Page 43 of Any Cowboy of Mine
Steve was gonna give him so much shit for this. Especially after Brad acted like an overbearing ass last night—his best friend probably just felt the same way about Jackie as Brad felt about Sophie. It would serve him right to get ribbed a bit.
He took the stairs two at a time, a shit-eating grin plastered to his face, getting bigger the closer he got to his room. He passed a couple kids in the hallway and gave them a wide berth as they took their elaborate game of lightsaber wars by his room. He remembered what it was like to compulsively play with his new toys Christmas morning after opening them, a war zone of discarded gifts, new clothes, and shredded green and red wrapping paper in his wake. Brad chuckled, not finding their raucous antics near as frustrating as he would have a couple days earlier. In fact, not one “be careful” or frown at how close they were to hitting the light fixtures surfaced. He even went so far as to wish the boys a Merry Christmas.
With rosy cheeks and an amused smile, Brad keyed into his room, careful to shut the door behind him quietly.
Something was off.
His smile faded as he looked around the empty room. Sophie’s bag was no longer on the floor by the door, and as he edged farther into the hallway, he realized every trace of her was erased from the room.
All but her scent. He breathed in a deep sigh of concern and was met with plumeria that went straight to his head and made him dizzy.
Where was she? He went from small room to small room, finding nothing to indicate she was ever there. Her toothbrush was gone, and the sink was wiped clean. Even the bed was haphazardly made, showing no indication of the euphoric tumult that had occurred there. The shower was still wet, and there was a second discarded towel on the floor. She’d gotten ready, so she hadn’t been in that much of a rush, it seemed. Why then, hadn’t she stuck around?
Maybe she’d woken up and realized she’d made a mistake, that having done what they’d done was a one-night kinda thing, not to be repeated. If that was the case, he didn’t think he’d get over it. He was so sure the night before that she’d been as into him as he was her, beyond the bedroom, too.
Standing there wondering wasn’t giving him any answers, so he made his way back to the front hall and stopped dead in his tracks. Suddenly, her disappearance became crystal clear. On the short, pale-blue industrial carpet, spaced apart as if being compared by a scholar, were two notes. One, Brad recognized right away. It was the letter from Julia asking—no,begging—him to come to her room. The second he couldn’t tell, but he knew it wasn’t the one he’d left for Sophie explaining that he’d gone to get breakfast. He picked it up and saw it was an attempt to leave him the same kind of note he’d left for her. In fact, hers was damn near identical to his, so he looked up to where he’d left his own and saw that it hadn’t moved.
She hadn’t seen it.
Shit, shit, shit.He dropped the food in its bag onto the ground and ran out the door. Without thinking about the consequences, he sprinted down the hall and two flights of stairs to Julia’s room, almost bowling over the kids and their sabers, and knocked before he could talk himself out of it. No one came to the door for seconds, wasting each precious one. Brad was about to take off—to where, he didn’t know—but at the last minute, the turn of the dead bolt sounded loud in the otherwise ghost-like hallway. Brad tapped his foot anxiously, desperate for Julia to hurry up already.
Instead, Chris answered, and he looked awful. Like out-all-night-and-up-to-no-good awful. Granted Brad hadn’t seen his old friend up close in over a year, and even then he’d only seen him as the object of his fury, but Chris had never been in this bad of shape, not even on his wildest nights out.
His beard stubble was grown in, and his hair looked worse than Brad’s had that morning. He was still in his tux, or parts of it rather, the bow tie hanging lopsided off his shirt collar like a stray hair, his dress shirt undone a few buttons, so his chest hair sprang out like a dirty water fountain. Worst of all was the way he smelled. It was like he’d poured a second of whatever he was drinking in his hair and clothes, and then rubbed those in a used ashtray. Brad held his breath, trying not to cringe.
“Brad,” was all Chris could get out before he pinched the bridge of his nose, apparently too pained by the exertion to say anything else. Jesus. All animosity he’d felt for his former best friend dissipated, replaced by pity. It must have been some party. Brad felt a small twinge of guilt for what that must have meant for Julia and her wedding night, but it evaporated as quickly as it had come.Old habits die hard.
Brad didn’t waste time with small talk about the wedding or how Chris had been, he simply launched headlong into questions, growing more and more antsy the more time that passed.
“Chris,” he replied. “Did a woman named Sophie stop by here in the last hour?” He asked again when Chris didn’t respond to the first barrage of inquiries, this time with more urgency.
Chris stared at him like he had worms crawling out his ears, and Brad mentally talked himself out of shaking the answer from Chris. Before Chris could say anything though, Julia popped up behind her new husband. She, on the other hand, was fresh out of the shower, her makeup and hair done already.
Probably in anticipation of my arrival.He tapped the note from her against his thigh, not caring why she was so done up, only that she answer his questions.
She shot Brad a glowering stare lined with utter contempt, but Brad could see the pain behind the anger. He still knew her, would probably always to some degree. That was the price they paid for the intimacy they’d shared at one point, a point that drifted further and further from Brad’s vision each and every day.
“You’re wondering about yourdate?” she asked him. Her voice couldn’t have dripped with more contempt.Oh well, screw her.She was the one who’d delivered the letter to his room, had scared Sophie off. Chris stumbled away, apparently glad to no longer be needed for simple tasks like speaking or answering doors. He wandered off into the bedroom from which a loud groan came from the bed springs.
“Yeah. Did she come by here?” Brad asked.
“Would she have had a reason to?” Julia asked, the hint of a smile playing on the corner of her lips.
She would be enjoying this.
“Maybe because she found this letter you left me?” he replied, his voice as loud as he could make it without outright screaming at her. It echoed off the walls of the hall behind him as he held up the hotel stationary with her large handwriting, clear from a good distance away. Two could play at this game. All traces of her smile vanished, replaced by one hundred percent pure, abject terror.
“Why the hell would you bring that here?” she hissed, her lips tight, barely letting any air pass between them. The effect made her cheeks puffy, her skin blanched like she’d seen a ghost. It wasn’t an attractive look for her, Brad mused, not feeling guilty about his judgment in the least. She cast furtive glances back at Chris, but Brad knew he wouldn’t care even if he saw the letter, since he hadn’t bothered to even come back to the honeymoon suite the night before.
Julia moved toward him and tried to snatch the letter from his hands, but Brad moved around her, into the hotel room, upping the ante.
“Did she come here, Julia? I’m not playing around.”
Julia’s gaze skirted over him, to Chris passed out on the bed. Her penetrating gaze was like a cross between wanting to kill him and wishing he would evaporate on the spot.
He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of either.
“She didn’t. At least not that I know of. Chris got back a little bit ago, but before that, no one came to the door.” The way her voice fell at the last sentence showed Brad just how much she regretted him not coming to her bidding.Tough.If he thought he’d had enough of her last night, it was nothing compared to how he felt this morning. Especially if her childish, vindictive antics cost him the one good thing that had happened to him since he’d left Julia. Maybe ever.
