Page 10 of Spotlight
“Come on. Come on,” I mutter quietly while I wait for the light to flash green. When it does, I push into the room, gaze going right for the couch where I left her.
The room has that stillness that already tells me she’s not here, but I check every room and even out on the balcony just to be sure. Then I retrace my steps and look for a note or any sign that she left me some way to contact her.
Nothing.
Fuck.
Wait. She’s staying in the room next door. I run back out to the hall and pound on the door next to mine. It flies open and a housekeeper gives me a soft smile.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
I look past her to the empty suite.
“Sir?”
“No. I’m… Thanks.” I run a hand through my hair and walk back to my room. I call down to the front desk, but all they can tell me is she already checked out.
Defeated, I drop onto the couch. I pick up the wine glass with her pink lipstick smudged on the rim.
She’s gone and I didn’t even get her name.
3
OLIVIA
“Another new display?” Ruby’s voice startles me from the top of the ladder where I’m adjusting the twinkle lights that frame the front window.
I steady myself before glancing down at my sister. “You scared me. I could have broken my neck.”
“Please. You’re only a few feet off the ground. At worst you would have broken an arm.” With a small grin she extends a coffee cup in my direction.
“I couldn’t keep it Valentine’s Day themed forever,” I say. Nor did I want to. Love shmove. “What do you think?”
She barely glances at it before nodding. “Looks good.”
I climb down and take the cup from her. She has her backpack hooked over one shoulder and a pencil holds up her red hair in a messy bun.
“How did writing go today?” I ask. She spends most mornings at a small coffee shop down the street writing her next book.
“It didn’t.” She won’t quite meet my eye as she adds, “I beat three levels in Royal Match though, so quite a successful morning if you ask me.”
I know better than to pick at her when she’s having a rough writing day. No amount of talking it out or inspirational speeches pull her out of it. She needs a couple of hours to mull it over and then inevitably she’ll start picking my brain and we’ll brainstorm wherever she’s stuck until she’s excited again. “Do you want to get lunch?”
“Yes.” Her eyes light up. “I have a call with my agent later and I’ll never survive without carbs and cheese.”
“Pizza it is,” I say. “Let me put the ladder away.”
Gigi comes out from the back room holding a stack of books.
“Oh good,” she says when she spots Ruby. “I have a stack of new orders for you to sign.”
“I’ll do it after lunch,” Ruby says. She’s been saying she’d get to them for two days now and Gigi gives her a loving but no-nonsense stare that says Ruby has run out of excuses.
“You sign books. I’ll grab pizza and bring it back,” I say. Now that I’ve thought about food, my stomach is growling and impatient.
“Okay. Thank you.”
I nod my acknowledgment. “Gigi, do you want anything?”
