Page 74 of Forbidden Dance
A list of rooms comes up, all with names like Presidential Suite, Executive Retreat, and The Ambassador. Then the other floors of the hotel.
I click on The Ambassador. A message pops up. “Your card is not authorized for this floor. To request access, please contact the executive desk.”
“Bummer,” I say.
Blitz laughs. “We’re in the Presidential.”
I click on that one instead. The elevator resumes its steady climb.
The doors open to a small lobby area with red velvet sofas and a bar. A man is behind the counter. “Hello, Mr. Craven,” he says. “Would you or your young lady like anything from the bar?”
Blitz looks at me.
I lean in. “I’m underage,” I say.
“Nothing right now, thank you,” Blitz says.
The man nods and resumes drying a glass. His eyes return to a television mounted on the wall, its volume low.
Blitz leads us to the right. There aren’t many doors in the hall. A gold plate with the words “Presidential Suite” announces which room is ours. Blitz waves the card by the handle, and it pops the door.
When we step inside, my breath catches. It’s unlike any place I’ve ever been. A pure-white sofa rests in front of a fireplace with several logs already burning. There’s a piano in the corner by huge windows, open wide to look out on the city. Thankfully we’re facing away from the highway, so you can see across San Antonio, the circular Tower of the Americas visible in the distance.
“Wow,” I say.
“Fit for a princess,” he says. He sets the card on a counter in front of a small kitchenette and bar. He shrugs off his coat and reaches for mine.
I slide it off my shoulders and pass it to him. I walk over to the windows. It’s amazing. We’re on top of the world. I press my fingers against the cool glass.
Blitz comes up behind me and sweeps my hair off my shoulder. “You okay with getting away?”
I shiver from his light touch on my neck. Now that I’m here, I’m not sure. I still have to get back in my house. Or maybe I just don’t go back. I don’t know. I lean my forehead against the glass.
“Come sit with me,” he says, taking my hand and leading me over to the sofa.
We stay close together, his arm around my waist, as we settle on the cushions. He draws my head against his shoulder. “This is so much better than the insanity I’ve been through the past two weeks,” he says.
“You want to tell me about it?”
So he does, lulling me with his voice as he describes the sets, the dances, the green rooms, the people behind the talk shows. The meetings with executives, how Hannah being a shark was in his favor this time. How most of the staff were eager to return, only his trainer and a few other minor players had held out. Hannah was working on replacing them before the finale.
“So you have to do it?” I ask. “Choose a winner?”
“I could break the contract,” he says. “I’d go bankrupt from the fines, but there are worse things. I’d never work in Hollywood again, but maybe I don’t want to.”
“That seems terribly extreme,” I say.
“It’s extreme either way,” he says. “The lifestyle, the scrutiny, having to live up to everyone’s expectations.”
“How did this happen?” I ask. “I saw some of your early stuff. It wasn’t all naked women and acting crazy.”
“In the beginning, it’s always about the dance,” he says. “Then something happens, and it gets attention, and you’re driven to do more of the same. In my case, it was acting like a jerk.”
“I don’t understand why that is so popular. You’d think girls would want a gentleman.”
“Gentlemen don’t make for compelling television,” Blitz says. He picks up my hand and kisses each finger. “You’d be bored with me in a week.”
“Not if we dance,” I say.
