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He’d bought me this hoodie too, with the big pocket at the front. His mistake. It was useful for hiding things, and I was on the evening shift again, which meant I’d be home after he’d gone to bed. I preferred it like that, keeping out of his way. Less of a chance of sex.
I didn’t particularly like sex, and Lewis only really wanted it if he was either drunk or angry, when he took great pleasure into humiliating me into—
I swallowed, swiped a tear away with the back of my hand.Get it together, Hugo.
As I said, I wasn’t stupid. But I wasn’t that smart either because I had no idea what I was doing, apart from that I was taking things and stashing them at work, and there was a really loud voice at the back of my head shouting at me to leave. Right now. Just take what I could and never come back.
I’d have to come back. Lewis knew where I worked, and he would make my life hell and block my bank account and cancel my card and probably makesure I lost my job too. He’d threatened it enough times and done enough damage in the past.
Was I scared? Yes. Of course I was. I rubbed my shoulder. My arm still hurt, and I had no doubt that there was a bruise somewhere on my back. One to go with those on my hips from when Lewis had drunk-fucked me against the sharp edge of the kitchen table.
I reached in at the back of the top drawer in the kitchen. The one where we kept the good knives. We never cooked, so it was a safe place to hide stuff, and my fingers felt the familiar plastic pocket where I stashed my tips. I added another two hundred dollars and random euros and a few pounds to what was there and checked that the Sellotape was still sticky enough to hold.
I needed to go or I’d be late. And the bloody drawer wouldn’t close.
I slammed it. It jammed. Pulled it out again. The crumpled money pouch glared at me from on top of the knives.
One thing. You’re only allowed to remove one thing, the voices in my head screamed, and I’d already stashed the wedding invite.
Go, Hugo. You need to go. You need to walk. Take the money and never come back, other voices joined in.
I was pushing my luck, but I shoved the money in the hoodie, my face burning as I put on my trainers, checked my hair in the mirror, pulled the hood over my head and then tugged it down again. Lewis didn’t like it when I hid inside my hoodie. Lewis didn’t like a lot of things.
I wondered if I really did hate him. Or if I was just…being me.
At least work was still a safe space, and I let out a small sigh of relief as I walked through the staff entrance, same as always. At work, I was…well,I was okay. I was in charge. True, there were managers in charge of me, but I ran my own show at the concierge desk, despite my colleague Oliver pretending he was Chief Concierge. It made us sound like some old Western movie, where I was the bad guy to his Sheriff. Oliver was an older guy with a round belly and a load of awards on his lapel like sheriff’s stars. Concierge of the Year. London Expert. Golden Keys Awards. He’d been around longer than most of us, and he was good at his job, but he was also the master of gossip, so it paid to keep on his good side because some of the things he came out with were truly scandalous. Like the very famous musician who sometimes stayed with us. We all knew what his deal was. Same for the troupe of guests who joined him for ‘meetings’? I smiled to myself just thinking about how obvious it was to the hotel’s staff. There was a good reason why housekeeping insisted on having his suite of choice closed down after his stays and all the furniture was sent for deep cleaning.
I slid the money and wedding invite into the stack in my locker, jamming my trainers in the bottom in place of my work shoes, then quickly undressed in the privacy of an empty locker room, worrying how late I was.
A few minutes was no issue. More than that, Oliver would have my head on a plate.
White shirt over my head, I fastened my tie as I brushed my teeth. Yeah. Nobody liked to be breathed on by the guy who stunk, and I did take some pride in my personal appearance. I eased my tuxedo over my shoulders, gently fastening my belt. I was too thin, Clothes hung off me like big drapes.
My skin was pale, my lips cracked. I was too old for acne, but I had a rash on my cheek.
I knew. Fuck, I knew. All signs and symptoms of my body having had enough, fighting back at the war my brain was waging against it, and once again, I just wanted to cry at the mess my life had become.
At least we were busy, and thank God for that because it meant I didn’t have to think. All I needed to do was get things done, write things down, make phone calls, every completed task getting scrunched up into a little paper ball. The satisfying sound of paper hitting the marble floor made me…happy.
By the time I got a break, the canteen was long closed, but Rafaela was in charge and was adamant I should go get something to eat.
I didn’t need something to eat. I wanted to just keep working until eleven when I could go collapse on the Tube home and then I would sleep until I got back up again to come in for my double shift tomorrow. But Rafaela was scary when she got mad, and right now she was giving me evils and waving her hands at me to go eat, dismissing me from my desk with a flick of her wrist.
Eating after the canteen closed was usually a privilege because we got to go sit in the restaurant break room and order from the à la carte menu. Now I would have to go sit there, scrolling on my phone and drinking from my water bottle. And not eat.
Sneaking through the back corridor, I took a seat in the break room and hoped that nobody would notice my presence.
I could actually just sit here, pretend I didn’t exist.
I didn’t want to look at my phone.
There were messages from my parents. A long rant from my sister over her wedding seating arrangements. Messages from Lewis. I didn’t want toopen them. See? I’d broken rules today, hence bad things were happening. Like all the messages. Like having to sit here like an idiot. Like…
My heart was beating too fast, and I sipped my water, willing myself to calm down.
No chance of that because now here was that big idiot of a French chef, staring at me from the doorway.
He was well built, taking up almost the entire frame of the space. With messy brown hair bundled up under a bandana and freckled skin partly hidden by the most absurd mass of stubble known to man, Benjamin Desjardins looked like some oversized Viking, and I had to bite my lip not to laugh.
