Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
With bleary, irritated eyes, Bryn halfheartedly searched for flights back home. Every time she blinked, she saw Vivian’s face seared onto her retinas. Saw her confusion and surprise.
Thoughts racing, Bryn couldn’t stop imagining Vivian’s reaction once she’d seen the app. Would she be shocked? Would she look at Bryn differently? Vivian hadn’t looked embarrassed when she told Bryn about posing in the nude. That had to be a good sign.
Unable to stop envisioning the worst, Bryn slammed her laptop closed and flung it to the other side of the bed. She dropped back, head landing on the pillow, and groaned.
Debating whether to put a dent in her credit card by changing her return flight, Bryn stared at the ceiling. When a knock sounded at the door, she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it.
Then the knock came again and so did Vivian’s voice through the door. “Bryn, it’s me.”
Heart rocketing out of her body, Bryn leapt out of bed. She looked down at her baggy sweatpants and thin T-shirt. Should she change? Had she been hasty in removing her makeup?
It was too late now. She ran her hand through her still-styled hair and went for the door.
“Vivian,” Bryn greeted and hated how much it sounded like a question. “What are you doing here?” She glanced down at the entire contents of a minibar, snacks and all, Vivian was holding in her arms. “How did you know my room number?”
“Are you going to let me in or what?” Vivian asked in what sounded much more like a threat than a request.
Bryn stepped back, curiosity and amusement pushing aside the unpleasant ache in her gut. “Did you knock over a dollhouse-sized convenience store?”
Vivian set her haul down on the console in front of the TV, the only table in the microscopic room. She cracked open a small bottle of vodka. “Do you have glasses?”
Bryn looked around the room. There wasn’t much but a nightstand and queen-sized bed, a TV, and the console that doubled as a desk.
She didn’t even have a mini-fridge. Bryn walked to the coffeemaker at the far end of the console and grabbed two plastic-wrapped paper cups. She presented them to Vivian.
“Dare I hope for ice?”
Bryn raised both eyebrows and looked around again. “I wouldn’t.”
Vivian rolled her eyes and opened a bottle of cranberry juice.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Bryn crossed her arms. “How did you know what room I was in?”
“Drink first,” Vivian demanded.
Bryn took the paper cup and peered inside at the hardly chilled drink. “Are you bullying me in my own hotel room?”
“You call this a hotel room?” Vivian’s gaze swept over the room Bryn hadn’t made a mess in yet. “I’ve seen walk-in closets with better amenities.” Her attention lingered on Bryn like she so desperately wanted to cheer her up. Only Vivian would be a snob to make Bryn chuckle.
“Yeah, well, they said some pretentious diva demanded the penthouse. I got stuck with this.”
Vivian’s dark eyes brightened and she dropped her tense shoulders a fraction. When she knocked back her drink, so did Bryn.
“God.” Bryn pressed her palm to her burning chest. “That’s so strong.”
She cleared her throat while Vivian handed her a small bag of Himalayan pink salt popcorn. Bryn looked down at the offering and then back at Vivian.
“What?” Vivian snapped.
Bryn didn’t know how to respond. How to say it was sweet that Vivian had guessed she would at least eat popcorn.
That she hadn’t forgotten their last night together.
That she still thought of the night they kissed.
Or maybe it was a coincidence, and Bryn was going to embarrass herself by mentioning it.
“Alright, let’s hear it,” Bryn pivoted. “Room number.”
“You’re really going to make me humiliate myself twice?” Vivian cracked open another tiny bottle and made two more drinks with the rest of the juice.
“Humiliate?” Bryn repeated with a snort. “Now I really can’t wait to hear this.” She stepped back and offered Vivian the only place to sit that wasn’t her bed.
“Maybe I knocked on every door of this hotel until I found your room,” Vivian replied with a shrug.
Bryn’s eyes widened. It was ridiculous, but had Vivian considered doing something like that? Something so running-through-the-airport romantic.
Vivian sat in the chair she pulled out from under the console, and Bryn sat at the edge of the bed.
“I may or may not have been very friendly with the clerk at the front desk. And may or may not have used my charm to have my memory jogged on my dear friend’s room number.
We’re both up for a very prestigious award,” she said in the same hypnotically sexy tone she must have used on the front desk person.
Bryn leaned back, holding the drink at her side on the bed.
Vivian never faked anything as far as Bryn could tell.
She hadn’t even been friendly to her apparent friends on the roof.
What did it mean that she’d been fake nice to a hotel employee?
That she’d made herself uncomfortable just to surprise Bryn?
Certainly, she could have just asked Bryn her room number, but she hadn’t.
She looked at Vivian. A mystery she so wanted to unravel.
“I’m sorry about what happened earlier.” Vivian’s attention darted to the cup she was holding in her lap.
“It’s okay—”
“It’s not at all okay,” she said with bone-rattling conviction. “And Seraphina and Richard both know not to say a fucking word to anyone. What you do is no one’s business but yours.”
Vivian shifted into an energy Bryn had never seen before. She was so intense, Bryn couldn’t imagine bearing the brunt of her direct wrath. Just the reenactment was enough to make her body clench.
“What did you say to them?”
Vivian leaned back, one leg crossed over the other, dark eyes bright with self-satisfaction. “I was clear.”
“Vivian…”
“Bryn.”
Chuckling, Bryn shook her head and took another sip of the tart and way too strong drink. “Are you a bully?”
Vivian’s lopsided smile was mesmerizing. A poem etched in the tilt of her perfect mouth. A mouth that had parted in Bryn’s defense. Heart racing at the prospect of Vivian defending her honor, Bryn resisted the overwhelming urge to swoon.
“Bullies pick on the weak. What I did was more like… pest control.”
Bryn laughed. Truly laughed. “That’s a terrible way to talk about people.”
“I’m happy to discontinue the conversation about them at any time.”
Bryn’s body warmed from the vodka. Definitely the vodka and not the way Vivian was making her feel. Like the high school quarterback and prom queen had rolled into one incredibly cool person, and they’d leapt in front of a gaggle of mean girls for her.
Bryn took a deep breath and launched into what neither of them was saying. “Welp, I guess the porn is out of the bag.”
“It didn’t sound like porn to me,” she snapped, openly defensive.
Surprise made Bryn woozy and her body so light she was floating. “Vivian, do you listen to Siren?”
Despite Vivian exuding sultry energy even while doing the most mundane things like sitting cross-legged with one foot casually swinging, Bryn got the feeling she was a little… repressed. That Vivian was not very in touch with her sexual side.
Bryn couldn’t blame her. Considering her experience as a teen, Vivian probably didn’t have many positive experiences with sexuality.
“I have recently learned of the app,” Vivian replied dryly.
“Recently, huh?”
Bryn got rid of her drink in one fiery shot and leaned across to put the cup on the console. She bumped Vivian’s bare knee, skin soft and warm against her forearm. Vivian didn’t move away and Bryn forced herself not to read into it.
“How recently?” Bryn scooted forward, foot sliding next to Vivian’s.
Vivian finished her drink with enviable grace and set her cup next to Bryn’s. When she looked at Bryn this time, there was a crackling spark in her expression. A luminance Bryn had never noticed before. A joy.
She looked away and offered the faintest single-shoulder shrug. “An hour ago.”
Too buzzed to hold back her grin, Bryn asked, “Oh? And what did you listen to?”
When Vivian met her gaze again, her eyes were so dark. So heavy with concern she was struggling to hide. “I only listened to the audio you marked safe for work. I would never—”
Bryn laughed. “Well, then you can’t judge whether it’s porn, can you?”
Surprise won over Botox when Vivian’s eyes widened.
“I’m not embarrassed, Vivian. I’m actually pretty proud of my work. The only reason I haven’t talked about it is I know what other people might think—”
“Other people are stupid.”
“They are,” Bryn agreed. “And I don’t want to be typecast as only a steamy voice, you know? I still want to perform spec fic and horror and mystery and”—she forced herself to take a breath—“well… just everything.”
Vivian nodded, her posture relaxing.
“And you can listen.” She grinned, absolutely and unquestionably drunk. “I think you might enjoy Fdom, although Fsub can be pretty surprising.”
“My on-set tutors didn’t teach me Morse Code,” she replied, but she chuckled this time, the sound like a gunshot starting a race. A signal for Bryn’s pulse to work double time.
“Fdom just means ‘female dominant,’” Bryn explained, enjoying being on the other side of the knowledge gap.
“I don’t mean, like, leather and chains or whatever.
Not necessarily.” She guessed where Vivian’s mind would go.
“It’s more…” The vodka and adrenaline drop made her brain fuzzy in a warm, pleasant way.
“The dominant is in charge of how everything feels. The pacing, the reassurance.” She laughed and wiggled her eyebrows.
“The filthy stuff. Fsub is the opposite. Same pairing, different dynamic.”
Vivian shifted, but she didn’t look away. “And that’s popular?”
“So popular.” Bryn leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees. “Most of my messages are like, ‘I thought I wanted to be the one in charge, but apparently my thing is being bossed around by a hot woman with a nice voice.’”