Page 34 of The First Kind of Love
“I have to bring something back for Hayes. He likes the—hic—Cool Ranch Doritos.”
Hayes…as in Hayes Hollings? As in, Aeris’ fiancé?
Am I saved?
Unpurgeable trepidation constricts around my trachea, but since I’m hell-bent on making it back to the hotel room to kill Fulton, the words somehow waver out of me. “Aeris?” I ask timidly.
“Who said that? Are you talking to me through a camera in the vending machine? I’m not doing anything illegal, I swear!”
I palm my forehead, glancing down at the incriminating state of my nude body. My skin purses with goose bumps, and it doesn’t help that the still-wet strands of my hair produce a constant drip of water down my spine. “No, it’s Shiloh. I’m, uh, behind the vending machine. I need your help.”
“Shiloh?”
I’m expecting to see Aeris’ alcohol-flushed face peek around the corner, but instead, I’m greeted with Josie’s head of voluminous ringlets, her lips agape and eyes wide as she takes in my pathetic appearance. “Shiloh? Oh my God. Are you okay? What happened?”
When I harness the courage to show my face, a slew of giggles threatens my dignity and the waking state of the other inhabitants. Aeris gasps for air with tears in her eyes, even going as far as bending at the midsection to catch her breath.
I deadpan, “Yes. Let’s laugh at the girl who’s currently naked and hiding behind a vending machine because her roommate takes thirty-minute-long showers.”
She wheezes, grabs at her stomach, and flicks a tear off her waterline in an exaggerated fashion. “I’m sorry, I just—you…your coochie is out. Does the breeze feel good? Should I start going commando?”
Josie clucks her tongue, gunning her inebriated partner in crime down with a glare that could freeze hell over. “You have to excuse Aeris. Her cutoff was supposed to be three drinks.”
Swaying on her feet—in arguably worse condition than Iam—Aeris shushes Josie with a finger to her lips, holding back what I hope is a swallow and not a gag. “I can drink as many have as I want! I can want as many drinks as I have!”
Josie recoils from Aeris, digs in her pocket for a handful of crumpled bills, and slaps them into the drunk girl’s palm as some sort of peace offering. “Aeris, you can get whatever you want, okay? I’m going to help Shiloh back to her room,” she says.
Aeris dissolves into a fit of happy squeals as she begins her tireless journey to buy every chocolate-coated thing in the vending machine. Meanwhile, Josie catalogs the embarrassment written on my face, and she averts her eyes while I break down our next plan of action.
“It’s the door with the champagne bottle in front of it,” I tell her, bearing a brutal gust of air-conditioning that grazes me like a bullet against tender flesh. I’m running out of extremities to cover up the necessary areas. If I contract an airborne STD from this hotel, I’m suing.
Aeris is on her fourth attempt trying to shove a wrinkled bill into the metal slot, and she kicks or hits the vending machine whenever it rejects her money with an ear-splitting screech. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she’s one hangry tantrum away from putting her hand through the glass and orphaning a bunch of helpless candy bars.
Josie, thankfully, understands the gravity of the situation because she’s quick to assault the hotel door with fists and non-PG insults. “Fulton Cazzarelli, open this door right now or I’ll shove my stiletto so far up your squeaky-clean ass that you’ll be able to taste it!”
The pounding never halts—each rap is closer to demolishing the partition, sure to intrigue some morbidly curious bystanders to the boisterous commotion on the third floor.
With leaden nerves settling in my belly—and dragging my center of gravity down to the earth’s molten core—I’m about tocall for a ceasefire when Fulton finally opens the door, a towel slung low on his hips.
“Wha—”
I beeline for the room in a blurry streak, yelling an unintelligible “thanks” over my shoulder before slamming the door shut. Once I pick up my abandoned towel, I hurriedly cover myself, and then I let Fulton have it.
“You”—huff—“locked”—huff—“me”—huff—“out!” I scream, curling my knuckles into fists, the confusion infused in his features kickstarting a direct line of rage to the center of my heart. If he wasn’t so cute, his obliviousness would pluck the fraying threads of my patience.
“You were locked outside?”
“Yes, you prick! You were too busy lathering your man goods to hear me knocking and calling for help. I was”—I lower my voice to a hushed whisper, shame a bitter note on my tongue—“naked.”
“Naked?”
“Stuck to fend for myself behind a vending machine! It was humiliating.”
I’m expecting Fulton to drop to his knees and grovel for my forgiveness—maybe even kiss my feet—but he doesn’t do that. No, he chooses the idiot’s way out and chuckles at my partial meltdown, those megawatt dimples of his making it harder for me to stand my ground. It also doesn’t help that I can see the start of his V-line soar over the hem of his towel, leading up to that grid of stomach muscle that has my pussy forgetting all about his betrayal. Water droplets ribbon down his skin, coalescing into one rivulet that travels downward in a vertical line.
His lower lip is victim to a bite—whether it’s to stifle a laugh, I don’t know. “I’m sorry, Sunshine, I am. But you just…”
I cross my arms over my chest, but I probably look as intimidating as a kitten. “I justwhat?”
