Page 35 of Room Service

I shrugged. “There’s not much I need. I can just get back early and go change before my shift, so it’s not like it matters.”

“What if someone sees you? And they think you’re doing the whole walk of shame thing, coming home after a one-night stand.”

I winced at her words because that was exactly what had happened to me this morning. Only it wasn’t such a trip from Trent’s room to mine, and I was lucky that it was so early in the morning because I didn’t run into anybody. I wasn’t going to be repeating it anyway. I just wasn’t that kind of girl.

“Can we not talk about that?” I grumbled, getting up from the seat and grabbing her arm to drag her up to me. “Let’s head out now. We don’t want to be too late.”

“It’s still early, though!”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “It’s already dark out, it’s just earlier than when you’d left last night. But I thought getting a walk in might be good. We can walk a bit before taking a taxi.”

“Or, we could just walk all the way to my place?”

I winced at that idea. She lived several blocks away and the hotel was big enough to take up two or so blocks. There was no way I would survive a walk that long. Walking from the hotel to the mansion was so much shorter, and it was still quite a walk.

“Let’s just find a taxi on the street. If we don’t see one, we’ll call for one.”

Laura laughed at me, and she went to quickly change out of her uniform. Once she was in her street clothes, we headed out through the staff exit, then headed for the street. Laura must have noticed I wasn’t acting quite like myself, but she was nice enough not to say anything about it.

We weren’t walking for five minutes when a taxi stopped at the curb beside us, the driver honking the horn to catch our attention. Laura teased about walking some more, but I grabbed her hand and dragged her inside with me. She gave the address, and when he dropped us off, I handed him the cash.

“Have you ever been to my place, anyway?” she asked as we made our way up the stairs. Her apartment building was old and didn’t have a working elevator.

“Um… I think there was this one time last year? After a staff party, when you were drunk and I brought you back. I ended up staying, but I left before you woke up the next morning.”

“Oh,” she said, glancing at me over her shoulder and nodding. “I forgot about that. I wondered how I got back in the morning. Thanks for that.”

“No problem,” I muttered.

We made it to her place, and she unlocked the door to let us in. Her place was even smaller than mine, an open living room and kitchen in the front room, a further door that led to the bathroom and a bedroom.

“You could have gone to your parents, you know,” she said, taking off her coat and tossing it and her purse to the single seat.

I sighed. “I don’t want to bother my parents. I just need to be away for tonight. From the hotel. If you don’t mind?”

She shot me a curious look. “Did something happen that I should know about?”

I hesitated, then shook my head. She probably noticed there was something, but she was nice enough just to nod and head for the kitchen area, waving at me to follow. She wouldn’t make me talk about something if I didn’t broach the subject myself.

Once again, I was hit by how good a friend Laura was to have around. If I left the hotel, I would miss her.

We spent some time cooking. There weren’t many ingredients to work with, but I’d learned to do more than just bake in the kitchen, and I managed to make something nice for us to eat. The room was too small for a dining table, so we sat on the couch and used the coffee table, and Laura turned on the TV.

“Do you think you can wake me up early so we can go together?” she asked.

I nodded. “Sure, no problem.”

She hummed, then faced the TV again. I could barely pay attention to what was on, some melodrama that Laura had mentioned before but one I didn’t care about. After eating then cleaning up, and the show ending, Laura went to her room to sleep. She left a pillow and some blankets for me, and we both went to sleep. Or I tried to.

I couldn’t fall asleep immediately and spent a long time just lying with my eyes open in the dark.

Trent… I didn’t want to face him today or any other day. I’d spent the whole day with that fear, and it had grown. I’d started working just fine, but my form had gradually gotten worse until I was so tense, the slightest thing would make me jump. It was a wonder I hadn't accidentally sabotaged my work.

My fear wasn’t of Trent, per se. What I was particularly afraid of was being humiliated again by the same guy who’d killed my self-esteem as a teenager. I didn’t want history to repeat itself and going by past actions I knew Trent was going to be a complete ass about the whole thing. I couldn’t trust my thoughts from last night. We’d both been lost in the moment.

What bothered me was that pill. I was still ashamed and guilty of taking it, and I didn’t know why I felt like that. The woman at the pharmacy had said it herself: a lot of women took the morning after pill. But even if Trent couldn’t be nice to me, I couldn’t face him knowing there was a possibility he could have had a child, and I could have carried it, but my decision pretty much killed that. Literally.

Mom would be so ashamed of me, wouldn’t she?