2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
The walkie-talkie attached to the waistband of my khaki pants shrieks at me angrily. I know someone is probably trying to reach me, but I only turn the volume down, choosing to ignore whoever is trying to get through the other end. Sometimes, the signal has trouble getting from one end of the resort to the other, and the walkie makes that appalling, high-pitched noise.
The Cerulean is a massive resort with eleven on-site restaurants, a shopping centre, more than one pool, tennis courts, and a golf course. It’s a wonder how any of the staff get in touch with each other. It’s outrageous how extravagant the resort is, but I wouldn’t dream of working anywhere else. The luxury is the cherry on top of an already amazing place.
The outdoor space is filled with rich families rushing to claim the most desirable lounge chairs near the pool. At the moment, the crowd isn’t too unmanageable, but we are only just seeing the first round of summer vacationers. It’s the first week of June, and more people are bound to arrive soon.
My phone buzzes, and I fish it out of my back pocket, seeing it’s Laryssa.
“Why aren’t you answering your walkie?” she asks.
I roll my eyes. “Of course, that was you. You know you’re not supposed to clog up the channel with unnecessary noise unless it’s work-related.”
She giggles. “This is work-related.”
“By all means, tell me then.”
I do a terrible job of suppressing a yawn, and my eyes water.
“Rough night?” Laryssa asks, not missing a beat. When I don’t answer right away, she adds, “Was it more nightmares?”
I nod. “Yeah.” But I don’t care to elaborate. “And the fact that my air conditioning is broken again doesn’t help.”
“What is that? The second time this month?”
I rub the bridge of my nose aggressively. “Yeah, and Mr. Lindsay hasn’t been answering any of the emails I’ve sent.”
“That sucks. I’m sorry.”
“What did you call to tell me?”
“Okay, so Greg told me he was talking to Christine, and she heard from Lainey that Marco and Cameron were back together again. Can you believe that shit? Especially with what went down with her cousin?!” Laryssa doesn’t even take a breath.
Are you kidding me right now?
“That’s why you called me? To fill me in on the latest gossip?”
I can all but hear her shrug through the line. “Well, someone has to. I hate to break it to you, Monroe, but you’re not exactly the socializing type. At least now, when one of your coworkers tries to talk to you, you’ll have something to say.”
It’s a backward and twisted way of looking at it, but she’s right. The group I’ve been waiting on just left their cabana, allowing me to finally clean it.
“I need to get back. I’ll stop by the bar after my shift is over.”
“Toodle-oo,” Laryssa sings.
Blistering waves of heat roll off the afternoon sun, making the air dense with humidity. No matter how often I tell myself that I’m used to the Florida heat, I’ll never get used to the way my lungs overwork themselves just for a single breath or how beads of sweat cling to every inch of my skin, making my clothes stick to me mercilessly.
The move to Florida seven years ago had been a shock to my system; the humid heat wasn’t like the dry heat I knew growing up in Las Vegas.
Placing the last glass bottle onto the fridge shelf, I inspect my work, double-checking that each bottle of premium, double-filtered, reverse osmosis water is exactly an inch apart from the other. Vanity and aesthetics are important to the type of guest who chooses The Cerulean as their summer vacation spot. So, attention to detail is an important factor.
Closing the fridge, I slowly circle the cabana. The mini kitchenette with the huge island takes up most of the room in the enclosed space. I run a finger along the bar, curve around the three-seater, and stand in front of the two loungers by the bay window.
As I leave the shade of the cabana and step into the sun, the first person I see is my coworker, Claude. His short stature and wiry grey hair make him easy to spot. Not to mention that he can weave story after story about his youthful adventures in Burgundy like nobody else. He’s bent over, trying to pick up a discarded tissue from the ground. My gaze is drawn to his balding head and his face, red from exertion.
I speed up and bend to pick up the tissue for him. I offer him a small smile.
“I got it, Claude,” I say. He immediately straightens, subconsciously gripping his lower back. “I just finished restocking cabana one. Thought we could take our break now. Let you finish telling me that story about how you and your ex-wife got taken as hostages in Barcelona.”
He smiles a wide, toothy grin at me. “You’re not sick of my rambling yet?” His thick accent comes through.
I shake my head fervently. “Never.”
Claude huffs out a laugh, shuffling toward a set of lounger chairs. I follow him. Settling down with a groan, he continues his unbelievable story.
Exhaustion settles heavily in my bones, my ribs aching as I take another gulp of air, trying hard to fight back against the heat. It’s been a nonstop demand for my attention all day, and now I’m bouncing between three private cabanas, struggling to keep on top of everything.
As I take a minute to catch my breath, I scan the crowd. On the surface, you see rich, polished men and their trophy wives, teens laughing and waving to their parents from the pool. But I see more than that. I see old men leering after women decades younger than them and wives who don’t miss it. And those same miserable wives popping pills like they’re candy, hoping no one notices. But we do.
The Cerulean is a breeding ground for luxury and leisure, with hundreds of people and families vacationing here for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. It baffles me how they can stay here that long. Don’t they have lives? Jobs? Something waiting for them at home? I can’t comprehend it. Having the resources to just up and leave for months out of the year.
To add to the stress of the day and to my irritable state, a handful of people who normally work outside all came down with the same flu. Management was scrambling to see who could cover those shifts, and since money is the root of all my woes, I agreed to step in, totally underestimating how busy it would be.
All I want to do is go home, crawl into bed, and sleep myself into a coma. But if I stop now, I’ll never get back up. Before I can even take a step, I feel a pair of hands on my hips. Whoever is touching me is seconds away from getting their hand broken or worse.
I spin around so fast that I almost knock us over. My initial confusion transforms into annoyance when I see it’s only Laryssa.
“Shit!” I shriek, completely stunned. My exclamation earns me distasteful looks from those around me. “I could have killed you.”
“I’d like to see that.” Laryssa hums, raising a brow.
“Why do you have that look?” I question.
Her eyes light up, a devious smirk on her face. “I don’t have a look.”
“You definitely have a look.”
“I don’t—”
To stop our back-and-forth, because we’re both as stubborn as the other and we can do this all day, I put up a hand. “You do. Tell me what’s going on.” I pause, apparently missing an important bit of information. “Hold on, what are you doing out here? Isn’t your shift over?”
Instead of answering, Laryssa roughly spins my body to the left. With my back to the bar and her, I look toward the check-in area.
“What are we doing right now?”
Something or someone has caught Laryssa’s eye because she is practically foaming at the mouth. Every once in a while, the odd celebrity or socialite graces us with their presence, leading to a frenzy among the staff. They trip over themselves so that they can be the one who gets to serve said celebrity their tepid iced tea.
And just as I thought, I see a small group of people forming around someone in the lobby. I have one rule: I treat everyone with the same respect. No matter their popularity status. Laryssa jumps in place eagerly. Who is it now?
“Will you just tell me who it is?”
“Shut up for one second and look!” Her fingers dig into my shoulders, making me wince.
She releases me, coming to stand by my side.
“Oh my god, oh my god, he looks so much hotter in person!” Her voice takes on a nails-on-a-chalkboard quality.
Just as someone moves away from said celebrity, my eyes drift a few feet to the left, and whatever remaining peace I had dissipates. My heart beats erratically when my gaze snaps to his.
I quietly mutter, “Fuck me.” It’s more to myself, but Laryssa catches it and looks at me strangely.
Her eyes snap to what I’m looking at, her interest piqued. Or rather, who. Alden Van Doren just stepped foot in The Cerulean. When she sees him, she lets out a growl. I can’t stop myself from snickering.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Would it be completely unprofessional if I gave him the finger right now?” she scowls.
“I’d say so, but I respect the enthusiasm.”
Laryssa is passionately devoted when it counts, so I might overlook the continual teasing and overbearing pressure to dish about my social life.
She throws her hands up. “Look at him. With his pretty boy face and sturdy-looking chest and…” Laryssa bites her lip, ogling him from afar.
“Are you serious right now?” I balk.
“What? I’m allowed to appreciate the male form.”
“Go right ahead, but not that particular male form.” With a full-body cringe, I quickly look him over. “Don’t get it twisted. He’s like a fruity cocktail, delicious to look at, but once you get a taste, you’ll wake up with a wicked headache.”
Laryssa shakes her head. “You’re right. What was I thinking? Just because he’s remotely attractive, that doesn’t give him a pass. He’s still a douchebag.”
“That’s it. Let the rage fuel you and embrace the dark side.”
My eyes catch on Alden again, making a mental note that he’s with the same group of people as the year before. At that exact moment, he seems to notice me, smirking like the entitled asshole he is. His eyebrows rise in some cocky, jackass way that makes my skin crawl.
There he is. The fucking bane of my existence, in all his glory.
My stomach threatens to revolt against me and spill my lunch onto the ground below. His hand slips to the lower back of a woman he’s with, and he walks out of sight. My heart is still thundering, still on edge, like it’s waiting for him to come back into view. Laryssa’s hand shoots out, turning me toward her again.
“Don’t let him get to you, okay?” she says, trying to be optimistic about this whole thing. But my summer just got a lot more complicated.
“Great advice. Except I’m bound to run into him while he’s here.”
I let out a pained groan, sounding like some kind of dying animal. Laryssa shakes me hard, snapping me out of my dazed horror.
“Okay, okay. You’re a big girl, Monroe, so handle this like an adult. Just avoid him until you can’t anymore.”
That sounds like my best option right now. I’ll never understand why Alden comes back to The Cerulean every year, knowing that I’ll still be here, knowing that we will, without a doubt, get into it the moment he opens his stupid mouth. The only reasonable conclusion I’ve come to over the years is that he really, really likes to be punished. If he wants someone for that, he should get himself a dominatrix.
He truly encompasses the whole bored billionaire who is so sick of his everyday life that he needs to worsen the lives of those around him. It’s like some sort of game to him. Like he needs to make my life as miserable as he can for one month out of the year. Alden Van Doren is the one guest that I break my rules for time and time again because he is impossible to get along with.
It doesn’t matter that I try to be the courteous waitress I am; he always seems to have an issue with me. We can’t carry on a conversation without wanting to gouge each other’s eyes out. But this year, I decide on the spot, will be different. Because I won’t take his shit for another year. I refuse to let his superiority and condescension get the better of me.
He’s taken up enough of my time and energy over the years, and I won’t let him continue to distract me from the million other things I have on my mind. That settles it. I’ll avoid him like the plague for as long as I can. I won’t even let him get close.
Alden Van Doren. Public enemy number one.