I worked through the day, half in a daze. By the time my shift had finished, I’d decided there was no way I was going back to my apartment. Trent would know where it was, and the last thing I needed at that moment was to risk running into him again.

So once my shift was over, I moved to the staff room and called for Laura, who must have also finished her shift. Sure enough, minutes after my call, she walked into the room. I jumped a little, still worked up from that day Trent had walked in here with absolutely no warning. I did not need a repeat of that.

I didn’t need to see Trent, period. There was no way I could face him.

“Hey there, Jessi,” Laura said, practically skipping into the room.

I frowned at her. “Hey, Laura. You’re in a good mood today.”

She sighed then plopped down on the couch beside me. Her legs stretched out as she laid her arms on the back of the couch, head tilted back with a smile on her lips as she closed her eyes.

“Well, I woke up this morning feeling wonderful, and it’s just been the same through the day. I caught sight of Mason around earlier, but there were no parties today! That’s enough for me to want to have my own party.”

I watched her with a skeptical eyebrow arched, one she didn’t see because she was busy giggling to herself. I pursed my lips, feeling a little annoyed that she was this happy when it felt like my world was crumbling around me. That wasn’t fair, so I kept my bad mood to myself.

She seemed to sense it anyway, a small frown appearing on her face as she peered at me out the corner of her eyes.

“Why are you so quiet?” she wondered.

I rolled my eyes and then laughed. “Maybe because not all of us had sunshine and rainbows through the whole day? We were drinking together last night; how did you not wake up with a hangover like me?”

She blinked. “Well, what happened was this. I had a bit of water before I left, and the taxi let me off a block away from my place.”

Immediately, I sat up, eyes wide with worry. “Did something happen?”

Laura giggled again, waving a hand at me. “Don’t worry so much, silly. I can look after myself, don’t you know. But I did stop by somewhere to have a bite to eat, just some pasta with some really good sauce. Then I had more water, and I walked the rest of the way back to my apartment in the chilly night air. I was pretty much sobered up by the time I got home.”

I sighed, slumping back into my side of the couch. “Then I guess I should have gone with you last night. It would have been the best-case scenario for me.”

So much better than what did happen. Well, maybe not better, but it would have been the best thing to happen. Not that I could regret what happened between Trent and me completely. I just needed to avoid him now and act like nothing had happened in the first place.

“Did something happen?” Laura asked, sitting up suddenly now and frowning at me. “I wanted to talk to you this morning, see how you were, but I was running a bit late for my shift, and I didn’t have the time to come see you all day. Was your hangover this morning really bad?”

I grimaced. “You have no idea, Laura. It was terrible.” Even if it wasn’t necessarily the hangover, but waking up somewhere unexpected, and having thoughts that were more like dreams that would never come true, no matter how much I wished. “I’m not drinking wine for some time after last night.”

“Did you replace the wine bottles already?”

I nodded. I’d found some time in the middle of the day to make an order for the exact same bottles to be brought in. They’d cost just as much as I’d feared, an extra cost added on top of the delivery. At least it was one less thing for me to worry about, and anyway, I saved most of my salary since my parents didn’t need it. Most of my costs were only food and a few clothes and shoes a month, so there was a nice cushion in my bank account.

“Yeah, I don’t think anybody noticed they were missing anyway. We don’t break out the wine for that many occasions, do we?”

Laura tilted her head slightly to the side. “Then why is there so much of it just lying around?”

I shrugged. “Wine doesn’t have an expiration date, remember? No one’s gonna care how long it’s lying around. Most of the bottles in storage I’ve never even tasted in all the time I’ve been working here.”

“Me either,” she admitted. She’d already been at the hotel when I was transferred, so she’d been there longer than me. “Oh! You called me down for something. Did you want to do something else again tonight?”

I slowly nodded. “Actually, yeah. Nothing to do with alcohol,” I said quickly. “Dealing with a hangover is annoying, it’s also why I rarely drink at all. But I was thinking, I could maybe come over to your place tonight for a sleepover? I’ll cook,” I added.

Her eyes lit up at that last bit. “If you’ll cook for me, I don’t mind taking you home with me. You’d be the most useful thing I ever dragged back to my house.”

“Uh-huh,” I muttered, giving her a wide-eyed look, full of teasing censure. “Just how many guys do you drag to your home then, huh?”

She giggled. “I don’t drag them, they come willingly. And I’ve been too busy with work to bring anyone home anyway, so don’t be so freaked out, I was just kidding. Do you want to stop by your apartment and get something to wear for tomorrow?”

I shrugged. “There’s not much I need. I can just get back early and go change before my shift, so it’s not like it matters.”

“What if someone sees you? And they think you’re doing the whole walk of shame thing, coming home after a one-night stand.”

I winced at her words because that was exactly what had happened to me this morning. Only it wasn’t such a trip from Trent’s room to mine, and I was lucky that it was so early in the morning because I didn’t run into anybody. I wasn’t going to be repeating it anyway. I just wasn’t that kind of girl.

“Can we not talk about that?” I grumbled, getting up from the seat and grabbing her arm to drag her up to me. “Let’s head out now. We don’t want to be too late.”

“It’s still early, though!”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “It’s already dark out, it’s just earlier than when you’d left last night. But I thought getting a walk in might be good. We can walk a bit before taking a taxi.”

“Or, we could just walk all the way to my place?”

I winced at that idea. She lived several blocks away and the hotel was big enough to take up two or so blocks. There was no way I would survive a walk that long. Walking from the hotel to the mansion was so much shorter, and it was still quite a walk.

“Let’s just find a taxi on the street. If we don’t see one, we’ll call for one.”

Laura laughed at me, and she went to quickly change out of her uniform. Once she was in her street clothes, we headed out through the staff exit, then headed for the street. Laura must have noticed I wasn’t acting quite like myself, but she was nice enough not to say anything about it.

We weren’t walking for five minutes when a taxi stopped at the curb beside us, the driver honking the horn to catch our attention. Laura teased about walking some more, but I grabbed her hand and dragged her inside with me. She gave the address, and when he dropped us off, I handed him the cash.

“Have you ever been to my place, anyway?” she asked as we made our way up the stairs. Her apartment building was old and didn’t have a working elevator.

“Um… I think there was this one time last year? After a staff party, when you were drunk and I brought you back. I ended up staying, but I left before you woke up the next morning.”

“Oh,” she said, glancing at me over her shoulder and nodding. “I forgot about that. I wondered how I got back in the morning. Thanks for that.”

“No problem,” I muttered.

We made it to her place, and she unlocked the door to let us in. Her place was even smaller than mine, an open living room and kitchen in the front room, a further door that led to the bathroom and a bedroom.

“You could have gone to your parents, you know,” she said, taking off her coat and tossing it and her purse to the single seat.

I sighed. “I don’t want to bother my parents. I just need to be away for tonight. From the hotel. If you don’t mind?”

She shot me a curious look. “Did something happen that I should know about?”

I hesitated, then shook my head. She probably noticed there was something, but she was nice enough just to nod and head for the kitchen area, waving at me to follow. She wouldn’t make me talk about something if I didn’t broach the subject myself.

Once again, I was hit by how good a friend Laura was to have around. If I left the hotel, I would miss her.

We spent some time cooking. There weren’t many ingredients to work with, but I’d learned to do more than just bake in the kitchen, and I managed to make something nice for us to eat. The room was too small for a dining table, so we sat on the couch and used the coffee table, and Laura turned on the TV.

“Do you think you can wake me up early so we can go together?” she asked.

I nodded. “Sure, no problem.”

She hummed, then faced the TV again. I could barely pay attention to what was on, some melodrama that Laura had mentioned before but one I didn’t care about. After eating then cleaning up, and the show ending, Laura went to her room to sleep. She left a pillow and some blankets for me, and we both went to sleep. Or I tried to.

I couldn’t fall asleep immediately and spent a long time just lying with my eyes open in the dark.

Trent… I didn’t want to face him today or any other day. I’d spent the whole day with that fear, and it had grown. I’d started working just fine, but my form had gradually gotten worse until I was so tense, the slightest thing would make me jump. It was a wonder I hadn't accidentally sabotaged my work.

My fear wasn’t of Trent, per se. What I was particularly afraid of was being humiliated again by the same guy who’d killed my self-esteem as a teenager. I didn’t want history to repeat itself and going by past actions I knew Trent was going to be a complete ass about the whole thing. I couldn’t trust my thoughts from last night. We’d both been lost in the moment.

What bothered me was that pill. I was still ashamed and guilty of taking it, and I didn’t know why I felt like that. The woman at the pharmacy had said it herself: a lot of women took the morning after pill. But even if Trent couldn’t be nice to me, I couldn’t face him knowing there was a possibility he could have had a child, and I could have carried it, but my decision pretty much killed that. Literally.

Mom would be so ashamed of me, wouldn’t she?

The thought was accompanied by fear. The only solution was to never tell her about it because I didn’t want her to be disappointed in me.

But all of it… it became so real for me after I decided to take that pill. I knew Trent could have any woman he wanted. Unlike him, I didn’t treat sex as a game. I’d waited for a long time because it meant something to me, and I wanted to give myself to someone special. It wasn’t for the sake of any religious beliefs, but because the only man I’d ever wanted was Trent, despite how he’d always treated me.

Now, I’d done it. But because of it, I could never get near him again, and it made my chest ache.

I didn’t think I could fall asleep, but at some point, I must have drifted off. Even as I slept, it was fitful. Trent showed up in my dreams and I’d keep waking up from them drenched in sweat, my body squirming on the couch, either from lust or fear.

By the time it hit the morning hours, I’d barely rested. I turned on Laura’s TV, deciding against trying for more sleep. There was some black and white movie playing, and I left it on. Not that I paid attention to it at all.

“I’ll have to leave,” I muttered to myself. “Definitely.”

A couple of hours later, I woke Laura and we got ready to head back to the hotel. She was delaying, so I went ahead. I hurried to the hotel, then to my room to get dressed. I pulled on the most official clothes I had—a blouse and a skirt with a coat pulled over it.

I went to the manager’s office for probably the second time since I got hired. He looked up at me, surprised, and I thought he’d only just walked in. It was a bit early, but it didn’t matter.

“What can I do for you, today?” he asked, probably recognizing me from the kitchens since he patrolled around the place sometimes. “Is there a problem I can help you with? Is it something to do with the kitchen? It’s usually the head chef that comes to me with complaints…”

“It’s nothing like that,” I said quickly, reassuring him.

“Oh,” he sighed, looking relieved. “Good, because with the new guy in upper management, I’d have to take any complaints up to him. What did you want to see me about?”

I clasped my fingers in front of me, twisting them together in a moment of indecision. I thought about how I could barely sleep last night and firmed my resolve.

“I wanted to ask for a transfer to another location,” I said. “How soon would that be possible?”

I knew I’d surprised him, but I was more determined in my decision. Just thinking of running into Trent made my heart want to leap out of my chest and run away.

This was the only hope I had if I wanted to get out of this thing between us with some pride left.