by Sienna Blake
"Eh, Seamus fucking burnt the scallops again so the quickest I can get out are those bacon-wrapped dates."
Bingo.
"Five minutes, though."
Not a problem. I licked the buttery, flaky remains of the mini beef wellington from the tips of my fingers and leaned against the wall of the kitchen. While I was waiting, a server came back with a bottle of red that matched the embarrassed flush of her cheek. I stopped her as she went to pass.
"Woah, woah. Why is this coming back?"
Staff size was also important in picking a place. With a large enough staff, nobody knew whose boss is whose. Put on a slightly commanding voice and anyone will listen to you.
"The corkscrew went through the cork," the server explained, nervously tripping over her words. "They refused the bottle because they said there could be cork inside. I was going to take it to Melissa's office."
I shook my head, taking the bottle from her serving tray. "I'll take it to Melissa's office. You get back to work."
The girl nodded empathically. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I—"
"Don't let it happen again."
The girl rushed off back down the hall, and at that moment the chef shouted, "Hot dates!"
I grinned. Hot dates for a hot date: me. Me, myself, and I. With the silver tray of bacon-wrapped dates in one hand and the bottle of wine in the other, I escaped the humid, loud kitchen and wandered down the hall.
I took swigs straight from the bottle when the hall wasn't filled with servers sprinting its length with wobbling trays of dirty glasses and plates.
"Off to the VIP section," I'd tell them. "Very important dates going to very important people."
"These are for that bald guy with those glasses? He's such an asshole, right?" I'd say as they rushed past.
"What a crowd tonight, eh? I mean they're just dates, can't they wait five seconds longer so I can relieve my bladder?" I'd moan as server after server flew past my lazy stride.
But the truth was that none of that was necessary. Nobody saw me in the first place. I was invisible, just like always. I was a ghost, tethered to no one.
These men and women were all working hard so that they could get home to their husbands, meet up with their friends, snuggle their babies, play with their dogs, call up their moms, annoy their downstairs neighbour, get shit-faced with their brothers, take care of their grandfathers, fuck their high school sweethearts, lounge on the couch with their roommates, find marijuana in their teenagers' sock drawer. They all had people.
I had three-quarters of a bottle of red wine and half a silver tray of bacon-wrapped dates. And in about thirteen minutes that was going to be gone, too.
On the bright side, this meant that I could eat and drink and never get caught. I could guzzle the finest champagne, the most expensive bottle in the whole goddamn place, right in front of someone in a black vest, and all they'd see is the math for how many more hours they'd need to work to afford their daughter's braces. I'd sampled some of the finest hors d'oeuvres at the finest restaurants and hotels from here to Warsaw with nothing more than the occasional second glance.
So being alone had its perks. But that was like saying the flu had its perks because you didn't have to go to school. That didn't mean you wanted to get the flu. And I certainly didn't want to be alone.
But I was.
And there was nothing I could do about it.
I found myself in an empty hallway with burgundy carpets, gold wallpaper, and ornately framed dead dudes. I grinned, knowing from experience that one of these doors led to a linen closet. I found one marked with tiny, delicate scrawl quickly enough and stopped outside the door. I deserved a quiet, intimate spot for my date date with myself, after all.
Glancing up and down the length of the hallway, I set down the silver tray, tucked the half-empty wine bottle under my arm, and slipped two bobby pins from my braid. I blew the long sun-bleached strands from my face and concentrated on the lock. Motels don't lock their linen closets. But then again, motels don’t serve mini beef wellingtons and bacon-wrapped dates, so…
I almost had the door unlocked when I heard a voice ask, "Hey, do you know where the bathrooms are?"
I froze, shoulders tense and eyes wide. Surely no one was talking to me. No one ever even saw me. There had to be a server behind me. Slowly, I twisted my head to look down the hallway. My stomach dropped. There was a man in a suit with sharp green eyes.
"Hello?"
He was definitely talking to me.
Michael
The girl stared at me like I'd spoken to her in Finnish.
She was a wild, skittish-looking thing with lanky legs, long blonde hair falling from a loose braid and curtaining one hazel eye, and a smattering of freckles on her tanned face like she'd been out playing with the boys in the mud. Her uniform was ill-fitting and wrinkled and her uniform shoes were just high top Converse with the white emblem, sole, and toe coloured in roughly with black Sharpie.
"Bathrooms?" I prompted when she still remained silent, bent over the door handle, staring unblinkingly at me. "Do you know where they are?"
"Are you talking to me?" she asked, checking behind her down the other end of the hallway where there was no one.
"Look, you can just point me in the general direction," I said. "I can see you're really busy—"
I frowned, finally paying attention to what it was the girl was doing. A grin tugged at the corner of my lips.
"Really busy breaking into a…into a linen closet."
The girl's eyes widened in panic as she stood to her full height and shook her head. "I'm not breaking in."
I raised a curious eyebrow and took a step closer to her. "No?" I asked. "That's a curious-looking key you've got there then."
The girl fidgeted with the two bobby pins. "They're, um, they're…"
"Curious Irish accent as well," I added, stepping even a little closer, my eyes trailing over the silver tray of hors d'oeuvres and the bottle of wine she tried to quickly hide behind her back.
"I do believe I've caught a thief," I said, biting my lip.
"I'm not a thief," she protested, dropping the bad Liam Neeson impersonation.
"An American thief, no less."
The girl defiantly raised her chin and jutted forward her jaw, tucking her loose strands of hair behind her ears. "Sir, as an employee of this hotel I will not take any harassment from clearly intoxicated guests such as yourself," she said. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go alert security."
I grabbed hold of her arm as she tried to slip past me. "What hotel?"
The girl's eyes flashed up toward mine, their hazel colour as wild and rugged as the stretches of desert from pictures of America. "What?"
I grinned down at her. "What hotel?" I repeated, punctuating each word this time.
The girl hesitated.
"You're an honest employee of this hotel," I said sweetly. "Surely you can tell this clearly intoxicated guest who is harassing you the name of said hotel?"
The girl glared angrily up at me and then wrestled her arm from my grip. "Tell me what you want," she said, daring me with those fiery eyes. "Let's just get it over with already."
It was my turn to stare at her as I opened my mouth to speak, only to realise that I didn't exactly have an immediate answer to her question. At first, all I wanted was directions to the bathroom so I could piss and hurry back to deliver a heartless speech to appease Bill and the senior partners. But this girl clearly had no better idea than I as to where the bathrooms in the hotel where located.
It wasn't like I really cared that she was stealing a few bites of dates and an overpriced bottle of wine. As far as I was concerned, it was hotel's fault for not being better managed. I actually rather admired her taking advantage of the current system; it wasn't far off from what a corporate lawyer did.
So why was I still here, in the hallway opposite her? What did I want from her?
I, frankly, wasn't sure. All I knew was that I didn't want to leave.
"You want me to make up some sob story?" the girl prodded when I remained silent. She crossed her arms over her chest and said, "You want me to tell you all about how my parents both died in a car crash and I've burnt through their inheritance and I'm all alone with no money and no future? Do you get off on sad, helpless little girls?"
She moved really closed to me, pouted her lips up at me, and held her clasped hands beneath her chin as her eyes watered.
"Does that work on a lot of people?" I asked, nodding at her. "That story? Those puppy dog eyes?"
The girl shrugged, stepping back a little. "It works with the ones who have hearts, at least."
I chuckled darkly. "I'm a lawyer. I don't have one of those," I told her. "What else you got?"
The girl drummed her fingers along her chin. "Money?"
I laughed. "Money? I'm not sure you own another shirt, let alone five whole euros," I said incredulously. "Does that work on a lot of people?"
The girl grinned. "It works on the ones who don't have brains," she said, and then added, "So lots."
"Well, I'll pass on the lucky penny in your sock, thank you very much," I said. "What's next?"
The girl looked me up and down slowly, assessing me with those intelligent hazel eyes which sparked mischievously. I sucked in a surprised breath when she moved in close again, grabbed onto the lapels of my suit jacket, and stretched up onto her tiptoes. Her breath was hot against my neck.
"You want me to give myself over to you?" she whispered, pressing her chest against mine. "You want to feel that sense of power over me?"
She rolled her hips slowly, tantalisingly against my crotch before falling back to her feet.
"I imagine that works quite often," I said, grinning devilishly.
The girl bit her lip and quirked an eyebrow. "It works with the ones who don't have souls," she said. "Do you have one of those?"
Her eyes studied mine as mine studied hers. "I don't know," I said slowly. "I'm very rich."
"Strike one." The girl held up a single finger, the middle one, of course.
"I work for an international corporate law firm."
The girl whistled, raising a second finger. "That's super-villain stuff right there. Strike two for sure."
I grinned. "And I occasionally jaywalk."
The girl mocked outrage as she lifted the third and final finger.
"Three strikes, you're out," she said, thumbing over her shoulder. "I'm sorry to say it, but you have no soul. So do you want to take me against the wall or on the floor? How do you feel about being called dad—?"
“Stop.” I grabbed her wrist, delicate and narrow as the bones along a bird's wing, to stop her from unbuttoning her vest. Her eyes found mine, her gaze going suddenly soft.
"I think you're a liar," she whispered, a little crook tugging up the corner of her lips, pink like tiny desert flowers.
"A liar?" I whispered back.
She nodded, almost imperceptibly. "I think you do have a soul, Mr Stranger in a Suit."
When I remained silent, the girl nodded again.
"Yeah, I think you're a bold-faced liar."
I narrowed my eyes a little at her, trying to keep a smile of my own from my lips. "Well, you're a thief."
She grinned. "So you're a liar and I'm a thief," she said. "We're made for one another."
It was in that moment, with my face just inches from a stranger who in a few seconds would leave and disappear forever from my life, that I realised what I wanted from her.
Nothing.
It was a strange thing to realise because in my world, in the world of corporate law, in the world of the rich and the richer and the richest, everyone wanted something from someone. If you weren't wanted for something, that only meant that you were no one. People were commodities to be traded, used, sold off, and forgotten.
This girl, poor and wandering, couldn't get me anything, couldn't get me anywhere.
Maybe that was why I was drawn to her: she was a fire. You didn't take anything from a fire, you couldn't take anything from a fire. You could watch her dance, watch her twist and twirl in the night. But you were a fool if you thought you were going to steal something from her.
All I wanted was to be near her, to feel her warmth. If just for a little while.
Just then I heard a voice calling from around the bend in the hallway. "Michael? Michael?"
Goddammit, it was Caroline.
The girl noticed me tense at the call of my name. She raised an eyebrow. "Your girlfriend?"
I shook my head. "I don't fuck automatons."
"Michael?" Caroline was drawing nearer.
I imagined I could hear the ominous click-clack of her deadly Louis Vuitton even on the plush carpeted floor. "Excuse me,” I heard her ask someone round the corner. “Have you seen a tall man in a dark grey suit? Green eyes? Sulky? Brooding? Prone to hiding away alone in dark corners?"
The girl's eyes flashed up at me as I listened. "Ex-girlfriend?"
"Worse," I whispered.
"Michael?!"
Caroline would be turning the corner in just a few moments. She would find me, she would grab me by the collar like a naughty school boy and drag me back to the ballroom and up on stage. She'd forcibly make my lips move if she had to. I'd give my speech, the room would applaud, stand, smack me on the back, shake my hand and slip their business cards into my pocket like cash for favours. I'd smile, nod and play my part. I'd go home. Or more likely I'd go to the office. I'd turn on the new lamp at my new desk in my new office, not even bothering to glance up at the panoramic view of Dublin and all its twinkling, dazzling lights. I'd do the same thing the next day. And the day after. And the day after that. I'd climb the corporate ladder, rung by rung, I'd reach the top. I'd have everything I wanted, everything I told myself I always wanted…
"Michael?!"
Caroline was near. And angry, very angry.
"How about a deal?" I whispered hastily to the girl.
She raised an eyebrow. "A deal?"
"You unlock that linen closet and I won't turn you in." I glanced over my shoulder at the connecting hallway Caroline would emerge from any minute now, her tablet nearly snapping in half from her white-knuckled grip.
I looked back down into the wild hazel eyes of the girl. There was no reason for her to take a deal. There was nothing stopping her from turning and running away down the hall, escaping into the night. She could leave me. She could run.
I searched her eyes as Caroline again called for me, her voice sharp and loud as if she was calling a disobedient dog.
The girl's eyes lit up, like the first spark in the kindling. She grinned as she placed a bobby pin between her teeth.
"Deal."
Abbi
The lock twisted with a click, and I shoved the door open.
"Get in," I whispered, shoving the man I now knew as Michael inside as the woman called his name from just around the corner.
I slid in the tray of dates and the bottle of wine just as a tall woman in a black leather mini dress emerged into the hallway, head turned, thankfully, in the opposite direction. I hurried inside the linen closet and yanked the door closed behind me.
In the pitch black, I stumbled and fell against the man's chest. One of his arms caught me at the small of my back and the other rose up to place a warm hand against my mouth to conceal my startled cry. Outside the door we heard the woman approaching with brisk, angry steps.
"Michael, where the hell are you?"
She seemed to stop right outside the door of our tight, crowded little linen closet.
The fact that I couldn't see a thing made the sensation of Michael’s body pressed firmly against mine all the more vivid. His hand at the small of my back clutched a handful of my shirt, and I could feel the tug of the material against my skin, like sheets pulling down naked skin. My shirt, unruly and untucked as always, had ridden up, and one of his fingers dug into my back, like I was clay for his moulding. My breasts were pressed firmly against
him. I wondered if the sensation of my body in the dark was doing the same for him as it was for me.
I wondered if he could feel the swell of my breasts so vividly that it felt like nothing between us. I wondered if he could feel my heart racing against him as clearly as if he had a stethoscope to my bare skin. I wondered if he could feel the press of my nipples as perfectly as if I was brushing them along his naked chest on their way to his mouth.
Neither of us dared to move as the woman called his name outside the door, but I wasn't entirely sure it was because of her. I thought maybe we didn't move because we'd fallen into place like two pieces of a puzzle. I thought maybe we didn't move because I felt good against him and he felt good against me. I thought maybe we didn't move because neither of us had felt this kind of intimacy immediately with someone else. Ever.
We had stumbled upon a delicate, beautiful rose and we were afraid even a single breath would make it disintegrate to dust to be carried away on the wind.
The woman huffed, groaned irritably, and then her angry calls faded away down the hall to nothing.
Slowly Michael pulled his hand away from my mouth. Maybe the dark was just playing games with my mind, but I thought I felt the pad of this finger brush against my jaw. We breathed against one another in silence, heart pounding against heart.
"I think she's gone," I finally whispered, my lips ghosting along his sharp jaw as I tried to look up at him.
He shifted against me, making small noises as he searched around us. There was the click of a light switch and the sudden glare of yellow light from the single bulb above. We blinked at one another, our eyes adjusting. I retreated back till my shoulders hit the door after seeing just how close we'd been to one another. I ducked my eyes, scratched awkwardly at the back of my neck. One peek at him showed me that he was just as embarrassed, his cheeks red as he straightened his suit jacket.
"Um, you're welcome," I said.
I had meant to sound confident and self-assured and nonchalant. I had meant to show him that I hadn't felt anything with my body pressed up against him. I had meant to convince myself that I was still in control.
