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Like a woman I would have normally shaken my head at.
But I waited.
For him to calm down, to return, to finish what we started, or to even just ignore it all.
But to show up.
He didn’t.
Not for an hour.
Or two.
Or four.
At hour five, my stomach was finally starting to grumble, forcing me to venture out on my own, a task that – back in my old city – never would have bothered me. But here, I felt an odd dis-ease creep up on me as I made my way to the elevator, then down a floor, then out onto the street, looking for someplace I could find something to eat.
In the end, I walked my high-heeled self down the street to town, so used to walking in the city that my feet were all but immune to blisters.
If Gunner was going to avoid me, I figured I had to at least put a little effort in getting to know my new area, my new life. Soon, sooner than I wanted even to think about, I would be on my own in this. It would go better for me if I weren’t completely clueless.
I drifted into the local convenience store, or maybe it was called a general store, back home I would have called it a bodega, picking out granola bars, peanut butter, jelly, bread, and a small bunch of bananas, figuring it would work as a makeshift dinner once I got back to the hotel.
After that, I walked into an antique store, doing so not because I had any interest in antiques, but because I knew if I stayed at the hotel, I would obsess.
In the end, I found a vintage Brooklyn watercolor, faded with age, which I found made it more charming, that I bought and carried back to the hotel with me.
There was nothing from Gunner.
Not as I got back into my room and made my makeshift dinner, as I scrubbed the tub with some cleaner I had bought a few states back, then took a long bath. Not as I pretended to watch TV.
And not before I finally went to sleep a few hours before sunrise.
I should have expected it.
The burning daylight banging on the door.
Only there was just a quick rapping before the door opened, making me shoot up in the bed, a scream stuck in my throat, my bad dreams clinging to my mind, making me think he had finally found me.
“Just me, duchess,” Gunner’s voice called, doing the soothing thing, even if there was a bit more of an edge to it. “You okay?” he added when my hand slapped over my pounding heart. “Nightmares again?” he asked, coming toward the bed, but stopping at the foot, keeping his distance.
I should have been pleased by that.
The distance.
It would be simpler.
Less confusing.
Easier to let go.
But all I wanted was for him to come to me, pull me into his lap, hold me, tell me not to harp on it, that he would make sure nothing could ever happen to me again.
But as the seconds passed, I knew that was never going to happen again.
“Yeah. It’s okay,” I insisted as I flicked on the light, watching as his eyes went to the nightstand, taking in the wrappers and banana peels there.
“That’s what you had for dinner?” he scoffed.
“I didn’t know where to order from. I don’t have a cellphone yet,” I reminded him. “I couldn’t look anything up.”
“Duchess, you could have asked someone,” he told me, brows drawing together.
“I come from the city,” I reminded him. “No one wants to be asked annoying questions all the time.”
“This isn’t that city. I bet people would have liked to point you in a direction of something good. It wouldn’t hurt to try to start making connections now.”
“I went shopping,” I told him, watching him even though he was keeping his gaze away from me. Which maybe had something to do with my slinky light pink chemise… and the coolness in the room.
“Oh yeah?”
“I got a painting for my new apartment,” I told him, trying to inject some enthusiasm into my words for reasons I didn’t understand myself.
“I see that,” he agreed, jerking his chin toward the painting. “Get to have a slice of home here,” he added.
“So, what is on the agenda today?” I asked into the awkward silence following the picture conversation.
“Car. Furniture.”
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Fine,” he insisted, but neither of us was buying it.
“Have you looked into places to get furniture and cars?”
“Yep.”
“You are quite the conversationalist this morning,” I remarked, voice dripping with a sarcasm I wasn’t usually known for. I guess he was rubbing off on me a bit.
“Didn’t sleep,” he said, getting up, moving across the room to the windows, yanking open the blinds to show the first few rays of sun peeking through the dark sky. “You wanna catch a shower before we go down for breakfast?”
