Page 41 of Dirty Ink

I didn’t want Rachel…

I was out of the bed in a flurry of kicked-off sheets. I didn’t bother with pants. I didn’t even bother with a hotel keycard. I dashed to the door. Flung it open. Sprinted down the hall as I heard the elevator ding around the corner. I caught Rachel just as she was about to step through those gilded doors. Just as they were about to close on her. Just as she was about to disappear forever. Her warmth. Her arm against my side. Her finger stained with candy. Candy I was sure, sure I licked from her skin as she laughed. Both of us naked between the sheets.

“Mason,” Rachel said in surprise as I stopped in front of her, panting. “Mason, you’re naked.”

“You didn’t let me speak,” I said.

She looked around the hallway. It was empty, of course. Vegas was still asleep around us. It was just her and me. And about half dozen security cameras. But who was counting?

“You didn’t let me speak,” I said, trying to catch my breath. Alcohol wasn’t great for early morning sprints, in case ye didn’t know.

Rachel glanced back when the elevator doors began to close. She reached back and stuck her hand between them. Forcing them back open. Keeping available her escape. The light from the inside spilled out over us. Golden like the sunset.

“It was pretty rude of you actually,” I said as she eyed me warily. “We spoke at the same time and I politely offered for you to say what you had to say first. And you did. Which was fine. Totally fine. I’m a gentleman, as you well know.”

Rachel frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.

“But the least you could do after I was so polite to let you go first is to then say, ‘Oh, hey, Mason, I think you were going to say something when I rudely, very rudely interrupted. I’d really like to hear what it was that you wanted to say.’”

I was still panting, but not from running. I was panting from this sort of desperation inside of me. From this fear. I was putting myself out there in a way I hadn’t ever before. And it was terrifying. I was asking to be shot down. I was begging to be wounded.

“Oh, hey, Mason, I think you were going to say something when I inter—”

“Rudely, very rudely.”

A flicker of amusement flashed across Rachel’s eyes and then she continued, “When I rudely, very rudely interrupted.”

I mouthed the words for her to repeat, “I’d really like to hear what it was that you wanted to say.”

Rachel eyed me for a moment and caught the closing elevator doors once more. Her look warned me that this would be the last time she held up the doors.

I could still let Rachel go. I could still get what I wanted, what I always said, what I always told myself I wanted.

“I was going to say,” I said, eyes on hers, “that that wasn’t just a drunken thing for me. I think I’m meant to be with you, Rachel.”

This time when the elevator doors closed, Rachel did not extend her arm blindly behind her. She didn’t reach back to stop them. She stood there and let them close. The light on the button went dark. The numbers above flashed lower, lower, lower. All was still in the hallway. All quiet.

Rachel and I stared at one another.

Then she said in a low, husky whisper, “I think we should go back to the room.”

I patted my naked thighs and smiled.

“Yeah, about that…”

Rachel

Now…

The elevator doors closed behind me and JoJo’s shrieks filled the hallway of the downtown Dublin hotel. I hurried to my room and ducked inside before she summoned a pack of hounds. Or the hotel manager.

“Would you hush?” I laughed, cupping my hand over the phone’s speaker like it was her lips.

“Can’t a best friend be excited for a best friend?” JoJo shouted.

Her image on the screen jolted as she jumped in wild circles around her apartment back in New York City. It was apparently wine o’clock there given the massive glass of red wine she was most certainly spilling on her flea-market-find rug. I had fuck all idea what time it was there in Dublin. I just knew it was dark. And the hotel quiet. Or at least it was before I called JoJo and began telling her about all that had happened.

“I just don’t get what there is to be excited about,” I told her as I set up the phone on the dresser against the television. I added a pillow against the wall on second thought. My neighbour might not enjoy a 3 a.m. wakeup call from a hysterical American woman drunk on pinot and hot Irish gossip.

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