Chapter Three

Marcella

"Classy."

My co-worker and bestie, Adelita Caba, holds the condom in front of her face and gives it a little shake. If she didn't have gloves on up to her elbows, I know she never would have touched it. Lita doesn't have much tolerance for filth, but that's about all we deal with in this housekeeping position for the Heartbreak Hotel. Its owner is a fat, ugly douchebag named Robert Goulet. Yeah, he's an Elvis impersonator with the name of the dude that Elvis tried to kill by shooting a bullet through his television screen. Ironic, I know. But that realization doesn't make the job any easier or make the handsy owner any more palatable. Anytime Bob gets a chance, he touches us. Shoulders, arms, backs. He makes my skin crawl because he stinks like a bad cocktail of sweat and Old Spice. He's not a bad guy, but does he seriously think we'd be attracted to a fifty-year-old has-been? A never-was, really.

"Gross."

Lita flings it into the trash can on her cart, then starts to strip off the bed. "I hope I never have to black light one of these rooms," she says with a full body shudder. "The whole fucking place would be lit up like a Christmas tree."

I scoff. "You're not kidding." We've been helping each other out lately. Tag teaming our rooms so we get done faster. We can chat, too, and that seems to make the hard and dirty work a little bit easier to bear.

An alarm on my phone goes off, and I reach into my pocket, turning it off without even glancing at the screen. I don't know why I set the damn thing, but I did. As if I could ever forget this time of the day. It's like I have an internal clock that is always ticking down to the exact moment when my entire life got blown to smithereens. The exact moment everything changed.

Everything.

Lita gives me a passing glance and stares at the pocket of my smock.

It's three thirty in the afternoon, and I'm standing in the middle of a downtown hotel and drive-through wedding chapel. The rooms have drive-up doors, so there's a balcony running along the second floor where Lita and I are cleaning. Outside, horns honk, and vehicles burn rubber as they try to get to the strip, money burning holes in their pockets when my pockets are barren. There's a bum with a "will work for food" sign. He's lying against a dumpster. At least he doesn't have a dog with him. That one breaks my heart every time.

My pulse picks up as I scan the sidewalk. A group of drunken twenty somethings stagger down the street, raising their plastic bottles of beer high in the air. Probably some bachelor party looking to get laid until they get back on their flight to Topeka. Lita follows my gaze and snorts.

"The whole 'whatever happens in Vegas' thing is starting to piss me off. They should have to live here. Go to school here." She shakes her head, her lip curled in disgust. "Nothing that's born in Vegas ever stays here. No fucking way. We just want to get the hell out of the place where every Midwestern housewife is clamoring to get in."

"Hey, Marcella! You up there?"

At the sound of a deep, booming voice, I glance down to the parking lot to see my boss standing next to a late eighties Chevy Vega. The damn car is so old and beat up, it's the color of rust, but I think it used to be silver back in its glory days. Bob's wearing a white spandex suit, inlaid with thousands of cheap, plastic rhinestones. Because they're not real, they don't sparkle in the Vegas sun, making him look like a poor man's Elvis.

The moment I see him, my palms start to sweat, and I clench my fists to keep from running back to my trailer where I can crawl back under the covers and pretend this isn't my life.

"Hey, Bob. Working tonight at the showroom?"

Bob has a part-time gig impersonating The King at one of the local lounges. Apparently, he's pretty good. According to a rumor among his employees, he's got an adequate singing voice, but I've never heard it, and I don't want to. If I went to see him perform, he'd take it as some warped invitation to come on to me for real.

"Marcella, what do you call a Muslim Elvis impersonator?"

I humor him, even though I'd rather tell him to fuck off. He is my boss after all, and I need this shitty job. Especially now that Manny has stolen all my savings to fund his poker habit.

"You tell me," I say, stepping out on to the white wrought iron balcony so I can see him better.

"Amal Shookup."

I give a pity laugh and smile, but behind me, Lita makes eye rolling into a profession. She raises her hand and fakes two fingers down the back of her throat, fake gagging herself. I hide my smile as I lean over the railing and wave to him.

"Have a great show, Bob. See you later."

He gives a swish of his cape, puts some big ass sunglasses over his eyes and swoops down low. "Thank you, thank you very much. I will return once Elvis has left the building."

I stifle a groan and turn back to Lita.

"He's a fucking piece of work."

I sigh and grab some towels from my cart for the bathroom. After the used condoms, I shudder to think what we're going to find in there.

"I know," I say on a sigh. "He's annoying but harmless. It could be a lot worse, you know."

She scoffs and empties the wastebasket. "Yeah, he could be a pervert, I suppose. Holding our meager paychecks hostage until we flash or tits or something equally as barbaric."

At her offhand comment, my hand flutters to my abdomen. I'll never forget the night I thought I was going to be raped. But what actually happened instead might be even worse.

"You eat something rancid for lunch, Marshmallow?" She's the only one allowed to call me by my childhood nickname. My dad started calling me that back in grade school, and it stuck. Now, it reminds me of him, and only people close to my heart are allowed to bring the memories back from the darkness into the light.

"Nah. Just got a sudden cramp." I've gone to great lengths to keep my naked body from my best friend and have succeeded so far. She doesn't need to know. She'd be horrified. Her parents crossed the border legally.

"Just one more after this, and we're done for the day." She looks around the room. "Nice work, bestie. You even managed to avoid being touched by old Bob."

I give her a cheesy grin, showing nearly all of my teeth. "Yup. I'm getting better and better at avoiding him. I've got his schedule down pat in my mind, so I know when he's coming and going, and I'm always on the second floor. He's too fat to haul his spandex-clad ass up here."

Lita smiles and starts to whistle a happy tune as we finish up for the day.

* * *

Some girls fantasize about The Thunder from Down Under or the Chippendales, but I've never had that inclination. And even now as I stare around the dilapidated trailer, it's not debt, filth, or even sculpted muscles that have my mind tied up in knots.

No. It's a dark, brooding man. He's huge and broad-shouldered. But his eyes. I've never seen anything like them. They're black as coal and just as dead. Lifeless, really. I wonder what a man like that would be capable of doing to me. At the prospect, my heart flutters in my chest, and my panties flood with wetness. There's something dangerous about him. Something that turns me on like nothing I've ever felt before.

I sigh. At work, I'd been too busy and too distracted by Lita and the job at hand that I hadn't many moments to think about how he made me feel. But now…

I take a college brochure for UCLA and fan myself with it. Thank God Manny's still at work, and he's not here to start plying me with questions. Like all big brothers, he seems to know when I'm panting after a man like a dog in heat. And they're never good enough for me in Manny's eyes. But this man, his boss, I can't imagine what he'd find wrong with a hot billionaire like Nixon Caldwell.

I've never seen a man fill out a suit the way he did when I spotted him with his henchman, Troy Cass. I've heard Manny mention Troy once or twice. He's kind of one of those "jack of all trade master of none" guys. I shudder. I'm sure Nixon has ordered his second in command to do many dastardly things during his meteoric rise to the top.

I wonder how many women he's slept with?

Shit. Where in the hell did that thought come from? It's none of my business. I don't care about the identities of his faceless, random bed partners.

Except, I do.

Because I wish I was one of them.

I tossed and turned all night long because all I could think about were the man's hands on me. And it made me hot. So damn hot I threw off the covers and writhed on the bed in just my panties all alone until I fell back into the blessed oblivion of sleep.

Nothing about Nixon Caldwell says he's inviting female attention. He's groomed to perfection, but it almost makes him look plastic. As if he's a mannequin and not a flesh and blood man at all. But my blood, that's another story. All it took was one sight of him, and something tripped my heart to beat faster. I have no idea why because he's clearly out of my league. I'll never be able to even exchange pleasantries with the sexy man, let alone have him consider me for any kind of liaison.

My body hasn't gotten the message, and it screams for him, pounding, throbbing, and aching for something I inherently know only he can deliver. I want to be pressed against him and for him to be my first. To belong to him. Every inch of me begs to let him strip me bare and see everything. All of me. Even the parts I struggle to hide.

I know it will never happen. This sudden desire that boils inside me, threatening to overflow, will never be sated. It's probably because I've never had a serious relationship, so I'm just fantasizing about an unavailable man. Instead, I'll watch him from a distance and dream about touching the chiseled planes of his face. Dream of how they would soften under my touch, and I'd reveal the real Nixon Caldwell dwelling behind the mask of calm indifference.

"Damn." I glance down at the mail. A letter from Hunter sits at the top of the pile, beckoning me with its false hope like a beacon in white parchment. It's the one I've been waiting for, but at the same time, the one I've been dreading.

I reach down and hold it up to the light. Part of me doesn't want to open it because I already know what's inside. And I also know it will break my heart. After my angst-ridden teenage years, there isn't much heart left to shatter.

I feel different somehow. Even though it will be a challenge to keep the disappointment and sadness from reaching my eyes, at least I know I'm good enough. Good enough to make it into the top college in the US for students seeking to be occupational therapists. I want to help disabled kids. I feel a kinship with them. Most write anyone who isn't perfect off like they don't matter. It's the way I've felt for most of my life. But people with imperfections matter. And I do, too.

I rip open the acceptance letter and sigh deeply, heaving an exhalation of breath that includes my hopes and dreams for a better future. At least for now. Maybe someday things will be different. I tilt my head back and allow my eyes to flutter closed, grateful for the blessed blackness behind them. I don't want to keep looking at the letter and consider its implications.

I open them after several long, tortured moments and take a sip of water to fortify me. There's not much to eat in the house because payday isn't until Friday and the cheap fuckers that stay at the rent by the hour Heartbreak Hotel don't know they're supposed to tip housekeeping. We only got five dollars today between us, and I need it in case of emergency. I'm not the kind of girl that likes to be left without even a dollar lining my pocket. It makes me feel unsafe, and all the bullshit around this town makes me feel like an easy mark already.

Reaching out, I touch the dirty glass, delighting in the smoothness under my fingers but wishing it was Nixon. How would he feel underneath the touch of my hand? Hard? Rough? Would he be hot, like a summer day, ready to envelop me with his strength? God, how I wish I could find out. I wonder if anything on this earth could ever hurt me again if I belonged to a powerful man like him.

I shake my head and bite my lip as I put the fantasy away for good. It can't happen.

Ever.

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Crabbypants by Colleen Charles ©2018 All Rights Reserved

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Colleen Charles loves reading and writing stories that entertain and sweep the reader away from their everyday life.