Page 44 of A Lot to Unpack
I do think. That’s exactly what I think. People are always going to people, and if you give them the tools to make it easier then they will take them, for better or worse. Look at me, for example, because I’m here to do something for Paige, for a good reason, but I’m not in love with the way I’m having to do it. In fact, I kind of hate it. Because whether it’s for a noble cause or not, how I’m doing it feels wrong, because really, what it boils down to is me conning Jordan. Sneaking around. Waiting for the perfect moment to rummage through his belongings. That’s not noble. That’s desperate. Then again, I guess that’s what Paige is, desperate to save the company from a mistake she made when she was feeling hurt. I do get that.
So here I am, because I said I’d do it. Because someone needs to. Because if I back out now, then who is going to be able to take care of it? The clock is ticking.
I just want to get on with it and move on with my life. I want to stop lying, stop sneaking around, because I’m clearly crap at it, even without the moral dilemma.
I glance toward the adjoining door and chew my bottom lip.
There has to be a way to get him to open that door, there just has to. But not only open it, oh no, I need him to open it, leave it open, and then go somewhere else, leaving me with enough time to make the switch.
I glance back at the balcony door. Yes, I know, I’ve already ruled out going Tom Cruise, I’m not about to try to climb into hisroom, or fling myself over the edge so he has to come and save me, but it could be useful. In fact…
Okay, I’ve got it. As I open the door, the cold winter weather hits me like a wave of razor blades. My God, it’s even colder up here than it is down on the street. Then again, I wear my coat on the street, and it’s less jarring walking out from reception than it is opening up this floodgate in the sky.
I stumble back as it briefly takes my breath away – I think it’s just the shock – and then I get into character and go to bang on the adjoining door.
‘Jordan,’ I call out. ‘Jordan? Jordan, I need your help.’
My initial idea was to tell him that I’d somehow managed to get my door stuck open, and that I need a big, strong man to close it, except it moves so easily and so freely, it would definitely seem suspicious, and even if it didn’t, he would have it closed in an instant.
Even as I’m banging on the door I’m not entirely sure what I’ll say, but my plan is to tell him that something ran in through the open door, like a spider or a mouse or something, and that I need him to get it out. Surely if I act all girly and squeaky, he’ll feel obliged to help me, it’s the gentlemanly thing to do. I know, I’m going to seem pathetic, but some men like that, right? To feel like the big man, the hero. Truthfully, if a spider did come in here, and it was big enough to bother me, I’d take a size seven heel to it myself, and as for a mouse, well, I wouldn’t want some random rodent in here, but it wouldn’t scare me. Not that I’d be offering it a bite of my food, but it wouldn’t turn me into a damsel in distress.
‘Jordan,’ I call out again, adding a little more urgency to my tone. Not enough to scare him, but enough to know I need him.
‘What’s wrong?’ he calls from the other side of the door.
‘I… I need your help,’ I say, breathless. ‘I’m scared.’
I hear the door unlock, then it swings open and… oh, God.
There he is, Jordan, standing there, in nothing but a pair of boxers.
He gives me a bit of a grin, the kind that says: my eyes are up here. I already knew he had eyes though, what I didn’t know was that he wore tiny, tight-fitting boxers, and that his body looked like it had been carved out of marble by a sculptor who had a real thing for bulging muscles – bulging everything, really. And then there are his tattoos. So many of them, all over his body, that you would never get to see unless you saw him without his clothes on.
‘What’s the problem?’ he asks.
I can think of a few now…
‘Liberty?’ he prompts me. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I, er…’
I, er, have forgotten how to speak, because you look like an underwear model – but I won’t say that out loud. I need to pull myself together.
‘I have a situation,’ I say.
He looks at me with a face that suggests he’d already gathered that.
‘I opened the balcony door for some air and… something ran in. I think it was a spider. Or a mouse maybe.’
‘Well, which one? You couldn’t tell?’ he replies.
‘I panicked,’ I tell him. ‘It just… it ran in, scurried across the floor, and now I can’t find it, but it’s in here somewhere. You have to help me.’
He narrows his eyes, arms folded now, which only highlights his biceps and his pecs.
‘Liberty. How exactly would a mouse get to your balcony? We’re on the fourteenth floor.’ His brow furrows. ‘Don’t mice hibernate?’
‘Okay, then it must have been a spider,’ I blurt. ‘A really big one! A mouse-sized one. And it’s loose in my room. You have to help me!’
