Page 53 of A Series of Rooms
He had torn himself open as he had done for no one else, ripped his chest right down the middle and exposed all his soft, vulnerable parts. Then, he had been taken away before he could stitch himself back together.
Jonah was forced back into cruel reality with his heart open and bleeding. It was harder to block out the feeling of strangers’ hands, harder to ignore the whispers of false affection, now that he knew what it felt like to be kissed by someone who cared.
If normalcy in Jonah’s world had been bleak before, now it was utterly void. The vivid color Liam had brought to his life over the course of a few months had been washed out in the course of a single night. Without the promise of reprieve at the end of the week, the days became unbearably long. Had time always dragged so slowly before? He wasn’t sure.
As far as he could tell, Marcus kept his word about not telling Shepard what happened on Saturday morning. He didn’t know why, though his darker instincts warned him that there had to be an ulterior motive. Marcus had turned down Jonah’s attempt to barter for silence that day in the car, but maybe he was only drawing it out, waiting for the right time to hold it over his head. The constant guesswork and anticipation wore on his nerves, which were already shredded thin.
Jonah was a bowstring, stretched taut and quivering, by the time the following Friday arrived; his first in months without Liam.
When Shepard came to him that evening with a client in the city, Jonah had to fight to smother the tiny spark of hope in his chest. He didn’t know how Marcus planned to enforce his ban, but letting his expectations get away from him wouldonly set him up for a crash landing. And Jonah wasn’t sure how many more blows he could take.
Long, wispy strings of light blurred past the car window as they made their way into the city. Any residual hope Jonah had fostered of a chance of seeing Liam tonight waned the closer they got to the heart of it; the client had to be a wealthy one to secure a room on Michigan Avenue the week before Christmas.
Nicer hotels sometimes made for harder nights. The sideways glances from lobby attendants were bad enough, making Jonah want to shrink away inside his ratty t-shirt and jeans. But it was what happened behind closed doors that made Jonah dread nights like tonight.
The dynamic that came with the wider-than-usual wealth disparity was sometimes difficult to navigate. The guys with deep pockets saw Jonah as something they were entitled to. For some of them, there was no boundary they couldn’t throw money at and make it go away. Sometimes, they were men who knew Shepard personally, and Jonah had to wonder just how much they knew about Jonah’s choice in the matter at all.
Jonah made it all of four steps past the check-in counter before an older woman in a blazer and a nametag stopped him.
“Sir, the restroom is for guests only,” she said, already pointing back toward the door. “I’m afraid you’ll need to find somewhere else.”
Jonah avoided her eyes, wrapping his arms around himself. “I’m here to see a friend,” he said quietly. In his periphery, he could feel the curious stares of nearby patrons. He was too tired to be angry, so embarrassment won out instead.
“A friend,” she repeated. “What’s the room number?”
Jonah tried to be discreet as he glanced at the digits scribbled on his palm. “814.”
“You won’t mind if I ring up, then?” She was already picking up the phone, indifferent to Jonah’s answer. He stared at the wall over her shoulder as she waited for someone to pick up. “Hello, is this— Yes, I’m so sorry to bother you, but I have a young man here in the lobby claiming he’s here to see you. His name is. ..” She raised her eyebrows pointedly at him.
“Leo,” he whispered.
She repeated it into the phone, and Jonah watched as the expression on her face melted into a different sort of judgment. “Okay. Thank you,” she said, the cheer in her voice becoming a little more forced. “I’ll send him up.” The phone came down a little harder than necessary. “Elevators are in the second hall to the left.” Her smile was cold and sharp. “Across from the business center.”
Jonah ducked away from the desk, eager to escape the exposure of the crowded lobby.
The elevators were where she promised they would be, three sets of golden doors that were just smooth enough to reflect a fuzzy outline of himself. Even the featureless silhouette couldn’t quite pass for someone who belonged here. Jonah looked away and pressed the call button.
He stood alone in the elevator bay as he waited, swaying on his feet. Hotel patrons in sleek black suits and evening gowns passed by in the adjacent main hall, their voices low and bubbling with laughter. Their movement drew his eyes to the left, and when the small crowd dispersed, he was left staring at the room across the hall. The business center.
Most of the room appeared to extend behind a wall, but the entryway was encased in glass, revealing the edge of a desktop computer, a black leather office chair, a printer...
And a phone.
Ding.
Jonah blinked at the arrival of the elevator, stepping back to make way for the group of guests that spilled out around him. He was left standing there when the doors closed again.
There was an analog clock embedded in the marble wall, which told him he had six minutes until the arranged meeting time. His legs were already moving in the direction of the small glass room. He looked both ways as he crossed the wide hallway, wary of... what? He wasn’t sure. Paranoia clung to him like static, sure that every eye was watching him, that someone would come and rip the opportunity away.
No one even glanced in his direction. Emboldened by his invisibility, Jonah wrapped his palm around the door handle and pushed inside.
He swiped at his eyes one last time as the elevator opened onto his client’s floor.
The number on his palm was smudged into a shapeless blot by this point, but he remembered. He walked to the end of the hall—a corner suite, he thought absently—and stopped in front of the door, pressing a hand to the flat of his stomach. He closed his eyes.
He didn’t want to do this. He really didn’t want to do this. Still, he raised a fist to knock.
The door swung open before he could make contact, and Jonah took an involuntary step back. For a few seconds, all he could do was blink up at the man on the other side of the threshold.
