“I think this trip is trying to kill me.”
“Fucking seriously,” she muses. Then she reaches over the console to grab her backpack, and for one brief, disorienting moment, the soft warmth of her tits presses against my arm. She pulls back without seeming to notice, pushes open the door, holds the backpack over her head against the rain, and runs inside.
I sit there with my hands still on the wheel, watching her go. It takes me longer than it should to look away. That’s when I notice how full the parking lot is.
There’s a prickling dread I feel when I exit the car and rush in after her. And it intensifies when I swing open the door and find the lobby of this rinky-dink motel packed full of waiting people, all soaked and restless, the air thick with wet clothes and frustration.
I find Rose at the front desk and step up beside her just in time to hear, “What do you mean there are no rooms?”
The woman behind the desk gestures at the crowd. “Storm caught a lot of people off guard. We’re doing what we can to consolidate, but right now you’ll have to wait and hope something opens up.”
Rose turns to look at me. Her hair is wet from the short run through the rain, and her t-shirt clings to her skin. She’sworried. I have an urge to fix it—to take that distressed look off her face.
I scan all the miserable faces. I’m not getting back in that car.
“I’ll give someone a thousand dollars for their room.” I don’t shout it, but nearly everyone stops what they’re doing and looks at me.
A woman near the back grabs her husband’s arm. “Honey—” She looks at him, then at me. “We live an hour from here, thought it would be nicer just to get off the road and have a shorter drive tomorrow, but we can leave for a thousand bucks.”
Rose is staring at me in shock. And for some reason, the look on her face is not pleased, despite the fact that I just procured us a room.
I don’t carry that much cash, so I pull out my phone and we sort it out through a banking app. The woman at the front desk watches the exchange with a tight smile and processes the reservation cancellation without comment. I step up to give her my name, and Rose cuts in front of me.
“Ma’am,” Rose says to a woman wrestling a toddler on her hip while a five-year-old spins circles around her legs, like this hurricane is the best thing to happen to him all week. She looks stressed and anxious. “Looks like a room just opened up—it’s yours if you want it.”
The woman’s whole face changes. I swear she nearly starts crying. The desk clerk’s tight smile turns genuine, and Rose turns back to the room. “Anyone else willing to give up their room? This guy’ll pay a thousand dollars for it.”
Then someone else speaks up—they had two rooms booked, but decide they can squeeze in and share beds, and Rose takes the now empty room and gives it to a guy who’s on a fishing trip, traveling with his son. She does this three more times. I’ve shelled out five grand in twenty minutes for a room that probably costs seventy-five dollars, until finally the woman atthe desk, eyes glittering, lowers her glasses and says, “Oh, it looks like we have one more room available after all. Near the pool in the back. Single occupancy—I assume that’s alright?”
Rose glances around the room. Before she can give it away, I wrap my hand around her mouth and say, “We’ll take it.”
“Great.”
Ishouldbe pissed. I’m… not.
Rose practically struts ahead of me under the metal awning as we exit, and I don’t feel guilty about brazenly checking her out after the stunt she just pulled. I have the key. She steps aside at the door and waits, and I’m aware of exactly how close she is as I lean past her to unlock it, push it open, hold it for her to move through.
Of course, there’s only one bed.
After this nightmare, I’m surprised there’s a bed at all and not just a cot in a broom closet.
Rose kicks her shoes off, drops her bag, and leaps onto the bed, landing on her back, tits bouncing in time with the mattress.
“Have fun out there?”
She turns her head to look at me, still smiling. “I did.”
I laugh and look away, dragging a hand through my rain-wet hair. After a day like this, I need a shower—need to stand under hot water and not think. Need to put a door between me and the way she looks right now, sprawled out and pleased with herself.
“You need the bathroom first?”
She stretches her arms above her head, arching her back slightly. “All yours.”
Hands tucked behind her head, wet t-shirt pulled tight across her chest, nipples hard from the rain. I know I should look away.
I don’t.
She turns her head and finds me staring. The satisfied look on her face shifts into something else—something that movesthrough me like a current. Neither of us says anything. The rain hammers the window. I’m aware of every inch of space between us, and it feels like too much.
