Chapter 9

As soon as I start to wake up, I immediately know I’ve overslept. For one, I feel refreshed and happy, and that’s not normal. Usually I’m groggily hitting snooze for the third time, wishing I didn’t have to wake up so damn early in the morning. But as my eyes flutter open, the hotel room is bright and sunny and I remember that I forgot to set my alarm last night.

Oh well, I’m perfectly fine with that. This convention is just for fun and it’s not like I’m late meeting with a real client or anything. I stay still in bed, wondering if I can hear Alexa breathing next to me. While I fell asleep snuggled against her hair, my arm around her stomach, we must have drifted apart during the night because now I’m facing the wall instead of her.

Last night was amazing. I know she felt the same way, too. At least I hope so. I hope this whole waking up next to each other thing won’t sully the night for her. I don’t want her to think I’m some man slut, because that’s so far from the truth. When you meet someone you have such a great connection with, I don’t think slutty thoughts enter your mind. Clearly, Alexa and I had something special last night. It wasn’t just a hookup.

I lie still for a while but I can’t hear her breathing. I don’t hear anything at all. Slowly, I roll over, expecting to see her asleep. Or maybe she’s awake too and she’s looking at me waiting for me to wake up.

But she’s gone. The other side of this bed is totally empty, only a slight mussed up comforter to let me know anyone was ever here in the first place. I look around the small room and don’t see her. Maybe she’s in the shower.

But when I sit up and peer around the corner, the bathroom door is wide open and the light is off.

“Alexa?” I call out, as if she’s somehow hiding in this small room. As if there is anywhere else she could possibly be that I can’t see from my vantage point.

Of course there is no answer.

My chest aches. She obviously woke up early and went back to her room. Why didn’t she wake me up? Maybe she had an early panel she wanted to attend and didn’t want to wake me. Maybe this isn’t a bad thing like it looks.

I glance around the small room, looking for a note she might have left me. But the hotel stationary is still sitting untouched on the little table by the window. I notice her laptop is gone, too, along with any trace that she was here last night or that she might be coming back.

Damn.

All kinds of bad thoughts enter into my mind, and as much as I want to shove them away, I can’t. Here I was thinking Alexa was my freaking soul mate, a perfect girl, the kind of girl you bring home to mom, and now she’s gone without a note. Am I overthinking this? Does she just expect me to find her down in the convention room and continue where we left off?

If that’s the case, then why didn’t she wake me up or leave a note?

I grab my phone off the nightstand and check it, but of course there are no new messages. Alexa and I never exchanged phone numbers last night. There wasn’t a reason to call each other when we were already together. I’m kicking myself now. If only I’d had the foresight to get her number before she was gone. Maybe I could text her and things would be okay.

Still, there’s a weird vibe in the room. My heart is hiding from what my brain knows to be true. Alexa has left and she doesn’t want to be found.

I feel totally used.

As I relive the events of last night, I start to wonder if maybe I just experienced them all wrong. I’d thought she and I really hit it off, and were having a blast. I’d started thinking about committing to visit her on the weekends no matter how far apart we lived from each other. I’d started picturing our future together.

But … that’s not what she wanted.

The way she grabbed me and pulled me into her hotel room was pretty clear. She was drunk and wanting to fool around. She didn’t want to know me deeper. She didn’t want to see me again. She just wanted to have some fun.

I sit on the edge of the bed and hold my head in my hands. I can’t believe a hot woman used me like a piece of meat and I’m sitting here feeling shitty about it. I’m a guy. I’m supposed to be all stoked about it, bragging to my friends and shit. But I just feel awful for having let myself get caught up in this woman who didn’t want me the way I wanted her.

It takes a huge dose of willpower to drag myself off the bed and into the shower. I try to think about my schedule today and the business objectives I came here to work on. I only allow thoughts of work in my brain instead of thoughts of her, but it doesn’t work well. I get dressed and text my cousins, who say they’re already downstairs in the convention room. For once in my life, they are the responsible ones waiting on me, instead of the other way around.

Oh well. Screw it. I can’t be on top of my life all of the time.

I drop my phone and bend down to pick it up. That’s when I catch the one trace of Alexa that she mistakenly left behind. It’s laminated and shiny and it’s the one clue that may lead me to where I can find her again.

Her Texas shaped nametag.