. “I didn’t mean to make you scared. I just worry, and soon, folks will notice you’re always here. They’ll notice you’re alone, and they’ll see which floor you’re on. You’re very beautiful, Ally. And you’re clearly not a local. You’re alone, and you wouldn’t know who to call if something was wrong.”
“I would call my mother.”
“She lives an hour away. What exactly do you think she could do to help you?”
I shrug and cross my room to the closet. I hung my clothes the day I moved in. My suits, my skirts. My jeans and tops for the weekends. “I would call the police.”
“Good step,” he murmurs. “They would help. But in your mind, that call to 9-1-1 wouldn’t feel personal or comforting. It would feel routine, and you’d still feel alone.”
“So what do you suggest, huh? I’m here till Christmas, unless we can’t return Chester unnoticed, in which case, problem solved. I’ll be gone tomorrow.”
He snorts. “We’ll get Chester home, don’t worry. This shit is a cakewalk for me. But also, I have a suggestion for you.”
He crosses to the desk beside where a modest flatscreen TV rests on the wall. Grabbing the hotel stationery, he writes numbers onto the notepad and tears the sheet away when he’s done. Walking to me, he waits for me to turn away from my closet, then takes my hand and places the paper on my palm.