5 Brandon
Brandon
IAN
How do I look?
OLLIE
Fabulous!
IAN
They’d better give me a better slot after tonight.
Brandon knows Ian isn’t on for hours, but any Friday-night slot is a good slot.
He doesn’t text that back right away though.
He waits a minute, still a little angry about the text from earlier.
Even if Ian was right. Jon never texted back.
Brandon wonders if he’ll see him tonight, walk into the lobby, maybe come over and apologize.
I dropped my phone down a sewer grate! or something.
Some excuse, some apology, something to show Brandon’s not crazy for thinking they had something. He sighs, not sure.
brANDON
You look amazing! Knock em dead!
Maybe Jon will just walk in, go to the elevator, and take it up to his room, not even looking at Brandon. Brandon shakes his head—he can’t think that; that would be too much, too terrible, worse than vomiting in front of a guy, worse than…a lot.
It’s quiet in the lobby again. Friday nights are usually busier, he thinks. People walk between the door and elevators, but no one is shouting, laughing, stumbling to the elevators like usual.
“You doing anything tomorrow?” Amber asks, interrupting the peace. She asks in a way that makes it clear she wants him to ask her the same question, so he just shakes his head. “I’m going to the museum. There’s an exhibit at MoMA I want to see.”
“Cool.”
He wishes it weren’t so quiet.
“It’s nudes.” She leans in to whisper the last word.
“Oh.”
Blissfully, the phone rings. Brandon picks it up as fast as he can.
“Bergamot Hotel, this is the front desk. How can I help you?”
“Hanna,” Hanna the maid says on the other end of the line. She’s never been one for pleasantries. “Room 310, a left-behind bag.”
Brandon blinks, confused. Jon’s room. “310 doesn’t check out until Monday.”
“Not what they told me. Late checkout today.”
Brandon frowns and brings up the room status on the computer—she’s right. Jon checked out an hour before Brandon came on duty tonight. Didn’t even ask for a refund. And he left his bag behind? He had only the one bag when he checked in.
“All right, yes,” Brandon says, realizing he’s been quiet too long. “Bring the bag down here. I’ll call—or, no, I’ll run up and get it. That’ll be faster.”
“Okay,” Hanna says, then hangs up.
“Left bag,” he says to Amber, not looking her in the eyes. She might see whatever he’s feeling on his face. What is he feeling? Worried, he thinks, though he has no idea why. Maybe offended, too—was the sex so bad, Jon checked out early? Did he leave because of Brandon? “I’m going to grab it.”
“I can call him and—”
“No, no, I’ll do it,” Brandon says, a little faster and louder than he means to. Amber raises an eyebrow at him. “I mean, once I have the bag. I want to make sure it’s not just, like, trash.”
“Okay,” Amber says, confused. She shrugs.
Brandon takes the elevator upstairs, feeling as impatient as he did last night, feet boosted, not quite running again to room 310.
Hanna is already outside it, rolling her cart down the hall.
The same bag Jon had around his shoulder last night is on top of it.
Brandon pulls up next to her and takes it. She glances up at him and nods.
“Anything else in there?” he asks.
She raises an eyebrow at him. “You think I missed something?”
“It’s just unusual,” Brandon says quickly, forcing a smile.
“Nothing else. Extra towels—you brought him those, right?”
“Yes,” Brandon says, feeling himself blushing.
She keeps staring at him. He stares back, unsure what she’s able to read off him.
“Okay,” she says finally, then pushes the cart away. Brandon stares at the door to 310 and then takes out his master key card and swipes it, going inside. He doesn’t care if he offends Hanna. It’s weird to leave a bag behind, and he’s going to search for anything else.
Inside, he sits on the carpet, not wanting to dent the made bed, and opens the bag.
A white T-shirt, a pair of black briefs, and…
a phone. You definitely don’t leave a phone behind.
No matter how bad the sex was. Or maybe this is the opposite, like when a guy leaves something at your place so they have to meet you to pick it up later.
It’s never happened to Brandon, but he’s heard it’s a thing.
Maybe this is like a glass slipper and Brandon is Prince Charming.
He takes his own phone out, pulls up Jon’s number. Maybe he has two phones. Who else would leave one behind, except someone who has two, right? He can test it, he realizes.
brANDON
You left your bag at the hotel
The message pops up on the screen of Jon’s phone a moment after he sends it.
Four unread messages. He tries sliding it open, but it needs a password, of course.
So he must have two phones. Or… Brandon isn’t sure what the or is.
If this is the phone he was willing to leave behind, what does it mean that it was the number he gave Brandon?
Four unread messages means maybe he never saw Brandon’s texts—that’s good, right?
He stares at the phone, watches the screen go black again.
He has no idea what this means. Maybe nothing.
Ian would say it’s nothing. Nicole would say it means Jon is an idiot.
Ollie might believe the glass-slipper thing.
Brandon almost texts them, but what for?
He stands up, brushing his pants off, and then searches the room carefully, but Hanna was right, there’s nothing else.
He could go check the trash she took, maybe, but that would seem weird.
It would be weird. He knows what he’s supposed to do now: call the number on file for the reservation and let him know he left a bag behind, then put it in storage for two weeks, and then it’s fair game for the staff to take.
Still, two weeks seems like a while. And Brandon has a connection with this guy. He could even be his Heimweh, maybe. One day. You can’t wait for Heimweh—you have to go out and find it. He slips the phone into his pocket.
Back at the desk, he puts the bag down and looks up the number on file for the reservation.
He picks up the phone and calls it, realizing only a moment too late that it could make his pocket vibrate, which would be hard to explain to Amber.
But it doesn’t. It rings a few times before being picked up.
“Yes?” It’s a woman’s voice. Angry.
“Hello, this is Brandon from the Bergamot Hotel, calling for Mr. Engle.”
There’s a pause. For a moment, Brandon thinks she’s hung up.
“He’s not available—tell me.” Her words are clipped, but the anger seems pressed out now.
Brandon tries to remember what the rules are—this is the number on file, and that’s what’s most important.
Most employees wouldn’t know Jon’s voice, after all.
Wouldn’t know he checked in alone. They’d just tell this woman.
“Mr. Engle left behind a bag when he checked out, which we found cleaning his room. We’d be happy to ship it to him, or we can hold it for—”
“I’ll send someone,” she says.
“Wonderful, we’ll hold it for two weeks—”
“He’ll be there soon.” She hangs up. There’s a click like a trigger being pulled and no bullet firing.
Brandon stares at the phone a moment.
“They coming to get it?” Amber asks.
“Someone is,” Brandon says, hanging up. “Said he’ll be here soon.”
“Anything good in it?” she asks. Brandon raises his eyebrows. “What? You didn’t look?”
“Just a tee and underwear,” Brandon says, almost forgetting he’s lying until he’s done saying it. “She sounded irritated.”
“Maybe this was his affair hotel,” Amber says. “And she caught him or something.”
“Maybe,” Brandon says, feeling a sudden trickle of sweat between his shoulder blades. Is that what it was? He was just some quickie affair for a married bisexual—or closeted or something—guy?
“I think affairs are sexy,” Amber says. “I’m always trying to figure out which of our guests might be having one.”
“Ah…oh,” Brandon says, not sure how to respond. He’s certainly played that game before, but he doesn’t feel very sexy right now, having been a piece in it.
About half an hour later, the doors open, and a large man in a leather jacket walks up to the desk.
He radiates danger. Intentionally, Brandon thinks.
And then he spots the tattoo on his neck, thumbnail-sized: the emoji with hearts for eyes.
Somehow that seems to take the bite out of him—until he seems to catch Brandon looking and shoots a smirk at him that almost makes Brandon take a step back. And wet himself.
“Hello,” Amber says, apparently unfazed by the man’s energy. “Welcome to the Bergamot Hotel. How can I—”
“Bag,” the man says, holding out his hand.
“Oh. Mr. Engle?”
The man nods. Brandon swallows. This is definitely not Mr. Engle. Amber reaches for the bag. Brandon thinks about stopping her, asking who he is. He says nothing. Amber hands him the bag, and he snatches it from her, quickly looking through it. He frowns.
The phone. It’s in his pocket, Brandon realizes. He should—no. This isn’t Jon. Something feels wrong. This is not what Jon would want. He knows it. Jon would want Brandon to find him. So he says nothing, and the man with the heart-eyes tattoo leaves, taking the bag with him.
“Well, not an affair, I guess,” Amber says when he’s gone. “Or one gone really wrong.”
“Yeah,” Brandon says. “Really wrong.”