by Mya Wood
And, of course, he agreed to go. He loved his Uncle Phil and his Aunt Nadine. He knew they worked hard at running their business. He had visited a number of times when he was younger and always enjoyed it.
Even so, he made a token resistance. “What do I know about running a hotel?”
“You wouldn’t have to run it, just be there overnight. They have staff during the day. It would just be for emergencies.”
Great, thought Landry. I don’t have to know any of the basics, just the emergency stuff. “Well just what kind of emergencies are we talking about here?”
“Oh, plugged up toilets, or if someone needs a doctor or stuff like that. But don’t worry, because it will never happen. Nadine says they are never bothered at night. They just they have to have someone there for the insurance.”
Landry acquiesced because it was family and because…well, because he was Landry.
He spent the first day walking on the beach, which was virtually deserted this time of year. The Hampton Inn was sandwiched in amongst a mile-long strip of condos, most of which were totally shut up with the hurricane shutters drawn. There was no public access to the beach, so it was a long, empty stretch of sand.
Landry was glad it was deserted. He didn’t want to be discovered by any fans. He knew if he was, the word would go out, and that would make things difficult. He could see all kinds of midnight emergencies arising if any fans arrived to take a room. And when the fellas in the locker room found out, they would tease him forever.
Landry watched the girl floating in the pool. She was pretty and looked to be about his age. She wasn’t too tall, maybe 5’4, and she had a nice shape to her. Landry hated stick women. When he wrapped his arms around someone, he wanted to feel flesh. And he hadn’t felt any in awhile, he realized. He had been planning on hitting up some clubs this week and maybe hooking up with someone, but then this came along.
Landry stepped back suddenly. The girl had opened her eyes and looked up. Probably at the sky, you dork. He felt guilty anyway. He had been thinking about sex – not with her, but still, he felt guilty. He watched from the shadows as she made her way out of the pool, slowly, deliberately, as if she were being filmed. Oh, good Lord, she did a thing with her hair and then stretched. Landry could feel himself getting aroused. Then she bent over…oh god…and then she turned…oh shit, that view was almost even better.
Landry turned from the window and grabbed a towel. He was going to go run on the beach and throw himself into the pool.
But by the time Landry came down from his room, Bianca had gone back into hers and didn’t see him go through the break in the hedge to the beach. She got busy unpacking her things into the dresser. If she was going to be here for five days, she wasn’t going to live out of a suitcase. The cool air in the room gave her goose bumps, so she pulled a sweatshirt on over her bathing suit.
She thought about getting dressed but decided against it. She was going to go down to the ocean when she finished unpacking. She guessed she’d better think about getting her grocery shopping in then, too.
Bianca opened the fridge and pulled out one of the bottles of wine. She opened it and poured herself a glass. It was crisp and cold. She savored the taste on her tongue. She loved the taste of wine. She wished it wasn’t an alcoholic beverage. She preferred the taste of it to any kind of soda or fruit drink.
Bianca hauled ass out to the car and came back in with one of the boxes. She put the things away in the cupboards – tea, sugar, crackers, some snack junk foods, all the staples. And lots of bottled water, too. People in Florida carried bottled water with them wherever they went. Even if you went somewhere that had a sign saying ‘no food or drink allowed’, it was still okay to have a bottle of water with you.
Bianca made a list of the things she would need to get from the store – fruit, vegetables, milk for her tea, bread. She had decided to do lunches in the room and go out for dinner. The restaurant next door was not too expensive, and since breakfast was included in the room rate, she figured she could afford to eat out at least one meal a day. She laughed to herself – maybe she’d seduce the perv from earlier into taking her out to dinner.
Bianca took out the lists that she had made with Valerie and taped them up on the picture over the desk – pastel sailboats against a pink sky – it needed to be covered up, she decided. She had another glass of wine while she looked at the lists, turning the ideas over in her head.
Aw, the hell with it, she’d think about it tomorrow. She grabbed the remote for the TV and did a little channel surfing. There didn’t seem to be much on.
Bianca’s stomach rumbled to let her know that she was getting a little hungry. She guessed she should go over to the restaurant; the only problem was she didn’t feel like getting dressed. She was still in her bathing suit. She rummaged through the cupboard and came up with a bag of Cheetos. Kind of a stupid thing to have with wine, but…what the hell, she thought, tearing open the bag and pouring herself another glass.
By nine o’clock, Bianca had finished the bottle. She lay on the bed, thinking about getting undressed or maybe just going to sleep in her bathing suit. No, she said to herself, that would not be good. That would be saying you couldn’t even manage to get undressed. She looked at the empty bottle and she sighed. This wasn’t good. She had to deal with this. On top of all the other crap in her life, now she had to deal with this.
Bianca peeled off her bathing suit and dragged herself into the bathroom. She turned on the shower and stepped in. She stood under the hot water and gave herself a good talking to. She was hard on herself and eventually made herself cry. They were the sloppy, pathetic, feeling-sorry-for-yourself tears of a drunk.
Enough of this nonsense, Bianca told herself. Get your flippin’ act together. Tomorrow, those other two wine bottles go in the trash…full!
Bianca reached out and pushed the shower lever. The water stopped coming from the head and returned to running into the tub from the faucet. Bianca turned off the hot water, and then, with a flourish, she spun the cold water tap. To her amazement, the cold water continued to run into the tub and she was left standing with the tap in her hand. She turned it over and looked at it, trying to comprehend what had happened. She felt something fall out of the tap and hit the side of the tub with a metallic, ringing sound before it joined the swirling water and slid down the drain.
Oh, shit! she thought. What do I do now?
Bianca looked at the remains of the tap sticking out from the wall. She tried to find a way to turn it off but could see none. Think! Think! She put her hands under the faucet to try and stop the water from coming out. It was a natural reaction to the situation, but she still cursed herself for being an idiot.
She put the plug in the tub, thinking to at least save the water. She stepped out of the tub and grabbed a towel. She went into the bedroom to the phone. What the hell was the number for the nephew, the emergency guy? She concentrated hard but couldn’t remember. Shit! She could hear the water still flowing. She went and checked the level. It wasn’t too bad. Only a couple of inches, maybe. Thank God she liked hot showers. The cold tap had barely been turned on.
Bianca grabbed a sweatshirt and some shorts and pulled them on. After checking the level of the tub again, she went out the door. She was going to have to go get the pervert to help her.
She sighed. This could only happen in August!
Only in August!
Chapter 3
Click! Click!
Landry tapped the remote, trying to find something at least halfway interesting to watch on TV. He surfed idly through the channels.
Nope, nope, nope.
He stopped for a couple of minutes on a mystery, but the story was too far along and he couldn’t figure out who the characters were.
Nope, nope…
Landry turned his head at the sound of a knock. He threw down the remote and went to the door. Standing in the doorway was the girl from the pool. She looked into
the room behind him and raised one eyebrow. Landry turned to see that his channel surfing had stopped on Baywatch. Some girl in a bathing suit three sizes too small was running along the beach in slow motion.
Landry picked up the remote and clicked the TV off. When he turned back to the girl, he was blushing. “Can I help you?” he asked.
“I sure hope so,” she said, although she sounded doubtful. “I’m Bianca Watson.” She held out an object.
“What’s that?” asked Landry.
Uh, oh, thought Bianca. If he doesn’t even recognize it, we’re in big trouble here.
“It’s the cold water tap off my bathtub…in Room fifteen,” she added, thinking that was a dumb thing to say. She was pretty sure the plumbing was similar in each of the rooms, and that her tub had no special characteristics to set it apart from the rest.
“What happened?” asked Landry.
“It came off when I was finishing my shower. I tried to turn it off…and I guess I did. I turned it right off.” She laughed and then tried to stop herself. “I’m stronger than I look.” She laughed again, presumably to dispel the awkwardness. “Um…the water’s still running, though...”
“I’ll come and have a look at it,” said Landry, thinking that looking at it wouldn’t help much. It was pretty obvious what had happened, and he didn’t have a clue what to do about it.
“Don’t you want to bring your…I don’t know…tool belt, or something?” asked Bianca, wondering what the guy thought he could do with his bare hands.
“I don’t know where they keep it,” said Landry, almost to himself, looking around the apartment. He walked over to the closet in the kitchen where the brooms and cleaning things were kept. On the floor he found a red, metal toolbox. He held it up with a sheepish grin. “Found it.”
Great, thought Bianca, the pervert nephew was a dummy too.
“Let’s hurry up,” she said. “I left the plug in.”
“You left the plug in?” said Landry. “Well…shit. What did you do a dumb thing like that for?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Bianca, but then she realized that yeah, maybe that hadn’t been the brightest move. “I was just trying to…I don’t know…save the water or something.”
Landry looked pointedly at the ocean and then back at Bianca. He motioned for her to go ahead of him, but when she turned, she lost her balance and stumbled a little. Landry grabbed her by the arm to steady her.
She’s been drinking, he thought. More than a little, too.
They went down the stairs and along the brick pathway to Room fifteen. Landry waited for a moment, just looking at the girl, but when she didn’t move, he said, “Could you open the door?”
Bianca nodded and fished in her pocket for a moment. Then she froze, looking up at him with panic in her eyes. “I didn’t bring the key. I just threw on my clothes. I…”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” breathed Landry. “Hold this.”
He handed Bianca the tool box and then ran back along the pathway to his apartment. He took the stairs two at a time and grabbed the master key from the hook by the door.
Stupid girl, he thought. He hoped the room wasn’t flooded.
Bianca watched him run up the path. Cute, she thought. Very well built. It was a pleasure to watch him move. Oh, Lord, Girl, you really are something else, she thought. And you’re not looking too bright right now either. Get yourself together.
Landry came back with the key and opened the door. He raced into the bathroom and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the tub was only half full. He pulled the drain plug and watched the water run out. Then he looked at the pipe sticking out of the wall, lacking any visible means of being turned off. He heard a clank and turned to see the girl standing in the doorway with the toolbox.
“Any thoughts?” asked Bianca, setting the box on the floor beside him.
Personally, she didn’t hold out much hope that this guy could do anything, but she thought actually opening the toolbox might be a good place to start.
Landry grinned at her. “Yeah, I'm wishing I’d paid more attention in shop class in high school.”
He opened the toolbox and took out a pair of pliers. He fastened them on the tiny end of the pipe, said a prayer, and turned. The water flow lessened somewhat, but then the pliers slipped off. Landry tried it again with limited success.
Bianca watched all this with a dry mouth. When he had grinned at her, she had blinked twice and lost the power of cogent thought. Man, what a mouth! And surprisingly, he actually did seem to know what he was doing. At least the water wasn’t running out as fast even though it hadn’t stopped completely.
Bianca went out to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. Now that the effects of the wine were wearing off, thanks to the shower and the crisis, she was thirsty and she had a headache. She went back to the bathroom to see that the nephew had managed to reduce the water to a trickle.
“You’re getting there, uh…”
Bianca wasn’t sure what to call him. Nephew? Pervert? Dummy?
“Landry,” he said absentmindedly, his mind on the job at hand.
Landry? she thought. What a stupid name! It was a name for a kid, not a grown man.
“Is that short for something?” she asked.
“Nah,” muttered Landry. “It's just Landry.” He dropped the pliers into the toolbox and stood up. “Well, I’m afraid that’s the best I can do for tonight. I’ll tell them to get a plumber in the morning to fix it. Will you be okay here for the night?”
Bianca raised her eyebrows at him. Was he expecting the tub to attack her?
Landry read her thoughts on her face. “I mean, will the dripping sound bother you if you close the door? Will you be able to sleep?”
They moved out of the bathroom and Landry closed the door. Time to find out. They stepped into the bedroom area and both looked around. Bianca took in her bathing suit lying on the floor by the bed. Dangling out of her suitcase was her bra. The empty wine bottle kept company with the corkscrew on the counter, and the single wine glass was nestled next to the remote on the nightstand between the beds.
Oh shit, thought Bianca, he’ll think I’m a slob…and a drunk…a drunken slob.
“Lie down on the bed,” said Landry, matter-of-factly. The look Bianca gave him made him blush to the roots and take two steps backwards. “I mean, to see if you can hear the noise of the water over the air conditioner.”
Bianca smiled as she made her way around the bed and sat down on the edge of it. “Are there any other available rooms here tonight?” She pulled her legs up onto the bed and put her head back on the pillow.
“No,” said Landry, “There aren’t.”
“Well, then I guess I’ll just have to live with it,” said Bianca, stretching out and tilting up her head to see if she could hear the sound.
“Well, no,” said Landry, “If it’s a problem, you can always sleep at my place.”
Bianca raised an eyebrow.
“…and I’ll sleep here,” Landry added quickly.
“That’s very sweet of you,” said Bianca.
She closed her eyes and listened. She could hear the water dripping, but she was determined just to put up with it. She’d been enough of a pain in the ass for this guy already.
“No, that’s good. I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll go right to sleep.” She pulled herself up onto her knees.
Landry looked at the empty wine bottle. He was pretty sure that she was right. “Okay, then. I’ll just be going.”
Even though Bianca knew that Landry had every right to what he was thinking about her, it still embarrassed her and angered her a little. She extracted a little revenge by putting her arms up over her head and stretching.
This pulled her sweatshirt up enough to show her stomach and give a tantalizing hint to what visual pleasure he would have received, had she been wearing a shorter shirt.
“I’ll just get into my j
ammies and turn in.” She sat back on her butt and swung her slender legs off the side of the bed.
“And I’ll get my tools,” stammered Landry, heading back into the bathroom.
When he came back out, Bianca was standing at her suitcase. She was between him and the door. She gave him a long look and then stepped aside so that he could go by. There wasn’t much room, and their clothes grazed each other.
Landry made his escape, saying goodnight, and that no, it was no problem, he’d get the plumber out to her first thing in the morning.
Bianca said thank you, and the door finally closed behind him.
Landry took a deep breath and headed back to his room. He hoped he could manage to have a shower without breaking any hardware parts off, because he needed a cold one.
