10. Garrett
10
Garrett
“ T his has to be the wrong address,” I say as our driver pulls into a place called the Highway Hideaway Motel.
“No, this is it,” Emma says.
She’s got to be kidding. This place looks like it’s being held together entirely by cobwebs and mold.
As soon as the tires crunch to a halt on the crumbling asphalt, Emma hops out of the car. I hang back, thinking she might come back and admit that this is just a horrible prank. When I realize it’s not, I tell the driver not to leave yet and step out of the car.
Emma looks completely out of place against the backdrop of this shitty motel. No one could ever accuse her of being pretentious, but Emma definitely has good taste. Way better taste than a place like this.
“Emma, you didn’t actually book this place, did you?” I ask.
“I sure did,” she says, clearly basking in my disapproval.
“And you’re aware that we just drove past a dozen decent hotels in Moab, none which look like they crawled straight out of the stock footage of a serial killer documentary?”
“Look, it’s not my first choice either, but this is all I could find on short notice. All the nice hotels in Moab were already booked,” she says.
“I’ll make some calls.”
Irritation flashes over Emma’s face. “Garrett, I’m tired, I’m dirty, and we have to be up by four o’clock tomorrow morning for our next tour. Is this really that much worse than sleeping in a tent in the dirt?”
“Yes, it’s infinitely worse.”
“You’re such a snob,” she says with a disapproving look. “Can you just put your bougie billionaire ways aside for the night and live like us poor mortals?”
“You’re hardly poor. I pay you well.”
“You do,” she agrees with surprising ease. “And I pay the student loan company very well.”
I huff out a breath and nod. “Fine, we’ll stay here tonight.”
“Great,” she chirps enthusiastically. “Think of it as part of the adventure.”
After I grab our bags and regretfully send the driver away, we step inside the motel lobby. A woman with a thick coat of blue eyeshadow weighing down her eyelids croaks out a greeting between drags of her cigarette. Behind her, the door to a studio apartment filled with every knickknack ever made is wide open. Presumably, this is where the woman smokes and stores her tub of eyeshadow during her off hours.
When the woman doesn’t even attempt to blow her smoke anywhere but directly into our faces, Emma’s composure falters a little.
“Hi, we have a reservation for two rooms under the name Emma Carlton,” she tells the woman.
The woman behind the desk looks bored as she flips through a crinkly, coffee-stained steno pad.
“Alright, you two are in rooms nine and ten at the end of the lot,” she says as she digs two metal keys out of the drawer and tosses them on the desk.
Something brushes against my ankle, making me jump. When I look down, the oldest cat on the entire planet looks up at me with cloudy eyes and hisses.
“What the - ” I start.
“It’s just a cat,” Emma chides, shooting me an annoyed glance. She turns her attention back to the woman and asks, “Could we get different rooms? Ones that aren’t next door to each other.”
The woman exhales another cloud of smoke in my face and shakes her head. “That’s all we got, honey. The other rooms are all taken by our permanent tenants. Can’t kick them out for the night just ‘cuz you and your man are quarreling.”
“We’re not…” Emma corrects but the woman waves her off.
“Don’t care. There’ll be a wall between y’all, and if that’s not enough to keep you two apart, then congratulations…it’s probably meant to be,” the woman says flatly.
“Fine,” Emma says, flashing an exasperated smile at the woman and grabbing the keys. “We’ll take rooms nine and ten then.”
She pivots and walks out of the small lobby, leaving me to trip over the ornery, old cat. When I catch up to her a few seconds later, I can tell that she’s rethinking her assertion that this place is a suitable option.
“Do you want room nine or ten?” she asks without slowing down or looking at me.
“Surprise me,” I grumble.
Emma hands me a key with a plastic number nine attached to the key ring just as we reach the corresponding door. She keeps walking to the next room and slips her key into the door. She disappears inside the room without another word.
When I open the door to my room, I’m hit with a stale stench. I flip on the light to reveal a time capsule of the 1970s. Tufty, brown carpet, orange curtains, and an avocado green blanket on the bed with a couple of obvious holes in it.
If I had brought my own car, I’d go sleep in it. Unfortunately, the driver who brought us here is long gone and probably doesn’t rent his backseat by the hour.
I wonder if Emma is as appalled by her room as I am by mine. Part of me wants to go over there and ask if she’s ready to leave yet, but I’m sure she wants some space. She’s been mad at me ever since I mentioned sending her home early. I thought she’d jump at the opportunity to leave me and this trip behind. Instead, she looked like she might cry. That’s how I know I said something wrong. Emma never cries. Even on our worst days in the office, she takes everything in stride. I don’t really understand what I said to upset her so much, but I guess I can add it to the growing list of reasons why Emma hates my guts.
I stand in the shower, letting the tepid water wash away three days of dirt and grit. Even though I know I should just let it go, my mind keeps wandering back to Emma with those tears in her eyes.
I should go over and apologize, I tell myself as I shut off the water.
Then I remember that I don’t even know what I’m apologizing for. The fact that I’m even dwelling on this at all is exactly why I need to send Emma home as soon as possible. Having her here is a distraction, not to mention a giant liability for me and for my company.
As I’m drying off, a mechanical buzzing echoes through the paper-thin wall that separates Emma’s room from mine. At first, I assume it must be an electric toothbrush, but then it grows faster and louder.
There’s only one other device I can think of that vibrates like that. But it can’t be…can it? Emma cannot seriously be next door pleasuring herself with a vibrator.
“Oh my god! Oh my god!” she cries out on repeat.
My blood rushes to my chest, and then straight down to my dick.
Well, this is just perfect. Is she trying to torture me now? There’s no way she doesn’t realize how thin these walls are.
Suddenly, the noise is replaced by the sound of a bed thumping rhythmically against our shared wall, rattling the inexplicable painting of a neon parrot that hangs over my bed.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Emma shrieks. “Stop it! Ow!”
I’m pulling on a pair of blue jeans and rushing out the door before I can think twice.
“Emma,” I holler as I pound my fist against her door. “Are you okay?”
She shrieks again then yells, “Yeah, um, I’m fine.”
“Is someone in there with you? Are you hurt?”
“Everything’s fine!” she yells, followed by a yelp of pain.
Clearly, it’s not fine.
“Emma, open the door. I’m not leaving until I see that you’re okay.”
I’m already preparing to kick down the door when I hear the lock turn. Emma peaks her head out of the tiniest crack, looking wide-eyed and flustered.
“Garrett, everything’s fine…see?” she says.
“What’s going on? Should I call the police?”
“No, Garrett, it’s nothing.”
“Then why are you screaming? What’s that noise?” I ask, planting my palm firmly on the door in case there’s an intruder in her room and I need to force my way inside.
Emma draws a deep breath and opens the door a little wider. She’s standing there in nothing but a towel with her wet hair dripping down her shoulders.
My words catch in my throat. I can’t take my eyes off of her, even though I know I should.
Emma curls a hand around the knot at the top of the towel and uses her other hand to tug at the small, exposed triangle of skin on her hip where the ends of the threadbare towel don’t quite meet. She looks up at me nervously as she steps back to let me inside of her room.
But I don’t move. I’m not sure I remember how.
“It’s the bed,” she says.
“What?” I ask, shaking myself back to reality.
“The bed,” she repeats. “It’s one of those vibrating ones, and it won’t stop.”
For the first time since she opened the door, I notice the hotel room. The walls are Pepto Bismol pink. The curtains are ratty white lace. A neon sign that spells out the word ‘love’ flickers on the back wall. And in the center of it all, a heart-shaped red velvet bed is violently shaking and banging against the wall.
“Is – is this the honeymoon suite?” I ask as I step inside.
“Either that, or it’s the room they rent by the hour.”
I cringe and make my way across the room toward the bed.
“This thing just turned on all by itself?” I ask.
“Um, no, not exactly.”
I turn around to glance at Emma, who looks even more embarrassed now. Then I see her wallet sitting beside the coin-operated box on the bedside table.
“You intentionally turned it on? Using actual money?” I ask with one eyebrow raised.
“Well, yeah,” she says defensively. “You can’t stay in a room with a vibrating bed and not try it out.”
“Some of us could,” I tell her, fighting a smile. “Was it really worth all those hard-earned quarters?”
Emma almost laughs. “Nope, and now the stupid thing won’t stop. It even…”
I reach for the control box on the nightstand.
“…shocked me,” Emma adds a second too late.
A current of electricity jolts through my fingers and up my arm, locking it in place for a second or two before I can let go. I cuss under my breath and try to shake it off.
"I’ll just unplug it,” I say.
Kneeling on the bed, I run my hand between the mattress and the wall, searching for the outlet while the bed tries to buck me off like a mechanical bull.
“I tried that, but the plug is jammed between the bed frame and it’s too heavy for me to move on my own.”
She’s right. I find the cord and realize there’s no way to unplug it without moving the bed, so I step off and push the heavy, writhing bed away from the wall and pull the plug. Immediately, it stills and quiets.
The silence does nothing to quell my nerves. Now I’m standing in Emma’s motel room trying to look anywhere but at my very barely dressed employee who I can’t seem to stop picturing naked. It doesn’t help that I’m half naked myself, dressed in nothing but a pair of jeans that hang low on my hips.
“You’re bleeding,” Emma gasps.
It takes my distracted brain a second to catch up. When it does, I realize that Emma is staring at my right forearm, which is dripping blood onto the pink carpet.
“Shit,” I say, wrapping my other hand around it to stop the bleeding since I don’t have a shirt or anything else at my disposal. “I must have sliced it on the corner of the bed frame.”
“Go wash it out,” Emma says, motioning toward the bathroom. “There’s a first aid kit in my bag on the counter.”
I stride across the room, trying not to drip any more blood onto the floor. The bathroom in Emma’s room is a clone of mine, except that everything is pink, even the toilet and the light switch. I turn on the faucet and watch tendrils of red blood circle the drain and disappear.
“Stay in here for a minute,” Emma says from the doorway behind me, looking conflicted. “Don’t come out, okay? I’m just going to get dressed really quick.”
I glance up at her reflection in the mirror and nod stiffly. She hesitates for a second, as if she’s worried that I might burst in the room while she’s changing just for fun. She has no idea how entirely not fun this whole ordeal has been for me so far.
Emma slowly closes the bathroom door. I hear the sound of her pack unzipping, followed by a few footsteps on the creaky floor. A minute later, she knocks softly on the bathroom door.
“Come in,” I say.
“Did you disinfect it yet?” she asks, glancing down at the cut on my arm. Instead of a towel, she’s wearing a t-shirt and a pair of black sleep shorts.
“Not yet,” I tell her.
“You need to. This room is like a living history museum of venereal diseases.”
She takes a step forward and paws through her toiletry bag, pulling out some alcohol wipes and bandages.
“Can people get venereal diseases on their arms?” I ask to distract myself from staring at her.
“Do you really want to find out?”
She tears open an alcohol wipe and passes it to me. Her eyes catch on my bare chest for a second before she looks away.
I swipe the alcohol pad across the cut a few times, letting it fizzle and sting, then toss it in the bin next to the counter. When I glance back over at Emma, she’s already unwrapping a piece of gauze.
“You came prepared,” I say.
Emma gives me a small but forced smile. “Yeah, I’m sort of weird about open wounds.”
“Squeamish about blood?”
“No, it’s not the blood that bothers me. I just have a thing about infections.”
She hands me the square of white gauze and I hold it to my arm.
“Do you need me to…?” Emma asks, holding up some medical tape.
Pressing the gauze against my arm, I realize there’s no way I can unroll the tape and hold the gauze in place with only one hand.
“Uh, sure…if you don’t mind,” I say, awkwardly clearing my throat afterward.
Emma takes a step closer as I hold out my arm. My hand is at her waist, my fingers nearly grazing her shirt. She keeps her eyes focused on my arm as she places the tape carefully around the gauze and trims the ends with a small pair of scissors from her bag.
When she’s done, her big, blue eyes flick up to mine. We hold each other’s gaze for a few seconds. She’s standing so close. Too close. All it would take is a dip of my head for my mouth to brush against hers. The pull is strong, especially when Emma’s gaze drops down to my lips then back up again. Her hand lingers on my arm after she’s finished taping it.
Kissing her would be the easiest thing in the world right now.
But not the right thing, I remind myself.
She’s my employee. She hates me. Kissing her in the bathroom of a pay-by-the-hour hotel room with a vibrating bed isn’t going to win me any points with Emma. Even if she kissed me back, which seems almost possible right now based on the way she’s looking at me, she’d hate me for it by morning.
I suck in a sharp breath and shift away from her. It’s the smallest movement, but enough to sever the electric current between us.
“There,” she says quietly. Instead of pulling her hand away quickly, her fingers slide across the sensitive skin on my wrist before she curls them demurely into her palm.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
I want her to touch me again, and that’s my cue to leave. No good can come of this. Not with the two of us alone in a hotel room. Not with Emma standing so close. Not with that idiotic vibrating bed right there.
“I should go,” I say abruptly. Before Emma can react, I head swiftly out of the bathroom and toward the door. “Good night,” I add without looking back at her.
Back in my own room, I lay wide awake in the dark on top of the scratchy green blanket, batting away thoughts of Emma. Trying my hardest not to march over to her room and kiss her. Reminding myself that she would hate me for it in the morning.
I let out a heavy breath and turn onto my side. A digital alarm clock blinks big, red numbers at me. The television in room eight blares through the wall, while someone in another room has made a game out of slamming their door hard enough to shake the entire building over and over again.
I hate places like this, and not just for the obvious reasons. They always remind me of the place my family lived after we got evicted from our house. To Ethan and me, it didn’t seem that bad at the time. We were still pretty young, so having a pool and vending machine at our disposal made the crappy motor lodge actually seem like a family vacation.
My older brother, Silas, did not agree. He was thirteen – an angry teenager who was probably already mixed up with one drug or another. Making my parents’ lives miserable was his full-time job, and it came even easier to him once we were all crammed into a tiny motel room. It was bad enough seeing my parents so embarrassed about the fact that we had to stay there, but watching Silas intentionally make them feel even worse about the situation was heartbreaking, even as a kid.
Dredging up those memories obliterates any chance of sleep for the rest of the night. When that stupid alarm clock goes off at four in the morning, I’m still wide awake.