Page 51 of Stuck With the Best Man

“This isn’t good,” I whisper.

“This is creepy,” she answers.

Using my hands to feel around me, I rise from the mattress and inch toward the door. I stub my toe on the wheel of my suitcase in the process, causing Ruby to snicker softly from the shadows.

I open the door and poke my head out into the hall. Like a bunch of groundhogs coming out of hibernation, a few other people emerge halfway from their rooms. The hallway is lit by strips of dim emergency lighting along the floor. They must have a generator, then. Unfortunately, it seems to only be able to power the bare minimum of safety requirements. The fire exit signs remain lit, but the glow of the vending machines down the hall is nothing but shadows.

Someone flashes a bright light at the mouth of the hall.

“Excuse me, everyone!” I recognize the front desk attendant’s warm yet no-nonsense tone of voice. “Please remain calm! We have another generator that we are powering up at the moment, which should help to keep the temperature control system running throughout the night. However, all other electric services are unavailable, I’m afraid. We will be handing out flashlights in the lobby for use inside your rooms. On behalf of Motel Monson, I apologize for the inconvenience.”

“Not your fault,” someone mutters. “Darn storm…”

In response, someone else chuckles.

I lean back into the room and speak in the general direction of where Ruby is sitting on the bed. “I’m going to go grab us a flashlight.”

“Okay…”

I step out into the hall and, along with a handful of other guests, make my way to the lobby thanks to the guidance of the emergency lights. It’s late enough that most people are probably asleep by now and likely haven’t even noticed that the power is out. All this activity will likely wake a few of them up, though. Not that it matters to one of the guests, who immediately starts berating Martha for a refund. I roll my eyes and open my mouth to tell him to give the woman some space, but Martha sharply reprimands the gentleman before I get the chance.

I accept a simple plastic flashlight and a packet of thick glow sticks—the sort of thing that might be in a hurricane survival kit. Which is the sort of thing I know only because I once had a nanny who was absurdly paranoid about natural disasters. That was a different nanny than the one who let me roller skate down the stairs.

I return to the room, glad that the generator is at least keeping the keycard lock functioning. I flick on the flashlight and duck inside. Ruby has crawled under the blankets in my absence. Her blonde head peeks out over the top of them. She squints when I shine the light in her direction and I mumble a quick apology.

A moment later, the air conditioner gurgles back to life. It’s weak, but hopefully it can keep some of the persistent humidity out of the air while we sleep.

“I guess we should just go to bed now,” I say, shuffling over to my cot. “I’ll leave the flashlight right here on the nightstand in case you need to get up in the middle of the night.”

“Sure.”

The cot creaks and groans as I lower myself onto it. I get tangled in the blankets for a minute and debate just sleeping on the floor, but I don’t want to wake up with a cramp in my back that will make the rest of the drive back to New York painfully miserable.

There’s absolutely no way that I’m going to ask to share the bed. Sitting on it with Ruby while we watch a movie is one thing. Sleeping in it with her… even if I stayed on top of the covers… I don’t hate the idea, if I’m being honest. She knows I think she’s beautiful. She certainly knows that I’m attracted to her, given the way things went during our day at the bookstore last year. I’m not going to hide the fact that I wouldn’t accept whatever morsel of intimacy Ruby is willing to offer me.

I like her.

I’m not supposed to like her, though.

Because, again, our positions in the company makes it totally inappropriate.

I see the glow of Ruby’s phone in my peripheral vision as she reports, “The rain is supposed to stop around four or five in the morning.”

“That’s good.”

I bite my tongue to keep from saying what we’re both probably thinking. Raining or not, the roads will still be a disaster. Floodwater doesn’t magically drain when it stops raining. Not to mention the damage caused by the rain. Plus, there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of fallen trees thanks to the wind.

At the very least, the good news is that I won’t be navigating through a torrential downpour on our way down to the city tomorrow.

“Oh,” Ruby murmurs a moment later. She’s still looking at her phone. “There’s an email from the company.”

“Really?”

“Class is cancelled. Wow. That never happens.”

It’s true. Classes and rehearsals at the NYC Ballet are only cancelled in extreme circumstances. Basically, only if the city itself is shut down. Given that there’s a shelter-in-place order currently active for the entire metropolitan area, I’m not surprised to learn that they aren’t going to force their dancers to arrive bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow.

However, there’s no doubt that rehearsals will begin on Wednesday as originally intended.

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