CHAPTER ELEVEN
Well, wasn’t this just fucking depressing?
Back in my hotel room after spending one of the hottest nights ever with one of the hottest men on the planet, and now all I wanted to do was scarf down a greasy pizza and watch Suits because if I didn’t distract myself I was going to go fucking nuts. Except that would require venturing back out into the cold, and I wasn’t sure my testicles had dropped back down after the last time.
Oh, and I had no money.
Instead, I took a hot shower and listened to the sound of the pipes knocking in the walls. It didn’t give me a great sense of confidence in the quality of the construction of this place, but to be honest, I was just surprised the pipes weren’t completely frozen.
When I was done, I flopped down onto the bed with the brown bedspread and stared out the window past the brown curtains. Everything was white and beige and brown, and not for the first time since I’d arrived in Sawyer’s Ferry, I missed New York.
I couldn’t wait to get back and forget this whole trip had ever happened. Well, most of the trip.
I was in serious need of a pick-me-up. I picked up my phone and texted Frankie.
Do you think my king-size bed will fit in your room?
A moment later my phone rang.
“You’re not bringing any of your shit into my cousin’s house.”
“Afraid it won’t coordinate with that unicorn head you hung on your wall?” The pink head had been mounted prominently in the center of his living room wall like a hunter would display a deer, just with a lot more glitter. I knew he’d moved out of his place, but that thing was his most prized possession. No way it wasn’t in his room at Gia’s.
“Don’t insult Priscilla. I don’t come to your house and trash-talk your shitty décor.”
“Because my décor is tasteful.”
Frankie scoffed and I could see him, hand against his chest, his face the very picture of shock. “How dare you. If my style is so tacky, maybe you’d be more comfortable finding someone else to stay with.”
“Aw, come on. You know I love you.”
“I’d know it a lot better if you took me out dancing at Heaven.”
“Probably not in the budget anymore after this, unfortunately.”
“Aww, babe. Sorry your life is taking such a mortifyingly horrific nosedive.”
I laughed. “You sure know how to cheer a guy up, huh?”
“You’ll be all right,” Frankie assured him. “Your dad is an ass, and it’ll be good for you to get out from under his umbrella of dickishness anyway.”
“You’re not wrong, but it woulda been nice to get outta that umbrella with my trust fund intact.”
“Yeah, you are a helluva lot less attractive now that you’re poor.”
“Fuck you, Frankie.”
I could hear him laughing, and I knew he had his head thrown back. No one thought Frankie was more hilarious than Frankie did.
“I gotta run. Your dad is on a rampage today.”
“Does he know I’m coming home?”
“Nope. Thought I’d leave the honor of informing him to you.”
“Gee, thanks a million.”
“I do what I can. Talk to you later, sugarplum.”
I hung up the phone and tossed it down next to me. I was trying to look at the bright side of this. I was young. Ish. I had most of my career left ahead of me. This was only a setback—albeit a major one—though it was better it had happened now and not years down the road. Forging a new path was going to be a challenge, but it was one I could certainly handle.
That was something I’d need to deal with soon, but for now, for the next few hours anyway, I could try to put it out of my mind and get some rest.
Just as I was contemplating how much I regretted this hotel wasn’t sketchy enough to have a bed with “magic fingers,” my phone rang again.
“Just can’t get enough of me, huh? When are you just going to admit you’re crazy obsessed in love with me and get it outta the way?”
“I got bad news and I got worse news,” Frankie said, the humor almost missing entirely from his voice.
“Shit. Who died?”
“Your will to live after I tell you that your flight tomorrow was canceled.”
“What? Why?”
“The blizzard. It hit Ketchikan worse than you. Just got the alert now.”
“You can’t be serious. Alaska isn’t prepared for heavy snowfall?”
“It’s not the snow, it’s the wind. No flights in or out,” Frankie said.
“So that’s the bad news… what’s the worse news?” Dread knotted itself in my chest.
“You’re stuck there for three more days.”
Shit. I’d only been here three days. I didn’t know if I was going to survive another three.
“What the hell am I going to do for three more fucking days in this place?”
“I dunno. Go out? Meet people? Socialize and eat your way through the menu of whatever shitty bar they have in that place?”
“You want me to leave this room? I don’t think so. I’ll freeze to death in seconds. It’ll be like that scene from The Day After Tomorrow where that guy freezes to death in seconds.”
“I think you’re being a tad dramatic.”
“This coming from the guy who threw his cat a quinceañera.”
“She turned fifteen. How else are you supposed to celebrate a milestone like that?”
“You’re the least Mexican guy I know,” I pointed out.
“I’m not sure what you’re implying.”
I shook my head. “Never mind.”
“Go outside and walk around. It’ll do you some good not to be trapped in that hotel room for the next seventy-two hours.”
“I can walk, but there will be no eating. Broke, remember? And oh, God, how am I gonna pay for this shitty hotel room?” The tension knotted tighter. “What are the chances Philip’s gonna let me off the hook for the last hundred grand of my debt repayment?”
“About zero. But that’s not your problem right now. All you need to worry about is not freezing to death in the next three days, and in the meantime, check your account. I looked over your original contract and you’re entitled to a severance. I had HR put it through. The hotel is already paid up. You should be good for a little while.”
I exhaled, suddenly feeling a huge wave of relief. “You’re an angel.”
“Don’t I know it?”
I hung up once again and walked over to peer out the small window. It was white. Just white. Everything was completely covered, and it was still snowing. Ugh. No, thank you.
I closed the curtains and flopped back on the bed, turning on the TV and settling in to watch the marathon of Hitchcock movies playing on TCM. Hopefully the Chinese food place the guy had mentioned when I’d checked in delivered, or I was going to be raiding the vending machine for my dinner. Something told me the last time that thing had been stocked was sometime around 1982.
Didn’t matter. I wasn’t fucking leaving this hotel until I had to.
I needed to get the fuck out of this hotel.
I’d been there, locked in a room smaller than my walk-in closet at home, for twenty-four hours. It was like the confined area made time bend, turning a day into a goddamn decade. I’d played so much Swapperoo that my thumbs had cramped, and as devastatingly handsome as Cary Grant was, he could only hold my interest for so long.
So even if it meant my obituary would include the phrase “he just wanted a burger but froze to death in seconds like that guy from that Jake Gyllenhaal movie,” I stepped into my boots, pulled my hat down over my ears, pulled my coat tight around me, and headed outside.
The snow was piled up high enough in some areas that I’d literally be balls-deep, so I stuck to the places that had already been hit by the snow plow, which left me with limited options… not that there had been all that many options to begin with.
I waddled across the street and onto the sidewalk on the opposite side, careful not to fall on my ass on the ice. None of the shops and businesses looked interesting enough to venture into until I happened across a diner two blocks over. It was opposite Whisky J’s, tucked in between a hardware store and an accounting office.
With plain brick, a wide window, and a blue awning mostly covered in snow, the Starlight Diner was nothing special from the outside, but I hadn’t eaten since the breakfast I’d made for Gage the morning before. I would have killed to get at a burger, so I pulled the door open and stepped inside.
It was mostly empty, save for a few occupied tables. The walls were one giant mural; an enormous sun with food floating through space, stars and planets, and a couple of astronauts completed the look. It was bright and bold and honestly a little overwhelming after the bleakness of eternal white outside, but it also felt warm and welcoming, so I walked in and grabbed a booth at the side.
It didn’t take long before the waiter came by, offering up two specials I couldn’t decide between. In the end, I settled on the blue-cheese bacon burger and coffee. Lots of coffee.
After one cup I already felt better. Staying holed up in a hotel room, cut off from the rest of humanity, wasn’t normal. Being out in the world with people was so much better, even if I’d had to brave the elements to get there.
I sat back in the booth and glanced around, trying not to look like a total weirdo as I people watched. Most of the patrons were boring, and hardly anyone was speaking loudly enough to eavesdrop on, but there was a girl in the booth behind me and as I peered over the back of the seat, I could see her notebooks spread out across the table.
“What are you working on?”
“Studying for an exam,” she said, her bright eyes meeting mine. I could feel the stress coming off her.
“Biology?”
She nodded. “AP. It’s brutally hard.”
I’d been there. I remembered with sweaty-palmed clarity how I’d felt before every single exam I’d taken at Hillcroft. “You want some help?”