Chapter Eleven
Bethany
I watched TV for a while after Ransom left the hotel room, and then started feeling restless. I had no idea what my classmates had thought of me showing up with a date--not really, anyway--and now I was going to be spending a few nights alone in a hotel room with someone I barely knew. Was I out of my mind?
I decided that the best way to deal with my agitated mind was to get a shower. I’d cleaned up before getting ready for the dinner, but I needed to get the makeup off of my face, and anyway a long, hot shower should at least relax me a little bit. It occurred to me to think that it would put me in a predicament to be naked and damp from the shower when Ransom got back from getting our things from my parents’ house, but I figured that if I took a long enough shower, I could just have him toss my bag into the bathroom and sort out what to wear to sleep in privately.
Then too, I discovered after a quick look, our room came with two full-length robes, both in a heavy, waffled-terry type of material, which would cover more than some of the pajamas I’d brought with me. I grabbed one and went into the bathroom, playing over the night’s events in my head and engaging in that terrible habit of figuring out better things to have said to my classmates after the fact, when it wouldn’t make any difference.
We’d slipped up a couple of times in terms of not knowing enough about each other for two people who’d been dating for nine months, but I thought that my former friends and acquaintances hadn’t really noticed that much. I thought about the chat Jess and I had had during the dinner--she’d been impressed with the guy I’d managed to find.
“Are you even serious? You met him last night?” she’d asked.
I’d given her the bare bones of the story by text message, after I’d gotten home the night before, and now that we were face-to-face she was shocked at how daring I’d suddenly become.
I’d told her that Ransom seemed like a fairly above-board kind of guy, and that I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to steal my parents’ silverware or anything--that if he’d given me a bad vibe I never would have gone through with it, no matter what the situation had been. Jess hadn’t quite believed me, and I couldn’t entirely blame her for that.
I stripped off my dress and underthings and took my hair down, and looked at myself in the mirror. The last guy I’d dated, before I’d given up on the idea of getting involved with anyone, had said that it was a waste that I was as hot as I was, when I was clearly frigid. It had stung at the time--not least of which because I still just couldn’t believe that I hadn’t managed to achieve an orgasm with anyone I’d had sex with--but now that I thought about it, it was almost funny.
I had to think that Ransom had gone along with the deal I’d had in mind at least in part because I was reasonably attractive. I’ve never had any real illusions about my looks, of course, and I’ve known for years that I’m not ugly or even really plain. Some guy once told me that he could tell I was no good in bed, and I’d hotly told him that I was fine, it was other people who were the problem.
“Why am I thinking about sex at a time like this?” I tried to shake the thoughts off and started the water to the shower, holding my hand out as I tweaked the temperature to wait until it was just how I liked it--a little under scalding-hot--before I actually stepped under the showerhead. I hadn’t given sex with another person any real thought in years, but ever since I’d met up with Ransom, it had been popping up in my mind every few hours in one way or another.
I still couldn’t quite believe that I’d confessed never having gotten what Jess liked to call “a big O” with another person. It was the kind of thing that I never told anyone. I hadn’t even told the last few guys I’d had sex with. The second and third guy I’d had sex with, I’d told about it--hoping that they would be able to figure out how to make it happen--and they’d taken it first as a challenge and then as an insult that they hadn’t made me come. I’d faked it with the last two, just for the sake of not getting into a fight with them about it, or having to deal with them going on all night, trying to get me off finally.
I let the hot water beat down on my head and closed my eyes. Ransom was probably the kind of guy who would take it as a challenge, if we were in a position to actually have sex. If we were actually seeing each other instead of just pretending. I laughed at my own idea. I would never have the guts to ask Ransom out for real, so there would never be a reason for him to decide I was challenging him.
The hotel had pretty generous shampoo, conditioner, and a few other toiletries, but no makeup remover. I used the bar of face soap as best as I could, grimacing to myself as I felt the way it dried out my skin without making it feel properly clean. Hopefully Ransom would grab my toiletries bag when he got the rest of my stuff, and I could get the layers of substances off of my face completely before I went to bed.
The thought of Ransom hanging out at my parents’ house alone gave me pause for a moment, and I thought about how crazy Jess had thought I was to even include a stranger like him in my scheme. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s hotter than a five-alarm fire, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t also a thief,” she’d pointed out.
I’d countered that he hadn’t taken the offer of the money but had instead wanted my help in finding some information that I had access to through work, and that had only made Jess more suspicious of him. “I hope you never leave him alone with your valuables,” she’d told me doubtfully. I’d rolled my eyes at that and pointed out to her that a guy who used a diner in the middle of the night as the setting to find a mark for some theft scheme was not a very successful thief, she’d backed off of it, but she’d told me to be careful anyway.
And there I was, ignoring her advice. Surely Ransom wouldn’t have gone along with the whole scheme simply for the excuse to get to my parents’ house on his own? That was too convoluted for even a bad thief. I shook off the notion completely that Ransom was secretly trying to find a way to rip me off, and rinsed the conditioner out of my hair.
I was trying to think of a way to meaningfully extend my shower when I heard the door to the room slam shut. “Bethany?”
“I’m in the shower,” I called back in response to Ransom, grateful that he’d arrived before I had to deal with the conundrum of figuring out what to do with myself sitting around in a bathrobe with a bunch of smeared and running makeup on my face.
“Want me to just put your bag in there? I promise not to look,” he called out, and I smiled to myself. Jess was wrong about him--at least a little bit. Ransom had to be an okay guy.
“Yeah, just leave it in here, I should be out in a few minutes,” I half-shouted, deciding to scrub the rest of my body down one more time. The shower gel the Clairmont provided was surprisingly high quality, and smelled like a deep, mossy forest in the best way.
I heard the bathroom door open and the scraping sound of my suitcase being pushed across the floor, and then the door closed again. I was pretty sure that Ransom hadn’t even tried to sneak a peek, based on the noises, which further enhanced my impression of him as a basically decent guy. I scrubbed down one last time, rinsed off, and climbed out of the tub-shower, feeling more or less human.
A quick inspection of my luggage told me that Ransom must have just shoved whatever was out loose in my room and the bathroom into the suitcase and closed it; not the most mindful approach, but that and the fact that he’d gotten back so soon meant that he probably hadn’t been stealing anything while he’d been at the house. I found my cream cleanser and managed to get the last of my makeup off--with relief. I set about getting through the rest of my usual night time routine with the big, thick hotel towel wrapped around me, not even really thinking of Ransom anymore but instead just focused on making sure I wouldn’t get an inconvenient pimple during the weekend.
I brushed my teeth and smoothed on some moisturizer, and then I finally peeled off my towel and threw on a pair of pajama pants and a tee shirt. It was a little chilly in the room, but the bed had a thick duvet on it, so I was pretty sure I’d be warm enough, and I was also pretty sure that Ransom wouldn’t comment on the sight of my nipples, hardened against the fabric of my shirt.
I organized my toiletries in the bathroom out of the way and closed up my luggage, dragging it back into the room. Ransom was stretched out over the room’s two chairs, a throw draped over his legs, watching TV. It felt so weirdly normal to see him relaxing that I wished--for just a second--that this relationship wasn’t just a sham.
“I feel like a human being,” I told him, putting my luggage down in the little closet, out of the way in case one of us needed to get up in the middle of the night.
“Think there’s enough hot water for me to get a shower, too?” Ransom looked at me and I saw something flit through his eyes, but it was too quick for me to know what it was.
“Yeah, there might be--there’s probably a lot of people showering or taking baths right now,” I said. “But you should definitely get comfortable.”
Ransom smiled wryly. “Ah yes. Make myself at home,” he said.
I wasn’t sure what could be wrong with him. He hadn’t been awkward like this before. I pulled the robe on over my shirt, thinking maybe he’d been more shaken by the sight of my nipples than I’d thought he would be. But that doesn’t make any sense, if it’s the case. It’s not like he’s some virgin or even particularly prudish.
“I guess try your luck, and if the hot water runs out, then there’s always the morning,” I suggested.
Ransom nodded and rose from his makeshift bed quickly. He’d taken off some of his formal clothing from the dinner, and I saw his feet were in actual dress socks--that had been a detail I hadn’t noticed before.
I watched him gather up some stuff from his backpack and tried to figure out what the hell had happened in the short time we’d been apart.