Chapter 10
‡
The headlights bounced off the reflective letters on the Hotel Kavanagh sign as Marco pulled into the parking lot and squinted at the brightness. Using his forefinger and thumb, he wiped his bleary eyes. After finding a spot and shutting off the engine, a yawn claimed him. He hadn’t slept in close to forty-eight hours and he was starting to feel some of the effects from his lack of sleep.
He’d gotten the call from his mom right before bed on Friday night. Within ten minutes he’d thrown some clothes in a bag and made the eight-hour drive from Hope Falls to Sunset Canyon. Since arriving in his hometown, he hadn’t had any downtime. After spending the day at the hospital, he’d gone directly to the reunion, then up to Sydney’s room, then back to the hospital, and now he found himself back at Sydney’s hotel.
Once Pops was stable, he and his mom were told it would be best to head home so that he could rest. But instead of going back to his mom’s to get some shut-eye he’d driven back to the hotel.
He was tired, but he was also wired and amped. He knew that was due to the adrenaline that still coursed through him.
There was so much that he still needed to say to Sydney. Yes, she knew that he was attracted to her, but he hadn’t had the chance to tell her the extent of what he felt for her. He hadn’t planned for things to go from zero to a hundred, but they had. One second he’d been giving her a hard time about her messiness and the next the atmosphere between them grew so charged he couldn’t ignore it. And as amazing as finally being with Sydney was, he knew there was no way he’d be able to rest tonight until he’d laid his cards on the table.
Time to ante up and see if he was holding a winning hand or if he was going to go bust. He would have texted her to see if it was okay for him to stop by, but he didn’t have her number. That was crazy to him. The only person he’d ever loved, whom he’d now made love to, and he didn’t have her phone number.
This might help, Marco thought to himself as he grabbed the brown paper bag that was sitting on the passenger seat beside him. His detour to the convenience store had been a spur of the moment thing. He hoped Sydney would appreciate it.
He’d made quite the hasty exit. He was sure that she understood him leaving so suddenly, but it still didn’t hurt to come bearing gifts. Especially ones with both practical and sentimental value.
As he made his way across the parking lot, he was struck by how quiet it was this early in the morning. It was just three a.m. The sky was clear with stars brightly dotting the blanket of darkness. There was an ocean breeze and a soft hum of the waves that was nostalgic and calming for him. Growing up a block from the beach, the peaceful lull had been the soundtrack to his life. Sydney had been his leading lady. She just didn’t know it.
The automatic doors slid open, and he strode across the deserted lobby.
“Good morning,” the woman standing behind the counter greeted him.
“Morning.” He dipped his chin in a nod as he walked past her on his way to the elevator.
He pushed the button and started to wonder what her reaction would be to him showing back up. She was most likely asleep. Would she be upset about him waking her up? His hand patted the cold base of the bag as he waited. At least he wasn’t showing up empty handed.
When the elevator arrived, he stepped on and as the doors closed, his mind automatically took him back to earlier that night when he’d ridden it with Sydney. He still hadn’t even begun to process what had transpired between them. There was such a dreamlike quality to the entire night. He was convinced his lack of sleep was partly to blame for his mind feeling so hazy. But it was also because a fantasy that he’d resigned himself to always being just that—a fantasy—had come true tonight and it was better than he could’ve ever imagined.
His footsteps were heavy as he made his way down the hallway to room 418. He felt like every step he took was bringing him to his future. Which he supposed was always the case, but right then it felt much more definitive.
While sitting beside Pops’ bed after he’d been stabilized, his mind had done a lot of wandering. It wandered a bit down Memory Lane, and then a bit down Future Lane.
He knew that nothing was set in stone. They hadn’t had one conversation that would give him any clue as to what she was thinking. All he knew was what he felt when he was with her, and he had to believe that she’d felt it, too.
She lived in LA. He lived in Hope Falls. There were things to be worked out, but somehow he’d never felt more sure of anything in his life. He’d had no plans to come to the reunion tonight, and she said she was recently single. The stars had aligned like it was predestined. At least, that’s how he was feeling about things. He guessed there was only one way to find out if he was delusional or not.
He knocked on her door, lightly at first, since he didn’t want to wake up the entire floor. Before he was able to knock again, he heard the mechanics of the lock turn and a warmth of excitement spread through his chest and he grinned.
She wasn’t asleep.
The door opened, and his smile dropped. His eyes shot to the number on the door and then down the hall. Was he so tired he’d accidentally gone to the wrong room?
He was mentally retracing his steps when the man that had answered his knock spoke. “Can I help you?”
“I thought…I was looking for Sydney,” Marco said after he concluded that he was in the right place.
He turned his attention back to the man and really looked at the guy for the first time. He looked familiar, and at first, he thought it was because he reminded him of a young Harrison Ford. But then it dawned on him that it wasn’t his likeness to Indiana Jones that was familiar, it was the Facebook picture he’d seen of Sydney. With her boyfriend. She’d only had one, but it was definitely this guy.
“She’s in the shower.” Young Indie tilted his head to the side.
The shower?
Marco’s eyes cut to the closed bathroom door. He could hear water running and Sydney singing.
“Is that for her?” The guy started to reach for the bag Marco was holding. “Are you from Postmates?”
“No.” Marco shook his head. “I’m…I went to school with Sydney.”
“Oh, well…” He looked at the door, and then back at Marco. “It’s a little late. Do you want me to tell her you stopped by?”
“No. That’s okay.”
Marco turned and heard the door close behind him. He flinched at the sound of his future being slammed shut.
On his way down to the lobby, he opened the bag and looked at the carton of Cookies and Cream ice cream that he’d bought. As soon as he got off the elevator, he tossed it in the trash.
About a month ago, during a routine drill on the training tower, a probie firefighter lost control of the line and nailed Marco right in the crotch with the steel nozzle. The debilitating agony of taking a straight shot to the nuts by a charged hose had dropped him to his knees, made him see stars, and almost made him throw up. It wasn’t just the pain of the initial blow or trauma site. The impact temporary crippled his entire body. He’d had to ice his junk, and he’d walked funny for two days.
But compared to what he was feeling now, that injury sounded like a cold beer on a hot day.
*
Hot water cascaded over Sydney’s shoulders as she hummed and sang to herself. At three a.m., she’d resigned herself to the reality that she wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight. So, instead of tossing and turning for another minute, she’d decided to take a long, hot shower.
She closed her eyes and let the heated spray and excellent water pressure do its magic and massage her neck. Her skin prickled from the just-shy-of-scalding temperature in the most delicious way. Between this spa-like shower and the multiple Os that Marco had given her, her body was seriously getting pampered tonight.
“Don’t get used to it,” she told herself.
This night had been an exception, not the rule. She honestly had no idea how she could ever top it.
At the reunion, the term “peaked in high school” had been thrown around a lot. Every time she’d heard someone say that, she’d been glad that that wasn’t her experience. The thought of reaching your life’s highest potential before you embark on adulthood was depressing.
She feared, though, that tonight she might have peaked. Sexually at least. What encounter could possibly top the one she’d had with Marco?
It was true that she’d only had three real relationships, but that didn’t mean that she’d only been with three people. Sydney had had what Devon called her “Samantha Year” during her second year in the Peace Corps. She’d traveled through Europe, on long weekends and holidays and sampled the culture. At least half of the stamps on her passport had a corresponding hookup.
She’d been around the world, in the very literal sense, and never met a man that was even in the ballpark of Marco’s prowess.
Sydney watched as the water swirled around the drain and the soapy bubbles from her shampoo disappeared beneath the metal grate. The same sentence kept repeating in her head.
I had one, perfect night with him.
That statement could either be interpreted as this being the best night of her life or the worst.
The practical side of her was looking at tonight from the glass-half-full perspective.
I had one, perfect night with him. There were people that went their entire lives and never experienced what she just had. Not only was her ultimate fantasy realized, it was exceeded.
The emotional side of herself was looking at tonight from the glass-half-empty perspective.
I had one, perfect night with him. It wasn’t enough. She wanted more nights like this. She wanted every night to be like this one.
She grabbed the loofah that she’d packed and worked the body wash into it until it was nice and sudsy, and then ran it along her skin. She immediately noticed that there were several discolorations on her breast. She counted three love bites on her right side and two on her left. Having fair skin meant that she bruised easily, but this was her first hickey and she thought there was something poetic about getting them from the first boy she’d ever loved.
Dirty thoughts played in her mind and she wondered what it would be like to take a shower with Marco. What it would feel like to feel his wet skin against hers. What it would be like to soap him up and him do the same to her. What it would be like to have water pounding down on them as he pounded into her.
Then her mind wondered to not-so-dirty thoughts. What it would be like to go to bed next to him and to have his face be the first thing she saw in the morning. She wondered what it would be like to go grocery shopping with him, to go to the bank, out to dinner. She wondered what it would be like to do all the mundane things that people did in relationships with him.
It was odd because she had some idea since they’d been so close, but that was when they were kids. She still felt like she knew him, but did she?
Was he still a morning person?
Did he still put ketchup on his eggs?
When he sang karaoke was “Poison” by Bell Biv DeVoe still his go-to song?
These were all questions that she doubted she’d ever get answers to. In the time they’d spent together tonight, they hadn’t said anything about keeping in touch. They hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers.
He’d told her that he’d been attracted to her in high school, and it was clear that he still was, but was there more than that?
Probably not, the small voice in her head piped up.
As tempting as it was to convert to the dark side and romanticize the confessions he’d made and the time they’d shared, she was too much of a realist for that. They’d hooked up at their high school reunion. That was it. They both had lives and careers and hadn’t seen one another for a decade. To make more out of tonight would be naïve.
She turned the water off and grabbed a white, fluffy towel off the rack. After drying herself off, she bent over and wrapped her hair in it before slipping into the hotel-provided plush robe. The soft fabric rubbed against her ultra-sensitized skin and she snuggled into it.
If she couldn’t be wrapped up in Marco’s arms, this was the next best thing. She smiled to herself as she opened the bathroom door. Before it swung wide enough for the entire room to be revealed, she realized that there were candles lit and soft music playing.
Marco.
Her heart skipped at the thought that he’d come back. He’d come back to her.
“How did you get in—” She fell mute when she saw who was in her room.
Simon stood before her.
Not Marco.
Simon.
“I gave the front desk my name,” he answered her unfinished question.
Right. She’d added him as a guest when she’d checked in.
“What are you doing here?” she managed to ask.
“I know that I messed up.” He took a step forward, and she took a step back. At her retreat, he stopped and lifted his hands. “But it wasn’t what you think. I was scared.”
Her arms wrapped around her waist, even though the oversized robe was covering everything, she felt exposed. She’d been with Simon for six years, but he felt like a stranger to her. Maybe it was because of his infidelity, or maybe it was because of sleeping with Marco, she wasn’t sure.
“You need to leave.”
His face dropped, and he started toward the door behind her. But he stopped in front of her. “It didn’t mean anything. She doesn’t mean anything. I just got scared.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a solitaire diamond ring. “Because of this.”
“What’s that?” she heard herself ask as she stared at what was clearly an engagement ring.
“I bought this for you about six months ago. I’ve known I wanted to marry you for a while, but once I had the ring, it became real and I just…I started feeling suffocated. I knew you were the only woman I was ever going to be with for the rest of my life and I…I panicked. I’m so sorry.” He got on one knee. “I want to marry you. I love you. Sydney Please, please, don’t throw away everything we have,” he pleaded.
She stared down at him, and the only thought that she had was that she must be living a Twilight Zone version of her life. She could even hear the theme music playing in her head.
“You need to leave, Simon. Now,” she said firmly as she opened the hotel room door.
The entire night had been an emotional roller coaster, and she was ready to get off.