Page 56 of The Man I Love

“He?” Samantha glared at him, folding her arms at her chest.

The bellhop lifted a glass checking for spots, then used a pristine white napkin to rub it clean.

For a second, Samantha contemplated beating Tristan’s door down and demanding he explain himself, but the amount of adrenaline pumping through her veins told her that was abadidea.

The bellhop continued to arrange the dishes, then spun to face her, producing a yellow piece of paper from his pocket which he straightened against his chest.

“I’m, ah”— he cleared his throat— “supposed to read this to you.”

Samantha’s jaw was tight, and her heart was beating so hard she began to feel lightheaded. “Go on.”

The bellhop's fingers were visibly shaking, and she thought he might be even more nervous about the note than she was.

“Samantha,” He cleared his throat, then adjusted his stance slightly. “I ordered you food. Because either you’re hungry, or––”

Samantha’s eyes bulged. “That’s enough!” She held up a hand stopping him.

All the color drained from the bellhop’s face, and he dropped the note on the carpet.

She already knew what the letter was going to say. Either she was hungry or hadn’t been fucked well in a really long time. The same words he’d used in a cafe parking lot on their first cross-country trip. “Sorry, I...” She moved toward him, but the bellhop quickly picked up the note as though it had caught fire and tossed it on the table. Then without another word he lowered his head, took hold of his cart, and wheeled it out of the room.

When he was gone and the door was shut, Samantha walked to the table and picked up the piece of lined yellow paper. Tristan always kept a notepad like this in his work truck. In spite of herself, she unfolded the note and stared at it for a long time. The handwriting was the same messy, bold scrawl that had once formed love notes—the kind that made her believe in happily ever afters.

Samantha,

I ordered you food. Because either you’re hungry, or the baby is.

Fuck! She’d been so wrong. Of course he wouldn’t have written that for others to see. She closed her eyes briefly, as shame made her eyelids heavy, but she forced them open again and continued to read.

The waitress recommended the burger, so that’s what I ordered for you. It has everything on it, but if something else pleases you, I told them to put it on my tab.

–– Tristan

She remembered the first time they shared a burger together. It was the moment she’d begun to question her and Steven’s relationship. The moment she began to question so many things. She dropped the note on the table, unable to resist the aroma of the food any longer, and lifted the silver lids off of one of the trays. French fries and a hamburger with everything on it, just like he’d said. The second was a large slice of strawberry cheesecake with a dollop of whipped cream on top.

She sat heavily down on the chair. “Damn it!” Then picked up the burger with both hands and took a bite. The juicy burger satisfied her every craving. It hurt her pride to admit it, but she was ravenous in every way possible.Damn him.

22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

July

Present Day

The next morning,Sam opened her eyes at eight, still exhausted. Sleep had come in short sporadic waves, and her thoughts always came back to Tristan. Memory after memory floated in and out, and she seemed to have thousands of dreams, from teenage angst and adulthood grudges to steamy moments in their relationship.

Her stomach rolled with the baby’s movements, and she placed one hand on her abdomen. Mornings were the baby’s “awake” time, and the tiny flutters, hiccups, and small movements seemed to come at a rapid pace this morning. Sometimes she’d lie in bed for hours, her eyes closed as she relished the movements she knew were fleeting. In a few short weeks her baby would be earth-side, and she’d have to share him or her with the world. Right now, these movements felt like a secret. One only the two of them knew about, and she cherished every second.

With a sigh of regret, she rolled to her side and pried herself from the mattress. She’d already spent too much time procrastinating, and they needed to get back on the road if they were ever going to make it back to L.A.

She pulled a T-shirt from her overnight bag, yanking it overhead as she entered the bathroom. “It’s time to get up, little one. We have a long day ahead of us.”

After brushing her hair and teeth, she stepped out to the hallway wearing blue denim shorts and a white T-shirt which felt a little too small. She yanked the hem down her stomach as she moved around the tray of dishes stacked outside of Tristan’s door.She paused, taking a hair tie off her wrist then whisked up the hair off her neck and into a bun. They’d eaten the same meal last night. The same dishes, the same crumbs, their discarded trays only a few inches apart. She took a deep breath and continued down the hall, realizing they’d eaten a meal together, only separated by a wall six inches thick.

She arrived in the elevator feeling unsettled, but when she found Tristan already in the dining room eating breakfast, she took a deep breath of bravery.

She gathered a plate of breakfast from the buffetand sat in the seat across from him. “Good morning,” she said, setting her plate noisily on the table.

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