Macy leans into me a little as I push the button for our floor.
“What button’d you push?” She says drowsily. It’s been a long day. From her apartment doorstep to now, I’d count about eight hours. Pretty tough on someone who almost drowned a day ago.
“Top floor, of course.” I slip an arm around her shoulders.
Now this is the part where I usually kick it into high gear. Remember what I told you about my dates? Create an experience for the girl, casually knock her socks off with displays of thoughtfulness paired with conspicuous consumption.
But tonight, I’ve just got a really nice hotel room. I don’t even have a plan. I have a small-town, hell, no-town girl in the big city, the old country mouse story, and I don’t have a wooing agenda.
The elevator arrives at the top floor, and I guide Macy and the bouncing dogs down the hall. The dogs know the way—they’ve already become accustomed to the lifestyle of suite living.
I take the key and let us in.
“Wow.” Macy takes in the floor to ceiling window views of Seattle. Everything sparkles.
“Appropriate word choice. This is the ‘extreme wow’ suite.”
She’s over by the wet bar. “Look! Come look at this!”
I stroll over to her. She’s freaking out over food and water bowls with placemats for the dogs.
“That is so cool. Look Justin and Pierre, you’ve got your own placemats!”
“You better go check out the bedroom.” I smile.
“What?”
“Just go look.”
She walks in as fast as her sore body can carry her. “Aww, they each have their own bed! And there’s a treat on the little doggie pillow!”
“Turndown treat.” I walk in the bedroom and stuff my hands in my pockets. I’m afraid if I see Macy—see the big fluffy bed, think the thoughts I’ve been thinking about her since I realized I’d be alone in a hotel room with her—well, let’s just say that hands in my pockets means hands to myself. Macy needs me to be the knight in shining armor, not some horn dog.
“This is beautiful. Damn.” She stands there, turns a full circle, taking in the room and the view.
“That’s one for the swear jar. I like the W hotel in Barcelona the best, but this one is cool.”
She sits down on the bed. “Mr. King. I’m suitably impressed. You don’t have to keep dropping the ‘I’m good at everything’ hints.”
“Long, bad habit.” I sit on the bed next to her. “Can I be honest with you?”
“You say you always are.” She’s sitting awfully close to me.
“I think it’s pretty important to me that people are impressed by me.”
“Huh. That’s honest of you. What do you think makes you feel like that?”
I take a deep breath, try to think about that. Jeremy King doesn’t do introspection. Self-reflection doesn’t win deals. “It feels good. I like to feel good at things. I’m good at things. I want people to know it.”
That’s all I’ve got. Navel-gazing moment over.
She ponders this, purses her lips. “Seems fair. So. There’s only one bed.” She looks at me and licks her bottom lip. I think nervously. I don’t think she’s trying to be hot. She is hot, smokingly so, but I don’t see seduction in her eyes. I see worry.
“No, there’s a spacious sofa out in the living room. That’s mine.” I sound nonchalant. I’m proud, because that’s the most lying I’ve done to Macy. It kills me, kills me to not sleep in the bed with her.
Her eyes lighten, the crinkles around them relax. “Oh, okay. Not that you couldn’t sleep here, too, but I’m so sore, and…”
“The point is for you to heal. Me tossing and turning won’t help.” Look at me, being all man in the white hat.
She points out at the Seattle night. “What should we do? We should go out.”
I shake my head. “I’m pretty beat. This was a big day. Dr. Kirkland wants you to stay in town ‘til Sunday. Tomorrow night we can go out. Deal?”
She looks relieved. “Deal.” She puts her hand out for a shake.
I lean in and kiss her on the cheek instead. “How about room service?”
“Let’s order a ton of stuff. Do you mind?” She gets up and walks into the living room.
“Of course not. I like to take two bites off of everything. We can even drink tiny stupidly overpriced bottles of liquor out of the minibar.” I go to it and open it up.
Her face falls. “No can do. Antibiotics, remember?”
I have an Andy déjà vu moment. I can’t drink with anybody, I swear. Maybe someone’s trying to send me a message. “No worries. It’s a dry weekend. No point in ruining your liver when we just saved the rest of you, right?” I pull a smartwater for both of us out of the fridge instead.
We spend the evening ordering room service, feeding the dogs tiny bites of pepperoni pizza and pulled pork for dancing on their hind legs, and cleaning up Justin Trudeau’s puke in the bathroom (too much pulled pork for him, apparently).
Then it’s close to eleven, and Macy’s done for. We’re sitting on her bed, watching TV. She tries to keep her eyes open, but her chin dips and her mouth goes slack.
“Macy.” I reach out and touch her cheek.
Her head pops up, and her eyes are wide. “I’m awake.”
“Get under the covers.” I stand up and lift the creamy duvet. She slides under, and her eyes are drooping already.
“’Night.” She’s out. The dogs snore from their beds at the foot of the bed.
I pace.
I stare out the window.
I do suck it up and go through my work e-mail. It’s all bullshit stuff. I forward most of it to junior agents, offloading all the politicking and maneuvering.
I pace some more.
I consider taking a shower and taking care of my needs. I ditch this idea. I think “my needs” will only get worse if I deliberate on what I want to do to Macy. Oh, what I could do to her.
Except when I cruise past the bedroom door (open) and look in on her (light on, per her request), I don’t want to jump her bones. Shocking, I know.
I want to hold her. I want to kiss her. I want to keep her with me, next to me.
I want to love her.
Then I go in the other room and consider slamming my hand in the minibar door for fun.
I’m fucked.
At some point, I decide to have a drink out of the minibar in hopes of relaxing enough to get to bed, and I find the local paper.
I strip down to my t-shirt and boxers and pull an extra blanket and pillow from the closet. I crash on the couch and fall asleep reading about Seattle traffic and the Seahawks.
I should have known. I wake in the cold of the early morning, dissatisfied and aching. I have had the most tantalizing dream about Macy. Intimate, scorching hot, and teeth-grindingly frustrating.
I lie there for a minute when a blood curdling scream rips through the room.
“Macy!” I can’t even conjure what would cause such a shriek. I cover the distance to her bed in three panicked galloping strides.
She sits up, her body pulled in tightly, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her eyes are wide open, and she cries, howls.
“Macy!” She doesn’t respond. She looks right through me. At something that terrifies her.
I sit there. I reach out to touch her arm, and my touch sets off a new round of cries.
“It’s okay, Macy. It’s okay.” I sit close to her. I don’t know what to do. The light’s already on.
She cries and whimpers and stays pulled into that tight little curled position for about ten more minutes.
I’m about to get on the phone and call Dr. Joe again when her eyes close. She slowly releases herself, stretches her legs out and eases down under the covers.
“Macy?” I say her name one more time.
“Please.” She puts a hand out of the nest of covers.
I take it, and she pulls me close to her, with a strength I’m surprised by.
“Macy, it’s okay.”
“Please.” She has her head on my chest, and her arms are looped around mine. My body shields hers.
From what, I don’t know. I wish I knew.
The next morning, I wake up feeling like I stayed out all night tying one on. My head pounds, and my tongue is cotton.
And there are dogs on top of me. The little brown eyes of crazy dog number one peer over the top of the duvet.
I’m still in my t-shirt and boxers. However, the girl who had woven herself next to me is nowhere in the pile of covers and pillows.
I hear the shower.
I have to go get dressed now, because if she comes into this room in a towel, and she’s wet, and she smells good, I’m going to die of a coronary.
I go into the other room to pull on my jeans.
“Morning!” Macy’s behind me.
I turn to look at her. She has clothes on, thank God. Her hair’s loose, and wet, and yes, she does smell positively edible.
Help me.
“Good morning. How are you?” I wait to hear how poorly she slept, the terrible nightmare she had.
“I’m great. I feel nine hundred times better. I don’t know if it’s the meds or just the night in a nice bed. I feel so much better.”
I try to puzzle this one out. “You don’t remember anything? No bad dream?”
She crinkles her brow, thinking. “No. Is that why you were in bed with me this morning? Must’ve been a night terror.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve had them since I was a kid. Used to scare the daylights out of my mom. Eyes wide open, howling like a banshee. I never remember a thing.”
“Your mom? Where’s she now?” I’ve never heard her mention family at all.
“Gone.” She walks right past me and picks up my laptop. That talk of family was short. She continues, ignoring any more talk on the subject. “I have some ideas about what we’re gonna do today. I took the liberty of Googling a bunch of stuff while you were asleep.”
“And?” I tuck my t-shirt in and wonder if I’m going to get a chance to brush my teeth.
“First stop is the original Starbucks. And I found an awesome place to sip our coffees. You have five minutes to get ready.”
I’m usually the ring master, but she looks excited. I hustle, get ready in the bathroom, and grab a coat.
We walk a block to the light rail, and I drag Macy on, even though she insists she’s fine. The dogs have stayed behind with their favorite Seattle dog babysitter (the treats might have something to do with their enthusiasm).
We stand in a ridiculous line (my opinion) to grab a coffee at the original Starbucks, and Macy pulls out her phone.
“Now we’ll take our coffees and go drink them somewhere cool.” She pulls me along back the way we came, hops on the Link again, headed back toward the hotel.
“Where is this cool place?” I fight the urge to take the reins. She’s lost. We’re headed nowhere.
“Just wait. It’s gonna be cool. I asked the concierge about it before you got up, too, so it’s not just me and Google that thinks so.”
We walk a short block in the opposite direction of the hotel, past the gleaming steel and glass public library, which Macy takes several pictures of as we walk.
We cross the street, and she walks up to the front doors of a grey stone modern office building.
“What?” I feel a little unsettled. I’m the one who does the surprising.
“Trust me.” She takes my hand and pulls me in through the revolving doors.
We get on the elevator, and she presses the button for the seventh floor.
“Okay.” I stand next to her, but I’m concentrating mostly on the way it feels to have her hand on mine. I think about her lips on mine, her hips against mine…
And then she coughs. It’s two, quick coughs, but there’s that rattle again.
And my mind’s back on the business of keeping her well, keeping her safe.
We get off the elevator. She looks like a kid with a great secret. “Just wait. This is so cool.”
“You haven’t been here, how do you know?”
“Don’t be a crank. Nobody likes the stick in the mud.”
“Fine.”
She pulls me through another set of chrome and glass doors.
And yeah, she’s right. It’s pretty cool.
So apparently Macy from Teton County, Idaho, has discovered the rooftop park hidden in the middle of downtown Seattle. And it’s gorgeous. She hands me my coffee and walks over to the railing. The sun is out, and the water and the waterfront is laid out in front of us.
“There’s the Space Needle! We’re going there later today. After dinner.”
I laugh. “Are you at least going to let me pick a spot for dinner?”
“Do you want to?” She doesn’t look like she wants me to.
“There’s a great place I know, and it’s a short walk from the hotel.”
“Fine.” She takes a sip from her coffee and looks out over the view.
I kiss her on the cheek again. “Don’t sulk.”
She turns and kisses me full-on, on the lips, for the briefest possible moment, before pulling away and facing out to the view again. “I’m not.” I taste mint and feel sparks down to the base of my spine.
Then she smiles the slyest, crookedest grin I’ve seen. I haven’t seen her smile like that.
And I grin back.
We go back to the hotel for a while after that, and then I’m swept along to Purple Café and Wine Bar for lunch.
She is a cruise director on steroids. On antibiotics and anti-inflammatories, to be exact.
After we eat, she strolls along, satiated and proud. “That was amazing. I was going to have us have drinks there before dinner, but since I can’t drink, I thought lunch would work.”
“I thought I was going to play tour guide. You need to slow down, sister.”
“Let’s go look in fancy shops and pretend we can afford something.”
“I can afford something. What do you want?”
She frowns. “I don’t know. Nothing. That takes the sport out of it.”
“I could get you a little something. You don’t want anything?”
“Not like that. If a guy buys me something, all I’m going to think of right now is how many months of rent it could have paid for instead. When I’m successful, then buy me something.”
“I tried to buy you a car part. You turned me down flat.”
She pokes me on the arm. “You’re missing the point. I don’t want stuff from you. I don’t want your charity.” Now her face clouds over.
“It’s not charity. It’s a gift. People give those to people who they care about.”
“Huh. Whatever.”
“So are we going to go look in fancy shops or no?”
“No. Let’s go watch them throw fish at Pike Place instead.”
We finish the tourist stuff and ride the Link back to get ready for an early dinner. Macy wants to go see the Space Needle when it’s dark out, so I humor her with old man dinner reservations for five-thirty. Who this woman has turned me into, I don’t know.
In the hotel room, I finally get to take a hot shower. I shave, and it feels great to be clean.
I come out into the living room.
Macy’s on the couch in tears. My brain seizes up. What could’ve transpired in the twenty minutes it took me to get cleaned up?
“What is it?” I sit next to her, put a hand on her back.
“I’m terrible.” She turns into my shoulder, pulls me to her.
“I think you’re pretty un-terrible. What happened?”
She sits back and picks up her purse, a little backpack thing she’s been wearing all day. She reaches into the front pocket and fishes out my watch.
My watch.
“I’ve carried it all day. You didn’t notice it was gone. I was gonna blame it on the maids if you missed it before we left tomorrow. I took it.” She presses her lips together
and takes a huge breath in, suppressing more tears.
“What?”
“I stole it. I wasn’t gonna give it back, either. I stole it.”
I look into her blue-green eyes, rimmed red and streaked with runny mascara. “Why give it back, then?”
“I listened to you in the shower, and I thought about you saving me. And how it feels when I wake up, and you’re next to me.”
“Why’d you take it? What do you need money for?” I think back to Troy, the cigarette-flicking thug outside her apartment. “There was a guy yesterday morning, outside the apartment, didn’t look like a friend. Is it about that?”
She shakes her head, her blonde-brown curls falling out of her messy ponytail around her shoulders. “No, it’s not. Sure, it’s an ungodly amount of money. I really could buy a new car with it. But really? I just take stuff. I have for as long as I can remember. Mrs. Reber in first grade caught me taking the snacks out of other kids’ lunches. I don’t know. I get this feeling. It’s like if I was a smoker, and I wanted a cigarette. I think it’s like that. I don’t know.”
She closes her eyes and drops her chin to her chest. I can see tears landing in plops on her sweats.
“Well, this time you gave it back. Have you ever done that before?” I’m reaching here. This feels like something serious, something dark, and I don’t know how to approach it.
To be honest, in the past, if I came up against a flaw in a woman, she’d be gone. Or I’d be gone. I don’t have time for weakness. I don’t like messes. I definitely don’t date messes.
She looks up at me and kisses me on the mouth, puts her hands on either side of my face, pulls me to her.
Then she gets up and goes into the bedroom. I can hear her crying.
I follow. “What are you doing?”
“Packing. I’ll get a cab. I might need to borrow money to get back home, but I swear to God I’ll pay you back. I don’t know what Troy told you about me, but the money I owe him, I’ve been saving up to pay it back to him. That’s why I had to get an advance from Richard for the starter for my car. I couldn’t spend that other money—it has to go to Troy.”
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