Page 1 of The Other Side of Paradise
Chapter 1
Allison
Oh, fuck me. I didn’t even know what language I was speaking all of a sudden.
I’d been minding my own business—well, minding everyone else’s business, but only because it was my job. Front desk at a fancy hotel was never fun, but it was least fun on a Monday morning during the summer. Friday was always the busiest, but I actually preferred that—kept me swept off my feet, and most of the customers recognized everybody else was in a hurry too. Something about the Monday morning crowds made them the worst of all. Sominding my own businesslooked more like fielding the dumbest possible questions from people who’d had their brains sucked out and had the empty cavity stuffed full of hundred-dollar bills instead, and trying to keep a fake smile the whole time, and I did great, up until the moment the prettiest person I’d seen in my life showed up at the other side of the desk.
“Hi,” she said, kind of absently, only half looking up from her phone. Thank god. If she’d looked right at me, I’d have had a heart attack. “I’m checking in. Stella Valerie Bell.”
“Bell—Stella Valerie. Bell.” Shit, what was I saying? My mouth had started running out of panic before I’d figured out what words I was supposed to say. “Yes, Miss Stella. Bell. Miss Bell. Miss Stella Bell.” I tapped the screen frantically, and the girl, Stella, a celestial name for a celestial creature—shit, I was hopeless—she looked up at me with her nose wrinkled.
“Please, anything butStella Bell.It sounds like a cartoon character when you say it like that.”
“Right. Sorry, Miss Stella Bell.” Fuck me, I’d ruined everything. “Miss… Bell. My apologies. Er—yes. You’re here, with a reservation. For today.”
“God, I’d sure hope so.”
I swallowed nervously, plastering on a smile. “You’re in suite 24, Miss Bell. Shall I help your luggage?” I gestured to the rolling suitcase she had. “Er—help you with your luggage, take your luggage to… er… ask someone to… take care of your luggage?”
She smiled. I died a little inside. Maybe a little outside.
I felt like she must have been a celebrity, but I didn’t recognize her face, just… had that weirdly perfect look where she had to be somebody famous. Had that perfect long, rounded face shape with cheekbones that were just strong enough to stand out without looking gaunt, perfectly styled hair in long, dark-blonde waves, picture-perfect pouty lips with a faint dark lip gloss on, and thin-rimmed glasses that only drew more attention to the damneyes.Dark eyes that looked big and innocent, under long, dark lashes, looking at me weirdly… mostly because, I realized distantly, she’d answered my question and I completely didn’t clock it. I felt my face burn.
Jesus Christ, I knew I was a disaster when it came to girls, but this was a whole new level. I pretended to be troubled by something on the screen.
“Oh… there we go,” I said, faking a small laugh. “Sorry, system glitch. It’s all cleared out. Staying until the end of Sunday, right?” The end of Sunday. Was I going to be seeing this girl around for an entire week? I was going to suffocate on lesbian thoughts. Stella looked back at her phone, her sky-blue manicure on the tasteful side of long. Long enough to say she probably wasn’t, uh, well… she was probably straight. And would have been out of my league even if she weren’t.
“Yeah, Sunday,” she said.
“Great. So sorry, I missed what you said about the luggage…?”
Just when I thought maybe she was content with her phone and wouldn’t be paying attention to me, she slipped it away and gave me the most dazzling smile, the kind that made my heart drop out. “I got it,” she said. “I hate flying, so I’m all grouchy. Anyone lays hands on my stuff right now, I’m biting those hands off. And we don’t need that happening to some poor bellhop.”
She could rip my hands off and I’d thank her. Maybe I should have touched her luggage. I blinked twice before I pushed out a smile, pulling up a keycard for her. “Here’s your card,” she said. “Your suite is ready for check-in now. If you go out the door there—” I pointed across where the hall was getting busier, more and more people crowding it. I hadn’t noticed. A whole circus troupe could have gone through and I wouldn’t have noticed anything other than Stella. “And on the left, suite 24 is past the green stairs, on the ground floor.”
She took the keycard, and her fingertips brushed mine, and I lost my breath, the softness of her skin lingering where she’d touched me. “Thanks,” she said. “Gonna drop this off and get a drink before anyone can stop me.”
“The bar’s… in the other direction,” I said breathlessly, pointing. “Out through that door, you’ll find the poolside bar and… yeah. Enjoy.”
She smiled weirdly at me. “I mean, I can see it. Only thing between me and the bar is a huge-ass window.”
Oh. Right. I laughed. “Right. Of course you can. I guess the glasses work, then.” I did not mean to say that last part. She snorted.
“I’m not that blind without them. Or maybe I just know the way to a bar whether I can see or not.” She grinned at me. “Have a good shift.”
“You too.”Dammit.She wasn’t having a shift. I was going to go drown myself in the pool.
It was barely a minute later that Gavin caught me moping over my own inadequacies, the front-desk supervisor I was under most days—he was a broad-shouldered Latino man who wore a bowtie on the neat red pinstriped suit of his uniform and a sleek mustache and was always perfectly groomed, perfectly prepped, sharp as a blade, and just like most of the rest of the staff, liked to pick on me, and pick on me he did, beaming. “You have a stroke just now or something?” he said, sidling up next to me behind the desk while we had a quick lull, and I strained my smile as hard as I could, squeezing my hands tight on the countertop.
“We’re not going to talk about that.”
He leaned against the counter, grinning at me. “Crush on the guest?”
“No.I don’t crush on guests.”
He raised his eyebrows. “So, some other reason you looked like you’d just seen the pearly gates while that girl was talking to you?”
“Because—” I felt my face burn. “I was just thinking of something else.”
