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“Glad to hear it. Rest up, because I’m working on a plan.” I stand and move toward the door. “And if I were you, I would figure out how to apologize to Evangeline for almost killing her.”
Vaughn just stares at me. “You really like her, don’t you?”
Like isn’t the word for it. I don’t know what you call the feeling that makes me more than willing to grind my best friend into dust if he lets Evangeline get hurt.
The word that I want to use doesn’t seem strong enough to cover it.
I don’t answer Vaughn until I’m halfway out the door. “You have no idea.”
Chapter Ten
The only thing worse than the fear that someone might be on their way to kill me is just how boring it is to sit around and wait for it to happen.
Cable television is even worse than I remember it being. I give up on that after a few minutes of channel surfing. The Wi-Fi is slow enough that I can’t even pull Netflix up on my phone.
The joke I told Drake about this place being rented out by the hour seems less funny now that dusk has fallen. He made it clear that I should stay in the room, but I’m hungry and there isn’t any food here.
Eventually, my stomach is growling loudly enough that I don’t have a choice about venturing out to the vending machines. I watch from the window for a bit, if just to make sure there aren’t any scary men hiding in the bushes.
Even though it’s well after sunset, the hotel isn’t quiet. Women in skimpy clothing hang out in the parking lot. As I watch, a minivan pulls in with a man behind the wheel and one of women climbs into the passenger seat before the minivan pulls out of the parking lot.
The Ritz, this is not.
Not that I’m judging. Everyone deserves the chance to make a living. God knows I’ve done things I’m not proud of in the past to survive. None of those women will cause me any problems as long as I don’t create any for them.
It’s the men that I’m worried about. Men who slow down as they pass on the road and make a U-turn at the light to pull back into the parking lot. Men who are only here because they expect to get something worth considerably more than the wrinkled bills that get surreptitiously passed between sweaty palms.
The kind of men who might pay attention to a girl who doesn’t seem to be in a place where she belongs.
Most of the floodlights in the breezeway have gone out, so it’s dark outside my room. The darkness is more of a comfort than a concern at this point because it makes it less likely anyone will notice me.
I need to remind Drake that if he wants to keep me locked away like a dirty secret, the least he could do is order me a pizza.
Luckily, the vending machine is full so I can load myself down with snacks. I get so much that I have to hold a few bags of chips with my teeth while I fumble for my room key.
Which is when I discover that my room key is not in my jacket pocket where it should, meaning that it’s on the other side of the locked door in front of me.
Fuck.
I shove at the door with my hip, hoping against hope that it didn’t latch all the way when I left. It doesn’t budge so much as an inch.
I locked myself out. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
The word continues like a litany in my head as I dump my food in a pile on the ground. It will look even more ridiculous if I’m carrying a bunch of snacks into the lobby. The last thing I want to do is stand out any more than I already do.
When I push open the door of the lobby, the clerk doesn’t look up from his position behind the desk. It’s a different guy from the one who was there when I checked in, and I can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing.
There is a glass partition around the desk that I can only assume is bulletproof. A handwritten note taped to the outside explains that the clerk doesn’t have access to the time-locked safe and has less than a hundred dollars in cash.
I feel safer already.
Bending my knees, I speak into the little hole in the glass. “Hi, there. I’ve locked myself out of my room.”
He finally looks up after a long beat, gaze taking in my mussed hair and the raccoon eyes left from the eyeliner I applied at least two days ago. His gaze lingers on where my shirt gapes open as I lean forward before returning to my face.
If it’s possible for anything to make me feel grosser than I already do, then he might manage it.
“Room number?”
