No Good Deed #2
Maeve and I head toward the elevator. Along the way, I shake off the bit of unease I felt walking into the hotel.
There’s really no need for it. This room switch is more proof of how seamlessly Maeve and I can slide from a smoldering kiss last week right back into friendship this week.
More proof of how necessary our friendship is too.
We’ve handled the flight, the room, the whole damn trip so far like pros.
And when it comes to the room, who cares if we’re sharing one? We had an extra, after all.
I step into the elevator. Right foot first.
The doors close and Maeve asks, “Was that your first sighting as an underwear model?”
“No.”
She shoves my shoulder playfully. “You never told me you’ve been spotted in the wild in your underwear.”
“Because I haven’t been spotted in them.”
Maeve holds up one finger. “Your honor, I object. Some might say that underwear in a Zoom call is indeed in the wild.”
“It was in my home, and they weren’t sponsorship boxers anyway,” I wave her objection off.
“It’s even more impressive that she recognized you before you started walking away.”
Groaning, I drag a hand down my face. “I can’t take you anywhere.”
“True. But back to these sightings. Do they come up to you and say Google is right. You have the best ass ever?”
Wait. She knows the Internet says that about me? I raise my face. “Been googling me, Maeve?”
“Sometimes I do,” she says.
I shouldn’t like that so much. I really shouldn’t. And yet…I do. “Well, don’t believe everything you read online.” Then I shrug casually. “But this one is true.”
“I know,” she says with a smirk, then nods toward me, like she’s checking out my backside. “Do you have fire-breathing dragon boxer briefs with you?”
“Maybe I’m wearing them right now.”
“Did CheekyBeast give you all its styles?”
“That is one of the perks,” I say.
I’m poised for her to let loose a sassy response, but her gaze goes thoughtful.
“I know I tease you all the time, but that was seriously cute—how she knew you. How she’d given them to her husband.
This might sound kind of out there…but it’s almost like they needed that in that moment.
It’s like, I could feel them reconnecting right in front of us,” she says, her eyes lively.
I nod. “I could too.”
“Maybe it was all meant to be—us having two rooms in the date package from the auction.”
“Yeah, maybe it was meant to be,” I say, agreeing as I linger on those three words—meant to be.
Some things do feel that way. But if I believe in meant to be, then aren’t bad things meant to be too?
I shake off the darker thoughts. There’s no place for them. Not in this city where a good time is the only item on the menu. Where good times are meant to be.
The elevator shoots up twelve floors, then dings.
We walk down the hallway to our room. I unlock the door, and we step inside.
It’s a large room, with a king-sized bed and floor-to-ceiling windows offering a sweeping view of the Vegas Strip.
Not ideal for a family of five. The room is decked out in luxurious shades of sapphire and silver, with plush furniture and a marble-topped bar in one corner.
A bucket with a split of champagne sits in it.
The hotel must have brought that up when we switched rooms with Jen and Hal.
Maeve drops her bag on the chair by the window and stretches. “Yep. This is what I need tonight,” she says, sounding relieved, but also a bit melancholy as she gazes at the view of the neon-lit Strip below.
Something in her voice catches my attention. “Did something happen earlier? Did you hear from your agent?” Last I heard Maeve was still waiting on that job.
She snaps her gaze back to me, her expression clearing. “No. Just that I have a lot to do when I get back to town. But I’m sure you do too. I mean, you do have a game in two nights’ time, and you’d better not miss it,” she says, waggling a finger at me.
But her tone’s too bright, too cheery. “I won’t. But is everything okay with you?” I ask, sensing that she’s holding back in some way.
Ah, fuck.
Is she holding back now because of the kiss last week?
We never talked about it. We just went our separate ways.
A knot tightens in my chest, and along with it comes a familiar twinge of worry.
A twinge that rears its head every now and then and has ever since Nora died when I was twenty-two, a few weeks after I’d broken up with her since I’d fallen out of love.
I’d tried to do it gently, to say I wanted to be just friends, which was true.
She said she didn’t know if she could be friends with me since I’d broken her heart.
But then, a few weeks later, she said she wanted to try.
We were supposed to meet for lunch one Sunday—in an attempt to truly stay friends post-breakup.
But before I even left my home to meet her, I learned that, during a regular training ride down through the Marin Headlands on her new road-racing bicycle, she’d been hit by a car.
Becoming friends with Nora was never going to happen.
A reminder that you never know what’s coming. And it’s important to talk through things, to listen to people, to hear what’s going on with them. When you don’t, you might regret it.
No, you will regret it.
With tightness in my muscles but a determination to fix whatever’s wrong powering me, I walk over to Maeve where she’s standing by the window. “Hey,” I say, setting a hand on her shoulder. “What’s going on?”
She turns to me, wearing a sad smile. “It’s silly,” she says with a sigh. “Sometimes I get down about work. You know? Sometimes it just seems like…things aren’t going to happen for me.”
My heart squeezes for her. “I’m sorry you’re feeling that way. I’m sure they will though.”
“Maybe. Who knows? I’m trying to be hopeful. But at some point, am I just chasing something I can never catch, Asher?” Her throat hitches.
Heart lurching, I reach for her, pulling her into a hug. “You’re going through self-doubt. That’s normal. For any artist.”
“I wonder if my mom ever did,” she whispers into my chest.
I run my hand down her back. “I’m sure she did.”
“I don’t know. I think she was always successful,” Maeve says, her voice…small. Her usual bravado is noticeably absent.
I pull back and tuck a finger under her chin. “You are successful. You’re always working.”
Rolling her eyes, she scoffs. “Always hustling.”
“And the hustle pays off,” I say.
She shoots me a look like I’ve gone mad.
“I don’t know about that.” She sighs heavily, like she’s resigning herself to finally sharing since she adds, “Not everyone makes it. Not everyone pulls it off. What if it’s time to throw in the towel when it comes to painting?
You know that’s what Vivian wants. She wants me to go full-time with her.
And then maybe to take things over when she retires.
Like me running a catering business is a good idea,” she says with an eye roll.
But it’s a real pressure she feels from her aunt, who’s tried in her own, sometimes misguided, way to look out for Maeve.
I want to tell Maeve not to worry about her aunt, but family is complicated. Mine seems easy on the surface, but we’ve had our exhausting years.
I want to tell Maeve, too, that the decorative art she makes is great, but that’s not what she wants to hear right now, I suspect.
“You know I don’t think it’s towel-throwing-in time, now or ever.
You know I think you’re amazing at what you do.
But I hear you that it’s hard, and I’m sorry you’re feeling that right now,” I say.
“I hate to admit it, but I guess I’ve kind of been in a…spiral this past week.”
Well, that’s no good, but she came to the right guy. “What can we do about it?” I ask, cupping her shoulders, rising to the occasion. “How can we un-spiral you?”