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The words that I normally said failed me, because I hadn’t told Rachel. I hadn’t warned her I couldn’t love. Hadn’t made her understand that the morning was a goodbye, not a hello. Hadn’t given her the speech, the “you should know what you’re getting into before we get into it” speech.
I’d arrested her without reading her her rights. I’d sold her a gun without making her sign a release. I’d put her on a motorcycle racing toward a cliff without going over the brakes. How they worked. How to push them. Hard.
Rachel sensed my hesitation, my failure of words and blinked those wide, earnest eyes. She blinked and they were gone. Her eyes were seductive now. Cat eyes. Charming, alluring eyes. Hidden eyes. She smiled and laughed, this time not nervously. Not nervously at all. She smiled and laughed and leaned over to kiss me sweetly on the cheek.
“This has been fun,” she said, climbing out of bed. “Really.”
She gave me a cheeky smile over her shoulder. Her hip crooked to the side. The view of her ass perfect. The curve of her spine delicious. The peak of an erect nipple as she looked back at me and smiled like a postcard of her body. A memory of her. A memento. A souvenir of Vegas.
She gathered up her clothes and dress with easy chatter. She wasn’t embarrassed at all. Wasn’t hurt. She didn’t hide her body from me behind her white dress, one she must have gotten when I ripped her other one. She let me see everything as she tugged it up over her hips. She even hopped back on the bed to have me zip it up.
“Well, I better be going,” she said. “I’ve got a show tonight and all.”
It was then that I realised it was an act. She was performing for me. A new role. The girl who didn’t care. The girl who was fine with it being just a drunken thing. The girl who was perfectly fine saying goodbye. Rachel would play that girl. But she would not play the rejected girl. The distraught girl. The girl who held on too closely.
With nothing more than a kiss blown from her hand, the one with the stain from the candy ring, she was gone. The hotel room door clicked shut behind her. I was alone.
I was free.
It was exactly what I wanted. What I’d always wanted. From all my fuck arounds. From all my Miss Last Nights. From any woman that I let into my bed for a few hours, that I let into my life for a few hours. This was what I wanted of sex. Of intimacy. Of love. A few hours of passion. Heat. Bodies together. Panting breaths together. Glistening skin together. Climax. Sleep. Blissful sleep. And then goodbye.
Rachel had given me my ideal woman: the one who walks away. The one who leaves me alone. The one who spares me from hurt. From heartbreak. The one who leaves so I’m never left. Not ever again. The one who is never there long enough to miss when she is gone.
It was perfect. I’d find Conor and Rian. I’d nurse my impending hangover with some fruity daiquiris by the pool. I’d fuck one of the cocktail waitresses tonight. I’d arrive at the airport gate just as they were closing the doors. Maybe I’d fuck the flight attendant who tsked me for being so late. For holding them up. For being naughty, naughty, naughty. I’d return to Dublin. To the shitty tattoo parlour I worked in. To the long line of girls waiting at the bars…at the clubs…
I knew them all. The bars. The clubs. The girls. I wanted them. Yes, I wanted them. The slipping on of shoes in the dim light. The creaking of the floorboards as they snuck out past my nan’s room. The emptiness of my bed which only got emptier when their warmth on the sheets eventually faded. Disappeared. Gone forever.
That was what I wanted. Yes, that was what I wanted…
I didn’t want Rachel…
I was out of the bed in a flurry of kicked-off sheets. I didn’t bother with pants. I didn’t even bother with a hotel keycard. I dashed to the door. Flung it open. Sprinted down the hall as I heard the elevator ding around the corner. I caught Rachel just as she was about to step through those gilded doors. Just as they were about to close on her. Just as she was about to disappear forever. Her warmth. Her arm against my side. Her finger stained with candy. Candy I was sure, sure I licked from her skin as she laughed. Both of us naked between the sheets.
“Mason,” Rachel said in surprise as I stopped in front of her, panting. “Mason, you’re naked.”
“You didn’t let me speak,” I said.
She looked around the hallway. It was empty, of course. Vegas was still asleep around us. It was just her and me. And about half dozen security cameras. But who was counting?
“You didn’t let me speak,” I said, trying to catch my breath. Alcohol wasn’t great for early morning sprints, in case ye didn’t know.
Rachel glanced back when the elevator doors began to close. She reached back and stuck her hand between them. Forcing them back open. Keeping available her escape. The light from the inside spilled out over us. Golden like the sunset.
“It was pretty rude of you actually,” I said as she eyed me warily. “We spoke at the same time and I politely offered for you to say what you had to say first. And you did. Which was fine. Totally fine. I’m a gentleman, as you well know.”
Rachel frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.
“But the least you could do after I was so polite to let you go first is to then say, ‘Oh, hey, Mason, I think you were going to say something when I rudely, very rudely interrupted. I’d really like to hear what it was that you wanted to say.’”
I was still panting, but not from running. I was panting from this sort of desperation inside of me. From this fear. I was putting myself out there in a way I hadn’t ever before. And it was terrifying. I was asking to be shot down. I was begging to be wounded.
“Oh, hey, Mason, I think you were going to say something when I inter—”
“Rudely, very rudely.”
A flicker of amusement flashed across Rachel’s eyes and then she continued, “When I rudely, very rudely interrupted.”
I mouthed the words for her to repeat, “I’d really like to hear what it was that you wanted to say.”
