Miss Demeanor

by Beth Rinyu

  “Looks like you’re going to be spending the night here, Miss Rose,” my father blurted out.

  “Wait, why?” she exclaimed, her voice laced with panic.

  “Tree down on the main road with power lines entangled in it.” Dane sounded like a robot, repeating the same thing for the third time since he’d arrived like he was reading from a script.

  “Oh…no. I have to check out of my hotel tomorrow morning. I have an eight a.m. flight home.” Rose pleaded her case like it was going to remove the tree any faster.

  “If I were you, I’d check your flight. They’re canceling them like crazy because of this storm,” Dane added, only making matters worse.

  “Oh, no!” Rose exclaimed, pulling out her phone from her purse and frantically punching something in.

  “Yeah, don’t you watch the weather? Where ya headed?”

  “New York.”

  “Oh…forget it, storm’s headed that way.”

  “No, no, no!” Rose shouted as she stared at her phone in a sheer panic. “My freakin’ flight’s been canceled.”

  “Told ya!” Dane remarked, shoving a forkful of cake in his mouth.

  “Shut up!” Rose and I both said in unison.

  “Rose, you can drive back with me. It’s fine.” I tried my hardest to calm her down.

  “Alex, tomorrow is Saturday. I have a huge meeting on Monday morning with Wellington Collectibles. They want to buy space for a big advertising campaign. I’ve got to be there. I was the one who set it up, and the woman who runs the company is very big on women empowerment, so she’ll only deal with women. I can’t screw this up for your uncle. He was so excited to have this company on board. Not to mention, the woman is like my idol. She took her tiny little company and built it from the ground up into the multimillion-dollar corporation it is today, and she’s only twenty-eight years old.”

  “Oh, I’ll give Henry a call if that’s what you’re worried about.” My father pulled out his phone.

  “Wait, Dad. If we leave early tomorrow morning, we’ll be back by Saturday night. What’s the big deal?”

  “Well, I just thought you were planning on spending more time here. I could just try and get a flight out on Sunday.”

  “Ha! Good luck with that. Even if you do get a flight out, chances are the airport you’re flying into will have canceled.” Dane just couldn’t keep quiet.

  “Are you trying to get on my nerves?” Rose snapped at him. “Because you’re doing a really good job of it!”

  My father and I exchanged an amused glance with each other.

  “Oh, Rose, honey, it’s fine. You spend the night here, and then you and Alex can drive home together tomorrow,” my mother chimed in.

  “But I feel awful for making Alex cut his time short.”

  I shook my head, not upset by it in the least. This was the perfect excuse to cut out. Just the fifteen minutes I had spent alone with my father badgering me about my love life was enough. I knew the rest of the weekend would have been filled with him getting on my case to move back here and take over the properties he managed. He was basically working two full-time jobs. One at the law firm, and the other maintaining the expansive riverfront property that had been in our family for generations and he refused to sell.

  “It’s really not a big deal.”

  “But what if I can’t get back at my hotel in time for checkout?”

  “Where are you staying?” my dad asked.

  “River Street Inn.”

  “Not a big deal. I’m good friends with the owner. I’ll give him a call. They won’t be giving you a hard time.”

  “Are you sure?” Rose still seemed hesitant.

  “Yes, ma’am. Now, Charlotte, go show this little lady where she’ll be sleeping, and, Rose, don’t you fret about it, everything will be better in the morning.”

  “Yeah, as long as they can clear that tree away.” Dane had to get in the final word.

  “I would say it was nice to have met you…but I won’t.” Rose smirked at Dane then followed my mother upstairs.

  _______________

  The storm had passed, and the sun was shining once again. We were finally able to get back to Rose’s hotel around noon. It was a little later than planned, but she seemed okay with it. In fact, she acted as if she didn’t want to leave my parents’ house. I wasn’t sure how late she’d stayed up with my mother watching old movies, but my mother was thrilled to find someone who shared the same love as her over the classics. She lingered over the full course breakfast my mother prepared, expressing quite a few times how she wished she had more time to hang out.

  “Ready?” she asked, stepping out on her balcony where I was waiting for her to shower and dress.

  I nodded and followed behind her. “You got everything?” I asked, giving her room a quick scan.

  “I think so.” She stuck her head in the bathroom and gave it the once-over. “Yup, I’m good.”

  I took her a little off guard when I took her bag from her hand.

  “I can carry that,” she protested ever so slightly.

  I ignored her feeble plea and stepped outside her room with the bag still in my hand.

  “I say we get some ice cream before we leave,” she suggested as we walked down the hall of the hotel.“But you were the one who was in such a hurry to get back.”

  “I know, but I really like this place, so…will you just please have some ice cream with me?”

  “Fine,” I replied, trying my hardest to figure her out as she walked up to the desk to check out.

  _______________

  After getting some ice cream and walking for some time along the river, we took a seat on a bench, neither one of us worrying that we had a twelve-plus-hour drive ahead of us. We just concentrated on the body of water in front of us with our biggest care being eating our ice cream before it melted away on that hot September day.

  Rose asked me questions about the cargo ships as they passed by. I answered them for her then gave her a brief history of the town of Savannah. The same stories my grandfather would tell me as a little boy. Rose listened eagerly, the same way I did when I heard all these tales for the very first time, bringing me right back to my childhood days when life was just simple. Sitting there with Rose on that lazy Saturday afternoon made me doubt my grandfather for the very first time—maybe he was wrong, maybe you could get that precious gem back. It may not be as bright and beautiful as it was during the innocence of a life yet lived, but it was a glimmer of hope that maybe parts of that unspoiled time before it was tainted by adulthood still existed.

  “I would definitely come back to this place,” Rose whispered, looking around and taking everything in.

  I gave her a few minutes to capture everything in her mind. “Are you ready to go?” I finally asked.

  She reluctantly nodded and stood up. I got up as well and grabbed her bag.

  “Alex?”

  “Yeah?”

  She stared up at me and took me off guard when her lips touched the side of my cheek. “Thank you.”“For what?” I asked once I finally got over my shock.

  “For meeting me here, even if you did think I was totally crazy with my idea. For inviting me to dinner and sharing your family with me last night. I really had a great time.”

  I didn’t get her one bit. The last thing I expected was for her to be thanking me for taking her to dinner at my parents’ house. Girls like her…or at least who I once thought she was, only liked going out to dinner at expensive restaurants, but she was no longer that same girl I once perceived her to be, and maybe she never was. I had judged her so harshly, I didn’t take the time to see the real her under the rich, spoiled girl persona. But the more I was with her, the more I was starting to see that was just a mask she hid behind, and underneath it, there was a down-to-earth girl who had a lifetime of love and compassion inside her heart. My mother never really liked any of the girls I’d brought around before, but for some reason she loved Rose, and if I was being completely
honest it wasn’t hard to see why.

  “It really wasn’t that big of a deal,” I muttered.

  “It was to me. There’s so much more I can say, but I’ll just leave it at that. I wouldn’t want to ruin the image of me to you.” She giggled.

  “Too late for that.”

  Her smile disappeared, and her eyes widened as she waited for me to elaborate.

  “But I won’t say any more either because then your image of me will be shattered too.”

  “Gotcha,” she whispered, drawing a deep breath and taking one last glimpse of the river.

  Chapter 30

  ___________________

  Rose

  AS MUCH AS I hated to admit it, that annoying police officer from last night may have been right. By the time we reached the D.C. area the storm that passed through last night was settled right on top of us. The rain was coming down in sheets with golf ball-sized hail falling from the sky. We had been driving for eight hours, with only a few stops in between. I knew Alex had to be exhausted and the weather elements were only making matters worse. I felt guilty for making him drive in this. If it weren’t for me he would’ve been still at his parents’ house and driving home in much more suitable weather conditions.

  “Alex, I think maybe we should just pull over. It’s really bad.”

  “This ain’t nothing.” He blew me off.

  I looked down at my seatbelt, making sure it was tightly fastened as he shot in the left lane, passing car after car. “Umm…this isn’t the Daytona five hundred, you know?”

  “People drive like idiots over just a little bit of rain.”

  “A little bit of rain? It’s like a monsoon out there.”

  “My case and point, you would be one of those people who’d be driving like an idiot.”

  “I beg to differ with you, but you’re the one who’s driving like an idiot right now,” I countered.

  A slew of brake lights faced us ahead, causing us to come to a complete stop on the interstate. “What the fuck? Ah, come on!” Alex banged on his steering wheel.

  After moving only about two miles in the next half hour Alex got off at the next exit. He pulled over, punched something into his GPS, and mumbled under his breath.

  “I have a suggestion. Why don’t we get something to eat and just stay overnight here and let the storm pass? It’s almost nine o’clock. You must be exhausted from all the driving, and by tomorrow morning this traffic mess and bad weather should be gone.”

  “It’s fine, I can take a different way, but my damn GPS isn’t cooperating!”

  “Alex, please. I’m hungry and you’re tired. It’s fine. As long as we make it back by Monday morning, I’m good.”

  He raked his hand through his hair and let out a defeated breath. We pulled back onto the road and drove a few miles until we came across a hotel.

  “Perfect! And there’s a restaurant in there too!” It was a welcoming sight to my grumbling stomach.

  We grabbed our bags, walked inside, and waited for the man behind the desk to end his phone call. “Yes, can I help you?” he greeted after hanging up the phone.

  “Oh, yeah we need a room,” I requested.

  “Two rooms,” Alex cut me off.

  “Really, Alex, why are we gonna waste money on two rooms when we can just get a room with two beds? It’s not like we’ve never slept together before.”

  The man behind the desk cleared his throat and covered his mouth to stifle his laughter.

  “Oh, no, nothing happened.” I didn’t know why I felt the need to explain myself to a complete stranger I’d probably never see again, but I did. “We actually did just sleep…you see, we were—”

  “One room is fine,” Alex chimed in to stop my incessant chattering. “With two beds.”

  “Okay, let’s see…” The man stared at his computer screen. “You’re in luck. Room two twenty-four with two beds”—he lifted his head from his monitor and smirked—“is ready and waiting.”

  “Perfect!” I pulled out my credit card, but Alex reached over me with his. “Alex, will you please let me get this? It’s my fault we’re even here in the first place.” My protest fell on deaf ears. Without another word we were checked in and on our way to our room.

  After dropping off our bags in our room, we headed back downstairs to the restaurant. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until my burger was placed in front of me.

  “Hungry?” Alex teased.

  I dabbed my mouth with my napkin, a little embarrassed over the way I was attacking my food. “Well, it’s not like we stopped to eat all day.”

  “That’s because someone was on a tight schedule,” he mocked.

  I stuck out my tongue at him and shoved one of my fries in his mouth. I talked nonstop to slow down with my eating. By the time we finished, my stomach was full, and I was more than certain Alex’s ears were bleeding from my chatter, but if they were, he didn’t show it. This weekend had turned into an unexpected, pleasant surprise. I may not have succeeded with the whole purpose of the trip with William’s daughter, but I did have a great time with Alex and his family.

  I never really felt like I belonged with my own family. My brothers were so much older than me. They had their own families, and my mother and father were just always too busy. It was clear Alex’s family had money, even though Alex never flaunted it. Yet, they still had time to be a family. His mother was so sweet and open. I couldn’t remember any time in my life having the deep heart-to-heart conversations I had with her with my own mother, and it saddened me in a way. When I was with them, I felt like I belonged, but I couldn’t deny it sounded kind of strange. After all, I had just met them, and it wasn’t like I had the greatest relationship with their son, but there was something about them that was comfortable and true.

  After dinner we sat at the bar and had a drink. I suggested calling it a night when Alex was nearly falling asleep in his beer. We headed back to the room, and I could tell Alex was feeling uncomfortable over our shared quarters. After taking a quick shower and nearly getting third degree burns from the hot water, I dried off and put on my pajamas. I ran my brush through my hair a few times and then walked out of the bathroom.

  “Hey, be careful with the hot—”

  I was frozen for a moment, unable to hold back my smile at Alex, sound asleep, sitting up in bed, shirtless with his back propped up against the pillow. How on earth did I find a man I had once so vehemently despised now so absolutely adorable? Inching closer, I picked up his phone that had fallen on the floor right by his bed and placed it on the nightstand. My eyes studied him as he slept. Gone was the uptight persona and the deep thoughts that always bogged him down. He seemed so at peace, so relaxed, so unlike the Alex I had come to know.

  Carefully taking a seat on his bed, I gently traced my finger along the scar underneath his eye. A wave of emotion overcame me, now knowing the history behind it. I was saddened and admired him at the same time. I had never been this close to him before. Close enough to hear each breath he took. Close enough to feel the warmth coming from his body. Close enough to smell the faint scent of his cologne that still lingered on him. I wasn’t sure what it was that had come over me in that moment, but I felt an overwhelming need to be closer to him.

  I lowered my head and grazed his lips with mine. His eyes peeled open. Dark green and full of emotion as they locked with mine. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I prepped for his rejection, knowing I had overstepped my boundaries. But oddly enough, I found myself wishing not that I could take back what I had just done, but that his feelings would mirror mine.

  The split second of silence was like eternity, and I knew this was my chance to back away and apologize for being so forward, but instead of listening to logic, I let emotion guide me once again, pressing my lips against his for the second time. He moved closer, took the sides of my face in his hands, and eagerly kissed me back. His hands worked through my hair as our lips continued to lock and our tongues meshed together in unison.


  We eased down on the bed, and he lifted my shirt over my head. The warmth of our bodies fused together when the skin of his broad, bare chest touched mine. I had never felt the irresistible want for any other guy I’d been with in the past as I did for him at that moment. It was all so odd to me, I didn’t even like him, or at least, I didn’t think I did…or maybe I liked him more than I was afraid to admit, even to myself.

  The want I was feeling intensified to need when his muscular arm wrapped around my body, pulling me closer to him. My breath hitched, and my stomach tingled when his tongue cascaded down my neck. I reached for the button on his pants and he paused. God, no, please, I will owe you big-time if you just allow for this to happen.

  “Rose,” he whispered, his voice low and hoarse, which was only adding to the inferno deep inside me. “I think—”

  I placed my finger over his lips to stop him from saying the words. I was afraid if he spoke them they might actually make sense to both of us. “Don’t think.” My lips found his once again, and when his hands moved up and down my body, he had answered my plea, removing my pajamas bottoms and panties with one quick pull. I arched my back when his lips trailed down my body, softly kissing my inner thigh. I closed my eyes while he awakened things inside of me I never knew existed, causing me to wonder how I had been missing out on this my entire adult life.

  I impatiently anticipated him inside of me while he hovered over me with an intense gaze that slowly turned to regret.

  “I, umm…don’t have...”

  “I have one.”

  His eyes widened.

  “A girl can never be too careful.” I pulled in my bottom lip and stared up at him. “But…” I was on the pill and the last thing I wanted to do was end our moment. The thought did cross my mind of just skipping the condom, but I knew he was way too responsible to allow that to happen. “Stay right there.”

  His smile made my stomach dance. I got up and quickly grabbed the little pouch inside my purse containing my personal items. I was lying beside him once again in a matter of seconds. Giving his pants a gentle tug, he helped me out and removed them. I handed him the packet and he stood up, wasting no time putting it on. Grabbing the back of my thighs, he pulled me to the edge of the bed, and a pleasurable gasp escaped me when I felt the fullness of him inside me. He stared down at me, gauging my reaction, his movements slow and gentle. Our lips clashed, and our bodies became entangled with each other, finding the perfect rhythm and moving together in unison. We picked up the pace until I almost reached my breaking point then slowed down once again. I sensed some enjoyment on his part over the pleasurable torture he was bestowing on me.