Chapter Four
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Iverson
My wife is the smartest woman alive, and it’s really inconvenient for me.
“What do you mean you can’t give me keys to the rooms I paid for?
” I growl at the young woman on the other side of the counter in this subpar hotel lobby the day after Maple left me.
It’s blue, at least, but everything else about it sucks.
Namely its employees, and particularly the trembling one in front of me.
Good, I think, watching her vibrate. Let her tremble, and let that trembling lead to giving me what I want. It’s worked thus far in my life, so why wouldn’t it now?
Unfortunately for the spoiled brat that is me, the woman’s supervisor shows up, dour-faced and squinty-eyed. She gently maneuvers her underling to the side and slightly behind her, creating a buffer between me and the girl.
I huff. What a ridiculous bout of drama. I’m not going to hurt the girl. Just scare her into doing what I want.
“Sir,” the new woman greets. “I’m going to have to ask you not to abuse my staff.”
My nose wrinkles. “Abuse” is taking it a bit far.
Accost would be a more apt word, and since only one of those things is illegal, it’s the word I would much prefer to be used.
Something tells me the women behind the counter won’t care much for my semantics, and, more importantly, that voicing the vocabulary lesson won’t get me any closer to my wife.
I try another route.
“Your girl here is useless,” I inform the slightly older woman. “I’m asking for keys to my rooms, and she doesn’t have a clue how to get them for me.”
The boss’ brows furrow. “Can I get a name, sir?”
“Swallow,” I answer shortly. “Which I told her. Three times.” When in doubt, throw some incompetent sap under the bus, I always say. So long as there’s an incompetent sap around, it’s foolproof.
Trembly girl shakes, and satisfaction spears me.
She should be shaking. She’s standing between me and the love of my life—my wife.
There is nothing I wouldn’t do to eliminate that obstacle, and no lengths to which I would not go to ensure the blockade never happens again.
Maple is mine, and I will have her, anxiety-ridden receptionists be flagged.
“You’re Mrs. Swallow’s husband,” the competent one says, pursing her lips.
I nod, chest puffing. “Yes.” I am Mrs. Swallow’s husband.
She eyes me, unimpressed. “Unfortunately, Mr. Swallow, if your wife were staying here—and I can’t confirm that she is—you aren’t in our system as being listed on any check-in paperwork for any rooms in this hotel.”
My eyes narrow. “And?”
“And that means we can’t help you. The safety of our guests is our highest priority.
We have no proof you’re actually her husband beyond what you claim, and, further, we have no proof she wants to see you.
And, further, if she were a guest here, we certainly couldn’t compromise the safety of a guest for the sake of a man she may or may not want to see.
If you’d like to visit your wife, sir, then I suggest you call her to pick you up.
” With that, she turns to the younger woman, wraps a firm arm around her shoulders, and leads her to an office tucked behind the reception desk.
“I’ll give you ten minutes, Mr. Swallow, before I call the cops to have you escorted away. ”
I glare. Menacingly.
Oh, yes. My Maple is smart, and it’s really inconvenient. It’s all well and good to be willing to bust down obstacles to get to my wife, but currently? The obstacle is my wife.
Nothing for it, I pull my phone out of the pocket of my dark linen pants, navigate through screens backed by photos of her until I get to my favorites list, and hit call.
She doesn’t pick up.
I hit call again.
She doesn’t pick up. Again.
I hesitate, then say flag it. I call, let it ring twice, hang up, call, let it ring twice, hang up, then call and let it get to the third ring.
She answers on the fourth.
“You better be dying,” she greets, lovingly. “You better be in a freaking hospital bed bleeding out right now if you’re using our emergency secret code. You better not be abusing the system to manipulate me more when you’re already in trouble, Iverson Swallow.”
“I am manipulating the system,” I confess readily.
“But I’m manipulating it openly and honestly out of sheer desperation.
This is a clear call to your conscience to have pity on me for long enough to hear me out for the length of a singular phone call.
” I squeeze the words out quickly, willing her not to hang up before I can put my cards on the table.
Manipulating is bad. Bad, bad, bad. I’ve learned my lesson there, at least where it applies to Maple.
One night without her under my roof while I tossed and turned in bed, checking my phone in the vain hope that she’d spend more money after booking half a hotel just so I’d know she’s okay, drilled the manipulation is bad lesson straight into my skull.
However. It’s not manipulating if you declare that you’re manipulating a person, is it? If everyone is aware of what’s happening, then nothing is happening, and I can continue on as normal. Logic. Sound, irrefutable logic.
“Oh my gosh,” she mutters. “He’s cracked.”
It should be noted, she does not hang up the phone.
“I’m downstairs,” I tell her. “The idiots behind the desk won’t give me the keys to our rooms.”
“That would be because they’re not our rooms,” she retorts. “They’re mine. And I’ll be tipping them extra for this. I love this place.”
“What’s yours is mine,” I remind her. “Particularly when I pay for it, one would think.” I won’t touch on her “loving” this place. Possibly a night without me has affected her similarly, and she is no longer in her right mind, leading to such nonsense speak.
“This ‘one’ person sounds like an idiot,” she says.
I sigh, rubbing a hand down my face. Clearly, my blasé attitude is not helping things.
I adopt a more agreeable countenance for her: begging.
It isn’t hard. In the stages of grief, I’m firmly set to desperate, despondent, disconsolate longing for the one that I’ve lost. Temporarily lost, anyway.
I soften my voice as I plead, “Maple, please. I just want to talk.”
I learn immediately that I’ve made a mistake. Again. Really on a roll, me.
“Yeah, well, you know what I ‘just want,’ Ivy?” she hisses through the line, making me flinch. “I ‘just want’ to be valued and respected by the man I thought I could trust more than anyone. The world is disappointing.”
I grimace. I deserve this. I know I do. It’s been several handfuls of hours since my bride fled our home, and I’ve spent nearly all of them ruminating on where I went wrong and what I can do to fix it—in between bouts of hopeless self-pity, anyway.
I am not a man accustomed to being wrong, let alone having to fix those wrongs.
The horrifying reality I faced is that I didn’t entirely know where to start in figuring it out.
For Maple, I will figure it out. Dedication to the cause isn’t my issue.
Knowing how to go about figuring this out, though…
I need help. From Maple. Because my sweet rosy Maple is and always has been my moral compass. Without her, I flounder, making stupid decisions that hurt my loved ones and ruin my life. Clearly.
I turn my back on the reception desk and the women peeking through the office blinds at me beyond it. “One conversation,” I beg. “Please.” I need this from her if I have any hope of fixing the mess I’ve made. I send my plea to the stars as well while I wait for her to respond.
Maple is silent for so long I think my only answer will be the soft rhythm of her breathing down the line.
As far as solutions go, it sucks. As far as a connection to her goes, I’ll take any scraps she’ll give me, and I listen to her inhalations like they hold the answer to life and the key to my undoing.
Eventually her breath hitches, and then sighs. I brace myself.
“Not today, Ivy,” she says, sounding tired and hurt.
My chest aches, and my stomach curdles. “Please,” I whisper, one last shot. It’s a broken plea I don’t really expect a response to, but I have to try. If Maple is my obstacle, then supplication is my battering ram, raw as it makes me feel.
“I have to go,” her wet voice warbles. “I love you. We’ll talk later.”
My phone beeps, and my heart breaks. My battering ram was too weak.
I drop my arm and stare, unseeing, at an art print on the wall opposite me.
It’s a replica of a famous painting of a megalodon by an artist Maple loves.
I only recognize it because last year I’d tried to buy the original from a man in Indiana who refused to sell it to me, claiming it wasn’t fit to be sold—something about silly string stuck to the corners.
Why a grown man would have silly string anywhere near an original painting that cost as much as a house, I have no idea, but I’d ended up getting a different piece of artwork by the same artist, so in the end it didn’t really matter.
Maple was satisfied, and I was satisfied that she was satisfied.
I wonder idly if the print in this lobby is why she picked this hotel, then dismiss the thought.
Knowing Maple, she picked whatever the closest mid-tier hotel to our house was.
She’d want something just good enough to offer her safety and just bad enough to have plenty of rooms to spend my money on.
My Maple, so smart. So cunning. So creative.
So wildly inconvenient.
Flag, I love her.
“Your ten minutes is up,” a sour voice calls behind me. “You need to leave now.”
My hands fist at my sides, and my jaw ticks. I’m not angry at the woman, who’s only working to protect Maple and whatever other guests she has. Not really. I’m angry at myself. I misjudged, and I messed up, and there’s no quick release to make things right, and I hate it.
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
I need to regroup.
“Sir,” the voice says. “I’m dialing.”
I spin on my heel and march to the doors. “I’m leaving,” I announce gruffly. “Tell her I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Tomorrow, when I’ll have a better plan and a bigger battering ram.
Tomorrow, when I come to reclaim my wife.