Chapter Five Violet
Chapter Five
Violet
“Fuck. A. Moose.” Those are the only words I can seem to form as I wake up the next morning. My head feels like an over-pumped balloon ready to burst, and the pressure between my ears is what I imagine swimming to the location of the Titanic would feel like.
I open one eye and gaze around the room, gauging whether or not it’s safe to open my other eye.
“Sucks, but not deadly,” I say to myself. Then, I slowly open the other eye. “Never mind. Abort mission.”
My vision swirls, and I race toward the bathroom, retching up everything I had consumed the night before.
I knew Theo had given me a bunch of problems on the plane, making sure everyone knew I was playing victim, but what I didn’t expect was for him to almost let it slip that I was Solace.
My agent, Ollie, is on speed dial, and I swear she would have his nuts on a platter if he did anything to sabotage my hidden identity. Not to mention Michel is staying somewhere in Milan and wouldn’t think twice about making Theo cry for his mom.
Fuck.
I gotta tell Michel about my time at the bar, that is, if I can remember what happened.
Another load of last night’s choices pours into the toilet, and the sounds coming from me belong on one of those music albums where the vocalists just growl into the mic. Maybe I could be a backup singer for them. I’m pretty much nailing it here.
“Never again,” I say to my reflection a few minutes later as I dab my face with cold water. If those tiny little Troll Dolls from when I was a kid had my hair color, I would be the perfect stock image for their marketing posters. “Alcohol is for the devil.”
Emptying my stomach seems to help, but all those partying years tell me I need to get food into my system now. And I’m not getting food into my system until I fix my face, so I don’t look like something that just crawled out from under a bridge.
Step one: shower, assuming the room stops spinning enough for me to stand on a wet surface without dying.
“I just need to make it to the shower.” I stop talking when I smell my breath. “Step one has now changed to brushing my teeth.”
Forty minutes later, I’m showered with semi-fresh breath, which is as fresh as it gets once you’ve yacked up an entire bar inventory. My makeup is done with my hair in a messy bun on top of my head, and I decide that’s where my level of fashion stops for the day.
Listen, I got this far, okay?
I finally emerge from the bedroom and curse the time on the digital clock resting on the nightstand. “Seven in the morning? Did I seriously puke my guts out at six o’clock?”
Shoving away the idea of sleeping more, I apply some Chapstick and go to grab my clutch bag.
My phone is still sitting on the table, far away from the plug I brought with me.
Did I not charge it last night?
Wait.
“How did I even get back to my room?”
Looking around, I don’t see any signs of men’s clothing left behind, or any empty liquor bottles, suggesting that I brought someone back here.
The nausea starts to roll back up my throat at the thought of Theo coming to my hotel room in an attempt to reconcile.
But there’s no way he could have been at this hotel bar because he decided to go to the Olympic Village with the team when I told him on the plane that he’s not sleeping in my hotel room.
One of the many arguments we managed to squeeze in on the flight.
Oh, what fun.
I pick up my phone and tap all the buttons.
Dead.
“Fuck,” I hiss, racing to find a charging cable. I’m sure I have a shit ton of notifications from my mom, Cassie, Michel, and Ollie.
“Come on, come on,” I cajole my phone as the dead battery symbol comes onto the screen when it registers that it’s plugged in. “Just get enough juice that I can turn you on.”
If someone were listening outside my door, they’d think I was having an amazing time in here. When, in reality, I’m talking to a piece of technology.
I need to get laid.
The phone finally has enough battery power to turn on, and thankfully, nothing burned down while I was MIA. Cassie only texted once to see if Theo was still alive. My mom called once and texted once. I make a mental note to get back to her, but not until I’ve sobered up.
Plus, it’s midnight back home, so I have some time to find a place that is willing to feed me.
Do they do room service at seven in the morning here? I would assume they do for the cost of the room, but I can’t be sure.
There are two other missed calls on my phone, both from Ollie with a voicemail in her thick New York accent.
“Ay, Toots,” she begins in the same way all of her messages to me do.
“Just wanted to letcha know we booked the Studeio Vellutio down the road from the Four Seasons. It should only be a fifteen-minute drive, and we got you into a private room under the name Yolanda. Don’t roll your eyes at the name, Doll, it’ll do the trick. ”
Her knowing exactly what I’m doing right now makes me smile. It’s almost like the old her is shining through again.
“Make sure you’re… DAMMIT, JENKINS,” she yells at her dog mid-message, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Sorry, Toots. Anyway, make sure you’re workin’ on a new song for that album we talked about last week.
I want somethin’ hot in the works. Make ‘em squeal like pigs.
Alright, gotta run. Kisses, ‘n all that.”
“Kisses ‘n all that.” It’s one of her famous lines that I haven’t heard much since she had a stroke four months ago. Ever since the stroke, she’s been acting a little differently. Our video calls are strictly phone calls now, most of them through voicemail.
“That droop I got in my lips takes away from my badass Long Island glow.”
But I miss her. She was always so… Ollie. Over-the-top and not afraid to give it to you. The best agent a girl with two identities could ask for.
I call back, knowing she won’t answer because of the time, but I leave a message letting her know I’m spending today working on the lyrics for a song that is inspired by my flight here.
I can’t decide if I’ll focus more on the moving past it aspect of the song and name it Watch Me Glow, or the burn in hell aspect and name it Secondhand Love.
I guess I’ll see where the lyrics take me.
I set a reminder alarm on my phone to call my mom at two o’clock, which will give her a chance to get up and have her coffee.
Linda is a happier woman after caffeine, and I’d rather talk to that side of her.
Which reminds me, I need to look up a new surgical case I can say I was working on.
Maybe Cassie will have something for me.
When my phone battery hits fifteen percent, I decide it’s charged enough to get me down to the counter and ask about room service or a local restaurant that will be open this early.
Lifting my clutch, I almost jump out of my skin when something lands on my foot.
“What the hell?” I all but shriek, looking down at what just took ten years off my life. “Paper?”
Who knew paper could be so damn scary?
I bend over and pick it up, noticing it’s been written on. So, someone was here last night? I brought someone back to my hotel room?
Your bag wasn’t opened by anyone. I only stuck my hand in your pocket to get your hotel key. You went to sleep, and I went back to my room. -S
“Who the fuck is S?”
Panicking, I race around the hotel room to make sure everything is the way I left it. I rip open my lockbox and find my bodice and mask untouched.
So… they really brought me back to my room and left?
I need to find out who S is and make sure they don’t know anything they’re not supposed to.
“No,” I tell the guy behind the counter. “You don’t understand. Whoever this person is,” I wave the notepad in front of his face for the fifth time, “was in my room. They left me this note, and I don’t know them. They could be a killer!”
“Ma’am, nobody was in your room without your approval.” His voice is so calm you’d think he was talking to a toddler. “The security on the doors is top-notch.”
Is he trying to sell me a padlock? I don’t want to know about the quality of the locks; I want to know who the fuck was in my room last night.
“I could have been taken advantage of,” I hiss at him. “My lawyer is going to have your head.”
My threat does not affect him whatsoever. His eyes never shift from whatever he’s doing on that stupid computer in front of him.
“Lawyers won’t be necessary.” A body appears beside me, causing me to jump to the side. She’s tall, dark, and dare I say, handsome?
Can you say that about a woman? Am I crazy?
She has at least a half foot on me, so my eyes trail upward from her chest to meet her deep green gaze. Amusement dances behind her features.
“It was me.”
“Shit, you’re tall,” I blurt out, unable to engage the filter in my brain. Then, I shake my head and pull myself back to the current conversation. “Wait, what were you?”
I’m staring at her like I know her from somewhere, but unable to place her.
She has her long, dark hair in a braid that tumbles down around her neck, the base resting at her collarbone.
She surveys me, like she’s taking note of my physique.
Or maybe she knows things about me. That part has me concerned.
“I’m five-eleven.” She looks like she’s trying not to laugh at me.
Awesome.
“And the person who was in your room last night.” She pokes her finger into her chest as if to gesture to herself, and her lips form an amused, tight line.
Okay, so the things she knows about me could be bad depending on how much I blabbed while I was under the influence of Jack, Jim, and José.
Again, awesome.
“You’re… S?” My eyes roam the notepad and examine the handwriting. I guess it does look a bit feminine. I didn’t notice that before. “You had your hand in my leggings?” I point at that specific part of the note.
The guy behind the counter looks in my direction, and I narrow my eyes at him. “Oh sure, you don’t give two shits about the possibility that I could have been raped last night, but the second there’s a potential for some girl-on-girl action, you—”