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“No, Izzy. He left you because he’s an idiot.” I grabbed her drink and put it next to mine. A tipsy Izzy was an emotional Izzy.
She rested her head on my shoulder. “Men suck.”
I leaned my head against hers. “Amen.”
It didn’t take long before my eyes became heavy and blessed sleep overcame me. I couldn’t tell you how many times Izzy and I had fallen asleep like that in the past six years. We were like each other’s emotional support animals. I know Izzy had a hard time sleeping in her bed. It felt too empty. For me, it was a lot of sleepless nights worrying about Jameson. I think I stared at him for days on end when he was born, making sure he was breathing. Even now, I sometimes checked on him in the middle of the night.
Not tonight, though. I was exhausted.
I don’t know how long I had been asleep, but I woke up to a pounding noise. Or maybe I dreamed it. I blinked a few times and noticed the TV was a big blue screen. So, it wasn’t the movie. Next to me, Izzy was curled into a ball, covered in an old patchwork quilt.
I snuggled farther under the afghan I assumed Izzy had placed on me and closed my eyes. I must have dreamed the sound.
Within seconds the pounding was back with a vengeance. I popped up on high alert. “Izzy, do you hear that?”
She was dead to the world. No more booze for her.
When I was awake enough, I realized it was someone knocking on a door. I grabbed my phone and tiptoed toward our suite’s entrance. The pounding sounded louder from there. I cracked open the door and listened more closely.
A voice accompanied the sound now. A voice I never thought I would hear again. I stopped breathing.
“Charlotte,” Drake called my name while knocking like he was trying to wake the dead.
I looked at the time. It was eleven. Wow, Izzy and I really knew how to party it up. I would have sworn it was about two in the morning. But my problem wasn’t that I had become old. My problem was that Drake was at my door and I couldn’t breathe. We’d said the final goodbye. He wasn’t allowed to go back on that.
“Charlotte, please open the door,” he pleaded.
I pinched myself to make sure I truly wasn’t dreaming. Ouch. Yep, it was real life all right. Painful. I crept toward the door, wondering what I should do. All I knew was that I didn’t want him to wake up Jameson, or Izzy for that matter. No telling what she might do or say after all the “hot chocolate” she’d consumed. Not that there was any love lost between them. Izzy had always been perfectly clear where she stood on Drake. Once, she’d visited me in LA and had point-blank told Drake she didn’t care for him and she thought he could do with a few acting lessons. I was mortified. Drake had taken the high road and said nothing in return, other than, “I would be happy to upgrade your return ticket to first class.” That was his way of saying, Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Drake continued to pound on the door separating us. It felt more like he was beating on my heart.
I could see him clearly now through the window in the door. The snow was coming down, as per usual this time of year.
I stopped a few feet from the door and outright gawked at him. Was this real? I thought he’d be back in LA now, or wherever he was going. I hadn’t asked. I noticed poor Martez behind his boss, blowing into his bare hands. It gave me the courage to take the last few steps and unlock the door. I couldn’t, in good conscience, let his assistant freeze to death. He was too pretty, and the only reason Izzy wouldn’t go ballistic if she woke up.
I opened the door and was hit with an icy blast, though Drake’s gaze was making me feel quite heated.
“What are you doing here?” was all I could manage to ask—even that sounded breathy.
Drake ran a hand through his hair and blew out a heavy breath that billowed in the frigid air. “I don’t know.”
“Oh. Well, thanks for clearing that up.” I went to shut the door. I was freezing, and this was too confusing for this time of night, especially after the hot chocolate I’d consumed.
Drake placed his hand on the door to keep it open. “We’re staying.”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have the proper permits yet to have guests.” And I’d said my goodbyes. I’d even thrown away the bedding. I’d bawled my eyes out doing it, but that was neither here nor there.
