by Amy Matayo
He gives a single nod and pats me on the shoulder, then takes a step back. In response, my heart lurches forward. He’s leaving. He’s leaving and I’m an idiot for caring.
“Suit yourself,” he says. “I’m going to make a quick stop at the bathroom, find what I can, and then I’m out of here.” With a lingering look at me, he turns to walk away, leaving me gazing after him like a child who lost a shiny new toy on Christmas morning that she barely got to play with.
Not that I want to play with him. Because I don’t.
The embarrassment that thought conjures up doesn’t have a chance to materialize thanks to the man who sits down in the chair next to me. He’s older, a couple decades older than me if I were to guess. Salt and pepper lines his temples and sideburns, but only a light scattering of it. In a black suit and pale pink tie, he looks respectable enough. A businessman away for the week, perhaps. Wife and kids at home, two aging dogs and an abandoned swing set in the back yard.
I’m a visual girl. Point out a random person, and I’ll make up their back story and entire future in two minutes flat. It’s the creative side of me, the side that can’t be helped.
With a push of a button, the man’s massage chair comes on, the faint hum of the motor filling the space around me.
“You’re Rory Gray, aren’t you?”
My nerves stand on alert. I don’t like being recognized. It’s the worst part of the job.
I look over at eyes that smile at me in a way-too-familiar way. They aren’t exactly friendly. They’re half closed and filled with expectation. I’ve seen this look before. I’ve never once liked it. I feel sorry for the man’s wife…the one I’m not even sure he has.
“I am.” I nod.
He doesn’t respond, just gives me an intense perusal that travels the length of me and suspends on a particularly embarrassing part of my anatomy. I feel my face grow warm. You’d think I would be used to this by now, but you would be wrong. I’m not sure any woman could ever grow comfortable with being publically ogled, especially when they’re wearing street clothes. When I’m working, I can handle almost anything. Expect it, even. But when I’m private, I like to remain that way.
“Did you have a question?” I ask.
“I can’t believe I just sat down next to Rory Gray.” Well there he is. Talking. And still staring. But not asking a question.
I’m growing increasingly uncomfortable but try not to show it. “It doesn’t seem fair that you know my name and I don’t know yours,” I say. “Should I start guessing?”
He doesn’t respond, just connects with my face as his smile tilts to the side, too lazy to make a full half-moon. So I begin.
“Larry?”
His lip falls a bit.
“Jim?”
His eyebrows scrunch together.
“Owen?
He rolls his eyes, clearly not amused with my little game. Then again, I’m not exactly enjoying his either. Except I keep playing.
“Jeff who has a wife at home that probably wouldn’t like you talking to me?”
“My name isn’t important. Nor is my marital status.” He sniffs, then settles his gaze on me again. This time, he makes no attempt to be charming. “What are you doing after this?” In a move bolder than any I’ve seen before, he reaches out to swirl his index finger in a figure eight across my knee. It’s all I can do not to flinch. “Because if you don’t have anything else to do…?”
My temper flares. “I can do you?” I ask. I’m not normally this blatant, but then again it’s been awhile since I’ve been hit on in such a pathetically obvious way and I’ve forgotten how to handle it. My composure is gone. My heart explodes. My hands shake.
I’m a model. I’m not a hooker. Surprise, surprise. I actually have high standards and strong feelings. Why do so many assume otherwise? Why does everyone judge on appearance?
“Well, I wouldn’t have put it that way, but if you’re not doing anything else…”
And now to top it all off, my eyes begin to sting.
I never, ever cry.
It’s this outward display of vulnerability that makes me really angry. I might be a model who sometimes poses in her skivvies for all of America to see, but my job is respectable. My job pays well.
My job doesn’t mean I deserve this.
“Get your hand off my knee.”
When he ignores me, when his hand slides up my thigh, I blink in stunned shock. But when another hand shoots out and pulls the guy out of the recliner and into the wall, I scream and jump out of my own chair. My phone falls to the floor as a few people gasp and a kid cries from somewhere I can’t see. The empty chair hums and vibrates. It isn’t until all this happens that I remember to look over at the person attacking the jerk who hit on me.
Colt.
Turns out he hasn’t left after all. And he’s ticked off.
So am I. A tear slides down my cheek. Some people yell when they’re angry. It used to be my reaction, too. But for the first time in six years, four months, eighteen days, and seven hours…
I cry.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Colt demands, his voice booming through the room. No one dares to move. His kind of anger doesn’t need to be challenged, it needs to be unleashed in a fury and allowed to cool, though I don’t see the latter happening anytime soon. “What did you say to her?”
The guy scrambles to stand up straight, his smug look swiftly replaced with an awareness that Colt’s anger is intensifying.
“I was just asking her on a date,” he says, his gaze flicking to me to verify the story.
I don’t, and instead look at him like he’s insane for looking at me like I’d claim otherwise. Colt doesn’t miss the exchange and grabs the guy by the collar, giving him another rough shove away from me. If Colt notices the still gaping faces of everyone around us, he doesn’t stop to acknowledge them. Then again, I don’t think they’d like anything he’d have to offer considering his adrenaline is flaring high enough to scare even a superhero.
I, on the other hand, practically melt into a puddle of hormones and gratefulness and teenage-girl crushes.
I like everything I see. I’ve turned into a cliché. A damsel in distress rescued by a tough talking prince. For the first time in my life, I find myself enjoying a sappy fairytale. So much so, all I can do is blink and stare while my heart beats so fast that I actually feel like singing.
When Colt speaks again, I honestly contemplate it.
“If I see you so much as turn your head and look at this beautiful lady one more time, I will personally kick you and your skinny little a—” Before he finishes the sentence the man is out the door, leaving me staring into the open hallway too numb and stupid to think anything but this one thing: beautiful lady?
Though I’ve heard the term a hundred times before, it’s never sounded quite as good as it sounds coming from the lips of Colt Ross. From him, it’s somehow genuine. He isn’t the typical man who compliments me to get a better photo or hits on me with the hope of taking me home. Colt doesn’t frighten me or care what I think. When Colt says beautiful, he means it.
It’s the reason I stand here, smiling like an idiot.
“Are you okay?” He turns me to face him, both hands gripping my shoulders as he gives me the once-over. And that’s when I know. I know that five minutes ago I was prepared to let him walk out of this room without me. Now he’s stuck with me whether he wants to be or not.
It’s all I can do not to reach for his hand in a show of solidarity. Or possessiveness, whichever.
“I’m fine. I’m used to dealing with jerks like him, though no one has ever been so overtly crude before. But I’m okay, especially now.” That stupid smile won’t go away, even when I try to force it.
Either he doesn’t see it or it isn’t as obvious as I think, because just like that, his hand falls away and he takes a step back. “If you’re sure. Okay, well I’m going to go then. I can’t take another second of this place.” And just like that he
turns. Walks toward the door. Opens it. And walks out.
On me.
Without me.
What is he doing?
It takes me a long moment to get myself to move. But then I’m speed walking for the door, banging my way out of it and jerking backward when my backpack gets stuck on the door knob.
“Wait,” I blurt a little too loudly, twist around, give a yank or three, and finally make it outside. “Where are you going?”
Colt makes a half turn and studies me over his shoulder. “I’m leaving. I hate VIP rooms in ways you can’t even imagine. Not interested in staying another minute. But have fun.” He gives me a shrug as if it hasn’t occurred to him I might want to come along with him. Something about the gesture sets off my nerves, and the temper I’ve managed to bury a whole ten minutes comes rushing back like a woman escaping the grave with mere seconds to spare.
“You’re going to leave me then?”
I hear his sigh from six feet away. “I think your exact words were, ‘Feel free to leave if you want to, but I’m staying here.’ Figured I’d take you up on it. So I’ll see you later, I guess.”
Before I have a chance to object, he’s walking down the corridor, a slap in my face without actual contact. My skin stings anyway as if the blow was a real one. Embarrassment. Anger. Shock. Irritation. All flow through me in the time it takes to take a breath, along with the sensation that none of those things will bring him back. All, however, will keep me from finding him if he disappears somewhere in the throng of bodies hanging out in this airport.
So without thought or time to question whether I’m doing the right thing, I grab my bag that now holds a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a travel size men’s deodorant Colt managed to pilfer from the bathroom, and search for him.
I spot him twenty yards ahead of me and take off running.
Chapter 6
Colt
“Rationalize it however you want, girl. It’s still called stealing.”
“It is not!” Rory gives another indignant sigh. Another slap on my arm. I’m actually beginning to enjoy these smacks; a good thing since she’s been doling them out at regular intervals for the past hour. “Obviously no one wanted them, and they were sitting there all alone.”
“They were sitting there on a counter. It doesn’t matter that a clerk wasn’t there to take your money, you can’t just grab something and walk out with it.”
“I needed mints and it was an open package! Besides, you’re the one who said I had bad breath. We’ll go back when the store opens and I’ll give them the…” I try not to smile at the cute way she turns the tube upside down to look for the price. “…dollar nineteen it costs, so get off my back about it.”
I rather like being on her back. Or at least the idea of it.
“Fair enough. But from now on, no steal—”
“I didn’t steal them.”
I smile this time, because we’re right back at the beginning. Except with Rory Gray, I’m not exactly sure if it’s all the way back to our hostile introductions or if we’re a few yards past the bullhorn blast and sprinting away from the starting line. She’s a girl of many contradictions—that much is sure. She’s independent but hates to be alone. Tough but clutches onto that backpack like it’s a box of buried treasure or a security blanket she can’t bear to part with. Sharp-tongued but swift with an apology. And slow as hell when it comes to walking, but quick to catch up when she thinks I might disappear.
I’ve got to admit, there wasn’t much better than hearing the sound of her rushed footsteps approaching from behind me after I made my dramatic exit from the VIP room. I didn’t really want to leave her behind, but desperate times call for desperate measures and all that poetry crap, if that’s even poetry at all. I’m more of a suspense fan when it comes to books, but not much of a fan at all considering I don’t like to read much.
I knew it was her before I turned around, partly because I could hear the obnoxious swish slap swish of her backpack, but also because I was purposely walking slow and straight down the middle of the aisle to keep myself noticeable on the off-chance she might actually try to locate me.
She did. Score one for me.
“So what do you want to do now?” she asks in a tentative voice that could quite possibly become my undoing before the end of the day. Despite the innocence in her tone, at that moment about twelve completely inappropriate responses shoot like darts through my brain and try to land in my mouth—none of which I have any business saying. But hey, when a girl asks a guy that question, you can bet your life savings he’s thinking the same thing as me.
I swallow the suggestive comebacks and answer.
“Well, our choices are limited. But they seem to fall somewhere in the category of either racing each other up and down the escalator, seeing who can ride the elevator the fastest to the top floor, or making suicides at the soda fountain.”
“Suicides?” Her eyebrows push together, and she looks worried.
I can’t believe she doesn’t know this. “You grab a glass and fill it up with all the soda flavors in the fountain. So essentially you’re drinking a mix of orangecherrygrapecolalemonade and it tastes like crap. Makes you want to kill yourself right after the caffeine crash.”
I expect this gorgeous supermodel to make a face. Give me a drawn out explanation of how disgusting the idea sounds. Recite a lecture on how terrible carbonation is for your skin and body and metabolism.
What I get is a grin this side of wicked.
Time for suicides.
* * *
“I changed my mind. You actually expect me to drink this?”
The overwhelming enthusiasm she had for my suggestion died minutes ago. She stares into her glass without saying a word, then up at me with big doe eyes, then back into the orange-brown liquid that honestly resembles an infected urine sample. Gross. Unappealing. She hasn’t touched any of it, not one sip. Not that I blame her.
“Yes. Drink up, babe,” I say. “If I remember right, your actual words were I’ve got to try this! So…down the hatch. Bottoms up. Drain it, don’t strain it.”
She gives me a quizzical look with that last stupid line. I admit, I pulled it out of nowhere. “I really wish you would quit reminding me of the things I say. From now on, try to remember that I rarely mean any of it.”
“I’ll remember that later. Now drink up.”
If I expect an argument, I don’t get one. She raises an eyebrow—slow and calculating in a silent challenge—and tips her glass. Gradually it empties…gulp after long gulp…until nothing is left but a filmy sheen of leftover orange syrup. She’s so deliberate I almost expect her to lick the inside of the glass. With a grin that slowly tilts upward, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand in a move that has sexy written all over it. It stops me momentarily. All thought, reaction, and snappy comebacks leave in a rush of tripping pulses and rapid heartbeats and rushing blood. But only mine; she’s as cool and collected as she’s been since the second we met.
“Make me another and I’ll drink it, too.” She sets the glass on the counter and looks up at me, ready and waiting. A small drop of soda rests on her upper lip, orange and sweet and sticky and inviting. It’s all I can do not to brush it off. With my tongue. My lip twitches, but I force my mind on something else. After all, I have a no-more-women policy to stick to. It’s only been a few freaking hours, and I can’t find my self-control anywhere. With a desperation that can only be described as pitiful, I gather up the few broken pieces lying around my feet and fumble them into my hands.
“How about we go for a walk instead? Count all the poorly decorated Christmas trees in this joint, maybe.” I say, trying to sound like my little lapse in judgment hasn’t just happened.
“Seriously,” she says. “I’m convinced all the workers in this airport hate Christmas.”
“Clearly. Though I’m not a big fan of it either.”
“You’re not?” She says this like I’ve declared a boycott on faith and God a
nd all things church. I haven’t, I’m just not real fond of holiday commercialism.
“Calm down. I like God fine, I’m just not a fan of Santa Claus.”
“Someone’s getting coal in his stocking this year.”
“Someone’s getting nothing at all, seeing as we’ll probably be stuck here through Christmas and the New Year from the looks of things.” On cue, thunder rumbles overhead as the rain picks up. She frowns and stomps a foot. It’s cute.
“You’re right, what if we’re here through Christmas?”
She looks so worried that I scramble for something to say to lighten her mood. “Then we’ll have to steal bigger things than mints and have our own little gifts exchange right here in the airport.”
“Really?” Her face brightens so much I can’t help but laugh.
“You know, for someone so successful, you’re quite the little kleptomaniac.”
She bumps into me with her hip. “What can I say? I like gifts, even cheap drug store ones. Hey, maybe we can find an escalator somewhere and race like you suggested.”
I eye her backpack. It’s hanging around her hips like it weighs more than her. “As if you could win with that sad contraption holding you up.”
“Baby, you have no idea what I can do with this thing.” She bats her eyelashes and smiles.
I try an awkward laugh. But again, my pulse hammers. Again, everything aches. Again, I’m a weak, pathetic mess. Again, I tell myself: no more women!
That last line sounds all wrong, even in my head.
We step out of the soda shop and turn toward the main walkway—me with a paper cup filled with Dr. Pepper, her with a backpack that bumps into things and falls lower and increasingly seems more trouble than it’s worth. I want to ask her why it matters so much but figure the question is better left unasked for now. I stick with something safer.
“So where are you from?”
She readjusts her ball cap. “Depends on the time of year. Right now, Seattle. It’s where I grew up. But I have an apartment in Los Angeles that I’m supposed to stop by tonight, and I spend a few weeks every year in New York.”