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Zach
I sat in the lounge, a drink in front of me, waiting for Iris to appear. Part of me feared she wouldn’t after the mishap in the room a little over an hour ago. I was worried that the mishap would be the end of our weekend. So, it surprised me when I saw her finally step out of the elevator.
I was about to lift my hand when she spotted me and began heading in my direction. I thought it was adorable that her cheeks flushed as she approached me. Was she still embarrassed about the events that had transpired? I’d hoped not. In typical guy fashion, I’d liked what I’d seen. I certainly wasn’t going to deny that.
She approached the table with caution, and I stood up, pushing the chair out and away from the table for her to sit down.
“I ordered you a gin and tonic. I hope that’s okay?” I said, wanting to show her that nothing had changed on my side of things.
“Great, thank you,” she said, her hands shaking as she placed her clutch bag on the table. “I could use it.”
“I had them push our reservation back. Dinner is now at seven. I figured you might need a little more time after….”
Her eyes flew to mine. “Please, Zach, I’m so sorry about what happened. I feel so stupid for not knocking on the door before I went in and just assuming you had left the room.”
I chuckled. “It’s fine. Honestly. However, there is one thing I can’t seem to get out of my mind.”
I watched as her eyes fell to the floor.
“Oh, dare I ask.” She muttered to herself. “What is that?” she questioned, resting her head on her hand.
“How sexy you looked.”
Her cheeks flooded with colour, and she buried her face in her hands at my words.
“Oh god.”
I leaned over and placed my hand on her thigh. “It’s okay. Really, nothing to be embarrassed about. I’m the one who should be embarrassed.” I chuckled.
Iris looked over at me, an embarrassed look on her face. The server approached our table and placed one drink in front of me and was about to set Iris’s down when she grabbed hers and drank half of it right away. Then glanced at the server and asked for another.
The server glanced at me and then made her way back to the bar. The table grew quiet as I watched Iris devour the rest of that first drink and then placed the glass down on the table just as the server brought over the other one.
Iris leaned over toward me, her cheeks now fully fired up with color. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about,” she whispered before picking up the next drink and proceeding to drink down the rest of that one as well.
* * *
The elevator doors opened, and I glanced up to see that we were on our floor. Iris was laughing hard at something I’d said on our way up here, and I grabbed her hand and gently guided her from the elevator before the doors closed.
“Shhhh. It’s late,” I whispered.
We’d closed the restaurant and had returned to the lounge where the music had been playing. We’d drank, talked, and even danced twice. However, a few minutes ago, they announced they were closing for the night, so we retired to our room. We walked down the hall and stopped outside our door while I dug into my pocket for the key. Iris rested her head on my arm while I worked with the finicky lock. We stepped into the dimly lit room to see a bottle of wine in a chiller on the table.
“What’s this?” Iris asked nodding toward the table.
I frowned. “No idea." I made my way over toward her to see if there was any type of note left, but there was nothing.
“Huh, did you do this?” Iris questioned, looking up at me as I pulled the bottle out of the chiller and removed the cork and poured us each a glass.
“Nope, but we might as well enjoy it,” I replied, placing the bottle back in the chiller. I picked up my glass and handed her the other.
“To us, a beautiful friendship, even if we have seen one another naked.” I winked.
Iris let out a laugh as our glasses clinked together and took a drink. I was glad to see she was finally laughing at what had happened earlier.
“I think I’m going to get out of this dress. Give me a minute.” She placed her glass back down on the table and headed to the washroom.
“Sure thing. Take your time.”
