at the same time. It’s especially funny when one of those men in question doesn’t even know what he’s not going to be part of…funny and sad, simultaneously.
Brian gives me a kiss on the cheek, waves goodbye to our ignorant stranger and leaves. As soon as he’s gone I let out a big breath and sit back down at my spot by the bar. Thank God that’s over; it almost ruined my grand scheme. I go back to writing notes when I’m interrupted once again. For the love of God, what now?
“Can I buy you a drink, sweetheart?” some weird-looking guy with a thick southern accent and a beer belly asks, standing way too close for comfort.
I roll my eyes, raising my hand to say no thanks. Old tourist man doesn’t understand my hand gesture and sits his old ass at the empty seat right next to me.
“Thank you for the offer but I already have a drink. I’m waiting for someone and I’d like to get some work done…on my own,” I say, emphasizing the last part. He nods his head and remains seated at my side. I try to ignore him but his BO and cheap cologne is fucking with my concentration. He also keeps looking at me every couple of seconds. Some men have so much confidence it’s utterly bewildering. I can’t imagine having the balls to come up to a guy I find attractive and offer to buy him a drink, and when he refuses, just sit right down next to him and fucking stare. What the fuck? Where do they get this self-assurance? It can’t be the mirror. The urge to scream starts to surface.
I’ve made zero progress with my plan of attack. This redneck at my side has got me so off track that I forgot my train of thought altogether. I don’t have much time, and as I try to find a document on my phone, the rude weirdo slides his hand up my thigh and sends shock waves of creepy crawlers up my body.
This cannot be happening to me!
“We Don’t Need Another Hero” by Tina Turner
I’ve been killing time at the little Italian restaurant located inside the hotel for hours. I’ve only left my post once to piss and I’m attempting to stay away from the manager who escorted me out of my suite this morning. I need to stay out of his sight until I meet Emily later tonight. I try to compose my excitement and my scattered thoughts. I ought to be sharp about this chance and figure out how to tell her about her dog of a husband and yet not seem like a jealous hater. I don’t know what he’s already told her about me. She may think I tried to hurt her in St. Lucia.
I go over the events of that night in St. Lucia in my head. I didn’t harm her. I never forced her to do anything she didn’t ask me to do. We were both a little zonked…well, she was very hammered. I can bet my left nut that half the things she told me about herself she’d probably never uttered out loud. I think back to the way she begged me to come back to her room, well, it was really my room, but I moved my rubbish out of there for her. She asked me to rub her feet, but then she removed her top and bra and sat in my lap, presented her bare back for me to massage instead of her feet. I remember rubbing her shoulders and thinking that in my wildest dreams I’d never see this, us interacting like this. After walking in on Brandy sucking Jason’s knob, I truly had no desire to even talk to another woman. Emily came out of nowhere and I’m still reeling at my level of infatuation with her. Maybe it’s because I’ve followed their lives for years. Maybe it felt like I knew her because in some creepy-stalker way I really did, even before we’d officially met.
After Isa got discharged from the hospital for trying to harm herself for the second time, my parents asked her to move in with them. She refused so I moved in with her to make sure she’d never feel alone. I recall her crying for days, begging me to explain what some ordinary, young, stupid, American girl named Emily had that she didn’t. Demanding to know why Louis treated Emily like a queen yet disposed