I hear them talking to whoever has brought the food and then a few seconds later they reappear pushing a trolley.
“I figured you might not want them coming in and seeing you right now,” they explain.
“And yet you let them see you looking as fabulous as that.” I nod at their appearance and feel a welcome smile pull on my lips.
“They survived.” Loncey shrugs.
“And so did you.”
Loncey returns my smile then points to the trolley. “You want to eat?”
“Fuck, yeah,” I say.
They laugh and then point at me. “Your appetite. That’s one of your stars.”
The reference to what they said earlier has a fresh batch of tears threatening to surface, but I smile back as I follow them to the small round table near the floor-to-ceiling windows that line the far end of the room. It’s not the most spacious hotel room I’ve ever stayed in and there’s only one King bed in the room, but the view more than makes up for it as it includes Downtown LA all lit up in the background and closer, the rolling hills, palm trees and roof tops of West Hollywood.
As it happens, the view seems to preoccupy us both as we start to eat the food that Loncey lays out on the table. We talk very little and I really am very hungry so I waste no time eating my club sandwich and fries, before polishing it off with a slice of vegan baked cheesecake. I feel Loncey’s eyes on me as I lick the last crumbs off my fork.
“Should we order some more food?” they ask with a crafty smile.
I relinquish the fork and lean back in my chair, my hand stroking my stomach that now pushes against the waistband of my pyjamas.
“Maybe in an hour or so,” I tease and get the grin I was aiming for.
“Another star,” they say, wiping their mouth with a white cloth napkin. “And it’s a big one. A sun, no less.”
I shift in my chair, feeling a heady mix of uncomfortable and yet completely where I’m supposed to be. “What is?”
“Your sense of humor.”
“I got that from my Da,” I tell them. “I think you’d like him.”
I freeze when Loncey doesn’t reply. I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing. Loncey doesn’t have a relationship with their father and never talks about him. Am I rubbing it in their face when I talk about how decent my own father is?
“I’d like that,” Loncey says and I wait for more words, for them to elaborate on how that couldn’t possibly happen when they live in Las Vegas and my dad lives in Ireland. But Loncey falls quiet and their gaze dips to their empty salad bowl.
“I’ll take all the plates out of here,” I say, getting up.
Loncey reaches for my wrist and stills my movement. “No, sit, Maeve. We should finish our conversation from earlier.”
I fall back into the chair behind me and realise with the heaviness of that movement how tired I am. “Yeah, we probably should.”
“I mean, hold back the enthusiasm, Maeve,” Loncey says, their voice dripping with sarcasm.
“I’m sorry.” I bring my hand to my mouth to cover my yawn. “I’m just really fucking tired. I’m jetlagged to fuck and to top it all off, I’m on my period, so you know.”
I don’t know why I just revealed that to them but they barely blink at the information.
“Then let’s get you to bed.”
“You don’t want to talk?”
“We can talk in the morning. I want you to get some rest.”
“Promise me we will talk? That we’ll come up with some kind of plan for us? Because I don’t think I can do another hotel goodbye and weeks of silence like last time.” My voice quivers and I know they hear it too but I don’t care. I’m too exhausted to care even if I wanted to, but I don’t. I want them to know that what I feel for them is real and so are my hopes for us.
“I promise, Maeve,” they say and I believe them.
