I agreed to mayhem, that’s what.
In the past five hours I’ve been here, I’ve determined the book world is crazy. So many talented people who write books and the amazing amount of people who read them. It might be a whole new world for me, but to these people, it’s their dome. Their utopia. And to them it’s a complete rush.
I watch authors who have their cliques, ones who’ve been in the industry for years, and ones who are just meeting for the first time. And it’s crazy how social media brings so many people together. Something I need to get on, it seems. I don’t do the whole Facebook thing because honestly, I don’t have a list of anyone I care to hear about when they poop or what they ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I hear enough of people’s life stories at work. I don’t need to read about it all day online.
Since sitting down, I’ve been approached by readers and authors asking if I was somebody. Every time the name Bailey Swan tried to fall off my lips, I choked. Instead, I’d said “no, just a friend of Vodka” and continued to sip on my drink. Apparently, I was a big fat chicken too and couldn’t tell anyone I was an author. I didn’t know any of these people, nor did I have an author buddie to latch onto. Kristen was MIA, so I chose to be a wallflower and not expose myself. Well, expose Bailey Swan. I told myself if I didn’t give myself up now, I still had a solid twenty more hours before the signing started, so I had that amount of time to back out and catch the next flight home. I’m sure my boss, Dex, who got stuck picking up my two weeks’ worth of shifts at the bar, would at least be happy to see me.
Once it hits one in the morning, I decide to give up and call it a night. I’m not going to out myself as an author to anyone down here, and the vodka isn’t pushing it either. I thought maybe I would just get drunk enough to start blurting out who I was, but the drunker I got, the more I hid inside my shell.
I stagger to the elevator, after stumbling past a screaming group of girls chasing a model, and then trip into my door. Using three credit cards, my license, and a Chipotle gift card, I finally use my actual room key and stumble inside.
“Hello, room! I’m Bailey Swan! Nice to meet you all. Would you like my autograph or to shun me? Who wants to go first?” I giggle, throwing my purse to the floor. It opens, and out pours my phone and a pile of change. I picked up a scheduled list of authors at the check-in booth and told myself I was going to spend my night online, setting up a Facebook account and learning who all the authors were. As much of a hermit that I’ve realized I’ve become, I do want to try and make some friends.
Of course, before friend making, a shit-ton of room service needs to be ordered.
“Hello, Ms. Swan, I hope your stay has been enjoyable. What can I help you with this evening?”
“Yes, Bailey Swan here.” I chuckle. “I want food. Can you still bring me food? Pizza? Can you make me a pizza? I like pizza.” God, I’m drunk.
“Yes, Miss Swan, room service is still serving.”
“Great!” I holler, like Tony the Tiger in heat, and jump on my bed. “Dude, you rock, thank you. Can you bring me two pizzas? Oh, and how long? If toppings take a long time, then no toppings. I’m cool with no cheese. Does dough take a long time to cook? Wait… Do you just have any old pizzas I can have?” Someone feed me right now.
“Miss Swan, room service should take about forty-five minutes. And my apologies, we are unable to serve old pizza.”
Boooo. Reminder to sober self: complain to Kristen about horrible choice of hotel.
“Okay, fine. But hurry. I haven’t eaten in eight days. I need pizza.” More like eight minutes, since I stole the bin of olives sitting on the bar and chowed them down on the elevator ride up.
I think she tells me goodbye, or I just hang up, because I drop the phone and spend the next five minutes jumping on the fluffiest bed ever, until I wear myself out, or slip in my case, and fall onto my back.
“Ahhhh…” I sigh to myself. I throw my hands over my head and they hang off the bed. “I can get used to this fancy author lifestyle.” Laughing to myself, I turn to lie on my stomach and without realizing how far down I am, I roll right off the bed.
Humph!
“Ouch,” I grunt, rubbing my poor head. “Okay, maybe not so much,” I grumble when I hear shuffling outside my door. My ears perk up instantly, and I sit up looking at the clock. “Wow, that was fast.” I crawl to my hands and knees and sloppily make my way to a standing position. “So, fine. It definitely pays to be Bailey Swan. Super-fast room service.” I stumble to the door, because no one waits for pizza, then whip it open. “Man, that was—Whoa!” I squeal as I’m pushed back into my room, another body coming with me, and the door shutting instantly.
“Hey! What are you doing? My pizza is out there!”
“What? Who… wait, who are you? What are you doing in my room?”
I take in the fuzzy male form in front of me. “Your room? This is my room! And you just got in the way of my pizza!” My hangry side is shining through and I need to get to my pizza. “Sorry, pal, you’re in my room. Now if you don’t mind, you need to leave because I have a pizza coming over and we would like our privacy.”
He regards me strangely, but then the banging on the door recaptures his attention.
“No, wait. Don’t open that. It’s not safe out there.”
I look at him now strangely. “And why not? Pizza doesn’t bite. I do. Now move.”
He jumps in front of me, putting his hands up. “Please, just wait. If you open that door they’ll attack. I’ve been running from them for the last twenty minutes. I just spent the last ten hidden in the stairwell.”
Now I’m really looking at him strangely. “And why? Did you steal something?”
“What? No. They want my picture, autograph, my babies. They’re insane!”
Seriously, what kind of event does Kristen run here? I continue to stare at him until it begins to make sense. “Oh, wait. I know you. I saw you running down the hallway earlier. From a flock of drooling women.”
He nods. “Yes, that was probably me.”
“Well, you run like a girl.”
His eyes widen, eyebrows up. “I do?”
I’m going to also leave out how on point his tight butt looked running in his fancy jeans. I shrug my shoulders. “Yes, now if you’ll excuse me, I really need to open that door.” I go to sidestep him, but he blocks me.
“I beg of you, please. Just let me hide here for a couple of minutes. I swore this was my room.” He looks down at his room key, then up at me. “What room number is this?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Well, it’s your room.”
Good point.
“I don’t know. Five-eleven I think? Maybe six-eleven. What floor are we on?”
He looks mildly confused. “My room is five-thirteen. I’m actually next door. Our rooms connect. I was trying to get into my room and must have mistakenly tried using my key in yours.”
He looks at me.
I look at him.
“Okay, well, good thing it’s not a far walk for you. If we just open that door you can literally hop to your room and I can grab my pizza. We both win.”
“I, it’s just that if we open that door, they’re going to attack. Most likely bombard your room. They’re probably already eating your pizza. They’re hungry. One tried to bite me.”
“They tried to bite you?”
“Yes, I’m telling you.”
Beyond my drunken haze, I do notice the distress on his face. I stare back at the door, trying to make peace with the pizza I’ll never get to eat, and I sigh. “Fine.”
I turn around and walk toward the bed. I open my arms and like an angel, I float—okay more like belly flop—onto the bed. One bounce and it takes me sliding off the damn side again, and back onto my back.
“Whoa, are you okay?” My temporary roommate runs to my rescue, bending down. A wave of his cologne smacks me in the nostrils and I’m not sure whether to love it or cry. “You smell like apples. Do you have any in your pocket?”
“What? No, sorry. I don’t have any food in my pockets. Can I help you up?”
I look at him while he kneels over me, sticking out his hand. His hand looks perfectly manicured compared to my missing nails that I may have chewed off on the flight here.
“Eh, no. I’m cool down here.”
“Oh, okay. Well, how about I sit down here with you? Keep you company until the mob disappears. Then I’ll leave you be and sneak into my own room.”
I shrug. Not that I care.
“So, what’s your name? I’m sorry I barged into your room and never told you mine.”
“It’s Kat—I mean Bailey, the name’s Bailey.”
“Hello, Bailey, I’m Charlie Bates.”
Okay, so you know what happens next. I bust out laughing.
“Bates? As in the motel? I love my mother, Bates?”
He shrugs, not expecting that reply. “Well, yes. I guess that too. I’m the featured model for the tour. Hence the mob. Did you not recognize me?”
I open one eye as wide as I can. I mean, he does have smooth skin. Perfect hair. Chiseled cheekbones my bird would probably beg to peck at. His green eyes stare into mine, waiting for an answer. One I don’t offer because I turn and barf on the floor.
“Seriously, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to get sick.” He apologizes, as I walk out of the bathroom after brushing my teeth.
“It’s fine. It’s not every day I barf. I have a lead stomach, so it must have been all the bouncing I did earlier.” Or the pound of olives. Yuck.
Charlie seems to be studying me, making sure I won’t barf again. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks for the billionth time. And for the billionth time I pinch myself, wishing this to be a bad dream. Not that I care that he’s a sexy model. I’m immune against all things pretty. But now I have even less in my stomach, and since the pizza is out, I’m going to have to live off the mini bar snacks until morning.
Since my room only has one bed, I’ve taken up residency at the head of the bed, while Charlie Bates, the model, sits toward the bottom as I take down a bag of ten-dollar M&Ms and he grabs a tube of Pringles.
“Okay, Bates, spill. What is it that you do? Just look pretty for those hungry wolves out there and take pictures?”
He laughs a sound that I strangely enjoy. I shake it off, because I’m immune, and wait for his response.
“No, that’s not all I do. I play small league hockey back home. This is just kind of an extra gig for me. It pays well, and the ladies seem to enjoy my look, so when I get offered jobs like this one, I take it.”
Hmmm, sounds fishy. “And what does one do on tours like this? Stay in shape by running the whole tour from his fans? I mean, you can’t be that special.”
He chokes on his chip. Covering his mouth to avoid any more chip splatter, he replies, “No, well, I didn’t say I was special. I guess with these things, women enjoy the models. The ones on the covers. The covers they escape to.”
“And what is it they are escaping from exactly, Bates?”
He looks at me. “Reality.”
I think I scare him when I bust out laughing. Like holding my stomach while kicking my legs out, almost karate kicking his Pringles out of his hand, laugh. “Reality? Are you kidding me?” More laughing. “Bates, you think your pretty looks help women escape reality? Don’t you mean deter them further from it? You…” I wave my finger around his frame. “You are the main reason women have such ridiculous expectations. Women search for you. Not the average guy, who is, in reality ninety-nine percent of this universe. You give women an image of how their men are supposed to look. Which is not real. You aren’t giving them an escape, you’re giving them false hope!”
His eyebrows crease. His shoulders stand straighter. “I certainly do not. I come here, and I interact with my fans. Express how thankful I am that they enjoy my face on their covers and storybooks. That’s not me creating a false reality.”
I sit up. And because I’m still semi drunk, I crawl over to him and sit on my feet, poking him in his hard chest. “This.” I continue to poke.
Over poke maybe.
Wow, he’s like solid.
Poke, poke.
“Okay, I get your point.”
Oops.
“All I’m getting at is this is not what men really look like.” I twirl my finger at his chest. “I bet you have what? A negative fat percentage, right?”
He looks like he’s thinking about it. I roll my eyes. “Never mind. How about this…” I take my hand and tug at his perfect thick head of chestnut brown hair. God, it’s like fucking silk. “Shit, what products do you use?”
He takes my hand, wrapping his large fingers around my tiny wrist, trying to dislodge my grip out of his heavenly locks. “Okay, I get it, can we not pull my hair out?”
“Oh, sorry, but again.” One last attempt, I grab at his chin, lifting his face up to expose his contacts. While looking for the outline, which sadly I don’t see, I catch him watching me. “What? And what kind of contacts do you wear? They’re good ones.”
“Bailey, I don’t wear contacts.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, feeling silly because his eyes, those don’t look real. Magical eyes are never real. I pause for a moment, searching his face. His perfect features, his straight white teeth, his nose, which may be a little too big for his face—I also may be making that up to fault him—and then back to his eyes that are still staring at me. Realizing I’m still holding on to his chin, and at some point, he manages to wrap his arm around my waist, I panic and let go. “You… people like you don’t exist in real life. And if you did, they don’t exist for people like me.” Did I say me? “I meant! I mean people in life. As a whole. Everyone.”
It’s obvious I’m now suddenly uncomfortable. I try and back away, but his hand is still on my waist, which I want to ignore, but it’s burning a neon sign into my skin that blinks “his touch is kind of amazing.”
“Why does someone like me not exist for you? You’re beautiful. I’m sure any man would be lucky to have you.”
And, bubble popped.
Exactly.
Red flag number one in the rule of broken love. False praises!
Letting out a huge scoff and rolling my eyes, I push his hand away and crawl back up to my side of the bed. “Nice try, Bates. I don’t fall for that fluffy bullshit. Save it for the drooling mob outside.” I lie back down on my pillow fort and grab for the remaining bag of candy. I have to admit, he almost got me. That sexy, model lure. I kind of get why women go bonkers over these guys. Because they are seriously flawless. This guy sitting on my bed, who has crumbled chips all over his lap, is like what girls dream about. What they masturbate at night over. Not me, but the ninety-nine percent of other women. I masturbate to Tito’s vodka and X-Files reruns.
Charlie Bates is just another reason why women are so love broken. I wonder what his poor girlfriend thinks when he’s out doing these. “So, what does the girlfriend think of your crazed fans? Does she mind all the heavy petting going on?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Okay, I embarrassingly choke on an M&M.
“Geez, are you okay?”
“Yes! Yes. Stay where you are. You’re not going to use your sneaky model ways on me. You say no girlfriend? I don’t believe it. What? Can’t be held down? Too much action to stay with one poor woman at a time?”
He looks at me, I think as if I’m kind of a bitch, which I am, but answers anyway. “It’s complicated, but no. I want to be with someone who wants to be with me for me. Not what I entail.”
I’m sitting there, my mouth open, and a chewed-up M&M falling out of it.
“Did I break you?”
What? Oh. “No. Pfft. No. But I need a better explanation, Bates. That doesn’t cut it.”
He settles more onto the bed so he’s completely facing me. “Well, as you said, I’m a name. My look sells. So does my prominent hockey career. I have a nice nest egg and for some, let’s say the reader world, I’m a household name to romance readers. Someone like you may want me just for that reason. May never care to get to know me for me. You might never care that I’m obsessed with the cooking channel or despise movies that have no plots. You just want to look pretty next to me.”
Full “O” face.
Open and jaw to the ground.
“Well, am I right?”
“Oh my God, you most certainly are not! I’m far from a fame chaser. And I don’t… you don’t. You do nothing for me. Sorry. Not even a little twitch of excitement.” Oh God, why do I sound so unsure of myself? “Listen, Bates, I get it. You want to be loved for what’s on the inside. We all do. I get it. And what’s on the outside isn’t what a girl needs. Whatever…” I stop talking because for some odd reason, he begins crawling up the bed.
“Dude, what are you doing?”
He makes it way too far into my personal territory, and I’m trying to tell myself that’s not his minty breath I smell and feel on my nose.
“I’m just testing out your theory. You say I’m not your type. So I just want to see if you are truly immune.” He leans forward as my eyes threaten to fall out of their sockets, they’re so wide.
Is he going to seriously kiss me? Holy shit! This hot dude in my room, covered in Pringles crumbs and muscle, is going to kiss me.
God, he smells good.
I hate Pringles.
His eyes are like fucking orbs trying to suck out my soul.
Maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
“I have a feeling that if I kiss you right now, Bailey, you would not only let me, but you would find extreme enjoyment in it.”
Aaannnd nope.
Red flag number two. Cockiness, man! No girl likes a cocky guy.
I lift my arms and push at his seriously steel chest, and he goes flying backward. Possibly a little farther than I expected because he summersaults off the end of the bed. As I hear the loud thump, I panic and jump to the end.
“Holy shit, are you okay?” I watch him grip his head. “Seriously, so sorry. I didn’t expect you to pull some tumbling act right off. Are you hurt?”
Rubbing at his wounds, he shakes his head and sits up. I try and reach for him, but he doesn’t accept my hand. “Okay, She-Man, I get it. Immune.”
I don’t say anything else. He gets up and brushes the crumbs off his pants, when we both hear the knock on the door.
“Room service,” the voice calls from the other side of the door.
Charlie walks over and looks through the peep hole.
“So, unless they’re lined up alongside the wall, it looks to be clear.”
I get up off the bed. I brush off my dignity and try fixing my wild head of hair, then walk over to meet him by the door.
“So hey, sorry about—”
He cuts me off by grabbing my face with both hands and kisses me. Not just a light, thanks for the hospitality kiss, but an all-out rough kiss. I stand frozen, completely caught off guard, until something inside me takes over. My sellout side gives in and I sigh, leaning into his grip. Just as I open my mouth to participate, he pulls away. Releasing my face, he opens the door to the googly-eyed hotel staff.
“Ahh, you must be the pizza. Good thing you came just in time. She is really hungry. She was about to maul me.”
I’m… I’m… I’m not working properly. I look at him, trying to speak. Maybe yell. Slap him? Offer him some pizza? I have no idea. But he doesn’t stick around to find out. He turns to the staff and gives her a wink to die for. Like literally, that damn staff employee practically leans into my pizza plate, as he walks the two feet to his room, uses his key, and disappears inside.
Fuck him.
Fuck broken love.