Page 24 of Ace

"Fuck my life, I'm getting old," I growl as I bend over to grab my shoes.

The woman whose name I still don't know and probably never will grabs her robe from the floor, her eyes locked on me as she dresses.

If I had any doubt that they have cameras in the rooms, I don't now. Once we were awake, the flashing stopped and the light in the room is a little brighter now that my time must be up.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers.

"I had the best time," I tell her, wondering how there are days I feel so young but also so damned old. "That was the best nap I ever had."

"You don't have to leave just yet," she says, a sultriness to her tone, but she doesn't close the distance between the two of us.

I can already tell this is the upsell part of the night, where she's going to try to convince me to spend a little more money before I leave tonight or get me to make another appointment with her before I do.

"I have a meeting," I lie.

She holds on to her composure.

"I'd like to see you again," she says as she bites her lower lip, and I swear my age is even more glaringly obvious right now than it ever has been.

Forty years ago, hell, probably even thirty years ago, I would've been all over this woman. My hormones would have me taking out a fucking loan to spend a few more hours with her, but I'm no longer a horny guy in my thirties. It probably has less to do with my maturity and more to do with the fact that there must've come a time in my life where women who are young enough to be my granddaughter, if I would've had kids , just don't appeal to me. She's completely legal but doesn't interest me at all.

What a fucking shame, honestly.

"I'll make sure they know to add you to my list at the front," I assure her, wondering all the while if Cora got into more trouble than she was able to handle while I went to fucking sleep.

Maybe retirement isn't such a bad idea after all.

"Have a good night, Mr. Wiedman," she says, her hands on my forearm as she leans in and brushes a quick kiss on my cheek.

She looks back at me one more time before leaving the room, and I swear I see more pain than a girl her age should have in her pretty blue eyes. I can tell with just that one look that she's here of her own free will but it doesn't come without a laundry list of regrets for the things she has had to do to make money.

As soon as the door on the far side of the room closes, the one I was escorted through opens, the woman who brought me here standing in the doorway.

"Anything else we can do for you this evening, Mr. Wiedman?"

"I think I'm all set," I tell her as I leave the room.

I'm not a fool. I know there's a reason some of the money is given back to me when I leave. Just as well as I know that the girl who napped with me will be in some sort of trouble because of it.

My car is waiting right outside when I exit, and I don't hesitate to climb inside. I don't drive it back to the studio apartment even though that nap made me even more exhausted than I was earlier.

I head straight to the hotel where I parked my bike earlier. I leave everything I took with me to the Daydreamer's Spa in the car, including the watch and car keys. The vehicle will have to be swept for bugs before I can use it again, and the phone I'd left in the console was a decoy. It would be insane for anyone not to have a cell phone in this day and age.

I ride halfway back to the apartment before stopping in the empty parking lot of a strip center and calling in the location of the car to have it looked over. There's a lot that can be said about technology left behind, and there's always a chance that Cerberus can learn even more about the devices they may have left in or on the car, as well as the cell phone I'd left in the console.

I wait until I'm in the privacy of the studio apartment before I make the second call.

Kincaid is already laughing when he answers the phone.

"Will you ever grow up?" I ask, trying to sound bored, but there's a smile threatening to take over my face.

"Nah, man. That'll mean I'm getting old."

I don't remind him of our age because that shit is depressing, and there are days I feel much older than I actuallyam. Then there are days I wonder why my body wants to betray me when my head tells me I can do something.

"Fucking cuddling?"

"Would you have preferred I listed orgies or something? It's the most innocuous thing I could find on their list," he explains.

---