Chapter 15
Elizabeth set her bag down at the reception desk, and the woman behind it smiled.
“Checking in. Moretti. One room.”
The receptionist’s fingers moved across her keyboard.
Kelsey stood beside her, close but not quite touching, the way someone stands next to a colleague at a conference check-in.
Not the way a girlfriend stands. The two-hour drive had calcified the distance between them into something physical, something Elizabeth could feel in the inches of air separating her arm from Kelsey’s, and she should have been relieved by that distance because distance was the whole point.
Distance was what kept this transactional, distance was safe.
The receptionist was pulling up the reservation.
Elizabeth kept her eyes forward. In the large mirror mounted behind the desk, she could see the lobby reflected back at her, the heavy wooden beams and the tall windows, and she could see the front entrance.
She could see Sonia walking through it, rolling a small black suitcase behind her, sunglasses pushed up on her head.
Something clicked on inside Elizabeth like a switch being thrown.
Her body knew what to do before her mind caught up.
She turned toward Kelsey, and her hand was already moving, reaching for the strand of blonde hair that had come loose from behind Kelsey’s ear, and she tucked it back.
Slowly. Her thumb grazed the curve of Kelsey’s ear on the way down, and she let the touch linger one beat longer than necessary.
Kelsey’s eyes widened, a quick flash of surprise, and then her expression softened into something that looked almost grateful, and Elizabeth let her hand fall to the small of Kelsey’s back and pulled her in.
Kelsey came. No resistance. She shifted into Elizabeth’s side like she’d been waiting for it, and the warmth of her hip against Elizabeth’s was immediate. Elizabeth kept her gaze on the mirror behind the desk, watching Sonia’s reflection get closer.
“Elizabeth!”
Sonia’s voice carried across the lobby with the easy volume of a woman who’d never worried about being too loud. Elizabeth turned as if she hadn’t already tracked her across the lobby.
“Sonia.”
Sonia parked her suitcase and looked at Kelsey. Her face opened into genuine pleasure. “And Kelsey. Hi. I’m so glad you’re here.” Her voice dropped. “She needs someone with her today. I know she’s moved on. Obviously. But it’s still going be a strange day. She shouldn’t be alone.”
“I know.”
“Ms. Moretti?” The receptionist held out two key cards in a small paper sleeve. “Room 314. Elevators are to your left.”
Elizabeth took the cards and picked up her garment bag.
“We’re going to head up,” Elizabeth said. “Get settled. And then start getting ready.”
“Go, go.” Sonia waved them off. “I’ll see you both at the ceremony. Save me a seat if you get there first.”
Elizabeth guided Kelsey toward the elevators. She pressed the call button. The doors opened, and they stepped inside.
The elevator was small, barely large enough for both of them and their bags. The mechanical hum of the cables filled the space between them and it wasn’t enough, wasn’t nearly enough to cover the silence.
She stared at the illuminated number above the door. Two. Climbing to three.
She could still feel the exact place where Kelsey’s hip had pressed against hers.
The number changed to three. The elevator slowed, and the doors opened onto the third floor.
Elizabeth wheeled her suitcase to room 314.
The lock beeped twice and the light turned green.
Elizabeth pushed the handle down and the door swung inward and the first thing that hit her was the cold.
The room’s air conditioning had been running for hours, preparing for guests who hadn’t arrived yet, and the chill pressed against her face and bare forearms like stepping into a walk-in cooler.
Behind it came the smell, that particular hotel freshness.
She stepped inside and held the door open for Kelsey.
The bed was enormous.
One king. White duvet pulled tight across the mattress, four pillows arranged in a symmetrical stack against a padded headboard the color of oatmeal. The bed sat in the center of the room, flanked by two nightstands with matching brass lamps. Beyond it, a window framed a view of the grounds.
She’d known this was what she’d booked. She’d chosen a king because a real couple would choose a king, because requesting two beds or a pullout sofa was not something she wanted repeated at the reception desk, where anyone might hear. It was the logical choice. It was still the logical choice.
It was also a very large bed in a very quiet room, and Kelsey was standing right behind her.
Kelsey slipped past her through the doorway, her canvas weekender slung over one shoulder and her garment bag draped over the opposite arm, the plastic catching the light from the window.
She didn’t comment on the bed. She didn’t pause or glance at Elizabeth or make a joke about it.
She just walked past it, dropped her weekender on the armchair by the window, and laid her garment bag across the foot of the bed, smoothing the plastic flat with one hand.
Elizabeth let the door close behind her. The hydraulic arm caught it and eased it shut with a soft click that sounded, in the chilled silence of the room, like something locking into place.
She wheeled her suitcase to the far side of the bed and set it upright against the wall. She hung her own garment bag on the hook beside the bathroom door. Her movements were precise and unhurried, the way she arranged files on her desk before a deposition, everything in its designated location.
Kelsey had unzipped her weekender and was pulling things out. A clear plastic bag stuffed with toiletries, a smaller pouch that might have been makeup, a phone charger, a pair of heels. She gathered the toiletries bag and the makeup pouch against her chest.
“I’m going to put some stuff in the bathroom. Do you need to get in there first?”
“No. Go ahead.”
Kelsey disappeared through the bathroom door, and Elizabeth heard the click of the light switch, then the small sounds of things being set on a counter. A zipper. The rattle of bottles against tile.
Elizabeth stood beside her suitcase and pressed her palms flat against her thighs.
The room was very still. The air conditioning hummed at a low, constant pitch, and beyond the window the faint sound of tires on gravel, someone else arriving.
She sat down on the edge of the bed. This was her fault.
All of it. The stiffness in the car, the silence that had stretched.
The week before that, when she’d stayed away from the café entirely, texted Kelsey only when logistics demanded it, treated the woman who had volunteered to help her like an inconvenience she was managing. Kelsey had done nothing wrong.
Kelsey had done everything right. At James’s party, she had charmed Sonia, handled the room, and rested her hand on Elizabeth’s arm with the kind of casual warmth that made every person who saw them believe they went home together at the end of the night.
She had been funny and genuine and completely convincing, and she had done all of it because Elizabeth had asked her to and paid her to.
So what was Elizabeth’s problem?
She knew what her problem was. Her problem had started in that garden, under the string lights, with Kelsey’s palm on her cheek and her thumb against the corner of Elizabeth’s mouth.
That had been performance. Elizabeth understood that.
Kelsey had seen Grace walk into the party and she had moved Elizabeth outside and grounded her.
But it had woken something up. The warmth of Kelsey’s hand on her face had cracked something open, and the thing that had leaked out was not complicated.
It was simple. She wanted someone to touch her like that again.
And not just anyone. Kelsey. She wanted Kelsey’s hand on her face, and Kelsey’s eyes steady on hers.
She wanted all of it to be real, and none of it was.
Water ran in the bathroom. Elizabeth listened to it and breathed.
Kelsey came out, drying her hands on a small white towel. Her face looked fresher, like she’d splashed water on it, and her hair was down now, falling over her shoulders, catching the light from the window in a way that made Elizabeth’s chest contract.
“So what’s the plan?” Kelsey asked.
“Well, the ceremony’s at four.” Elizabeth smoothed the bedspread beside her knee, running her thumb along the stitching. “I booked a stylist to come up at two to do our hair. We should probably get some room service now. Something light to keep us going.”
“Okay. But you didn’t have to do that. The stylist, I mean.”
“It’s not a problem. All part of the agreement.”
Kelsey nodded. Something passed across her face, and then she turned toward the window and looked out at the green lawn and the trees beyond it.
Elizabeth followed her gaze. Outside people were setting up white chairs in rows for a ceremony where Grace would marry someone else, and Elizabeth would sit in one of those chairs with a woman she was paying to hold her hand and smile, and afterward they would come back to this room with its one white bed and its cold clean air and the pretending would be over.
Kelsey would go back to Queens and Elizabeth would go back to working long hours.
She stood up and opened her suitcase and began to unpack. Everything about today was strange. She should probably be more focused on the fact that her ex-wife was marrying someone else, but her mind kept drifting back to Kelsey, and trying to figure out how she’d let this happen.