After I dressed, we made quick work of breakfast, and before I knew it, I had my arms wrapped around Tria’s waist and my head tucked against her shoulder as we flew down the highway at seventy miles an hour. At first, I loved the way she looked on the bike, and I loved having her nestled between my legs with my arms wrapped around her middle, but the novelty wore off quickly. I knew a lot of people who really liked motorcycles, but I also knew within the first two hours that I wasn’t one of them. I tried not to think about the other seventeen hours of travel that Tria seemed to think we could do in one day, arriving in Beals in the wee hours of Monday morning.
My ass did not agree.
We stopped every couple of hours so we could both stretch and get something to eat or drink. Unlike being in a car, we couldn’t really talk to each other to help pass the time. The helmets we wore were basic ones and definitely not tricked out with two-way radios or anything like that. Tria was very determined to get there as quickly as possible, so we mostly stopped at rest stops along the highway just to keep the momentum going.
Tria had just come back from using the facilities right off the highway while I hung out and smoked near the motorcycle. We both got on the bike—her in front, me in the back—and I was finishing up my smoke before putting the helmet back on. There were three guys getting off their own bikes next to us, and one of them looked over in our direction.
“What kind of man lets the chick drive the bike?” The dude sneered.
I tensed, and Tria followed suit, knowing I wasn’t going to just let it go.
“Liam…” she said softly.
“Hush,” I responded. I took a last drag off my cigarette, flicked the butt across the parking lot, and got off the bike. I walked over to the asshole slowly and with purpose—my eyes right on his. Once I was chest-to-chest with him, I tilted my head slightly to one side and spoke.
“A pretty fucking confident one,” I told him.
He took a slight step back and glanced at his buddies, who seemed to be letting him deal with his own issues, sans backup. Didn’t matter to me—none of the three looked like they could take a real punch. I flinched forward slightly, balling my fists and moving like I was going to strike. He managed to fall down as he jumped back.
His buddies laughed as I got back on the bike behind Tria. Even she was snickering slightly as we placed our helmets on our heads and headed back down the highway. Moments later, my ass was numb from the vibrations again, and I was bored out of my fucking mind.
The only thing that was even remotely interesting about the ride was Tria’s position between my legs. Unfortunately, I couldn’t even enjoy that with the constant rumble of the bike, the swift wind around us, and the general uncomfortable nature of the whole thing.
About a thousand years later, we reached Portland and fueled up with what little cash we had scraped together. I honestly wasn’t sure how we were going to find the gas money to get home, but I was also a lot more interested in hitchhiking than I was in riding the bike at that point. My ass felt as if it had just gone ten rounds with a heavyweight, and Tria didn’t even seem like she was still awake as she replaced the gas nozzle on the pump.
“We need to find a place to sleep,” I told her.
“I’m good,” she mumbled. “It’s only about five more hours.”
“Bullshit,” I growled. “You don’t even look like you can walk any more, and my thighs feel like I’ve had a large vibrating vehicle between them for the past ten hours. I’m pretty sure my ass is going to fall right off if we go another hour.”
Tria reluctantly agreed, and we checked out a few of the standard motels right off the highway, but we couldn’t afford any of them. I finally had to start trying the less recognizable names in hopes that they would give me a discount, considering the lateness of the hour.
After another hour of searching, Tria wasn’t just looking like she was going to fall off the bike; she was actually starting to doze right there in the seat. There was only one last place to check at the final exit north of Portland before we were going to be out of options.
The dude at the creepy, dirty motel was less than helpful.
“We ain’t that kind of place.” He sneered at me as he spoke.
“Come on, dude,” I begged. Yes, I had gotten to that stage. None of my threats were working. “Twenty bucks for four hours—I know you aren’t full, and it’s after midnight. It’s practically free money.”
“I told ya, we don’t do that shit! Fuck the hooker behind the dumpsters at the Holiday Inn or something.”
“She ain’t a fucking hooker!” I yelled.
“Whatever.”
I stomped out, and Tria glanced up at me, eyes drooping as I returned to the side of the bike. She must have been able to tell I had struck out again.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I can keep going.”
“No,” I said, “you can’t. I didn’t come out here with you just to have you fall asleep and kill us both on the fucking road.”
“We’re kind of out of options,” she said.
“There has to be a park around here,” I said. “You could at least get a couple hours while I looked after you.”
“Hmm…” she mumbled. She didn’t even have the alertness to argue with me anymore.
I really needed to get her into a bed, but I was completely out of ideas. Growling at myself, I looked up into the sky and wondered if whatever deity was up there hated me. Without any obvious answer, I dropped my eyes again, and I saw a very familiar logo.
Fuck no.
Could I stoop that low?
High up in the sky, on what could have been the spike for the king’s banner on top of a castle, there was a huge, neon sign. On the left side sparkled a pair of silver circles as they twisted and turned within each other, creating a spinning vortex of marketing overachievement.
It sickened me.
As I glanced over at Tria, I wondered if she could even make it the few blocks up the street to get there. She wasn’t following my gaze but staring blankly at the center of one of the motorcycle’s gauges. I definitely had to get her into a bed soon. She wasn’t going to last a few more minutes.
Yes. For her, I could stoop that low.
“Come on,” I told her. “I have a plan—just a little ways up the street, if you can still make it.”
Tria nodded dumbly as I got back on the bike, which I was quite sure I hated now. We drove up a long hill, and I motioned for Tria to pull into a large parking lot and stop the bike near the front. Right between the entrance and exit drives was the tall pole with the spinning silver circles at the top.
She pulled off her helmet and looked at me out of the corner of her eye.
“If you think you are going to rob this place, I would much rather deal with a park bench than a jail cell.”
“No worries,” I told her. “Come on. Get that…that thing.”
Tria pulled the Great Bag of China out of one of the motorcycle’s packs and followed me into the posh lobby of a five-star hotel. I walked straight up to the front desk and asked for the night manager. She eyed me with contempt, and I just ignored it.
With a giant, pride-swallowing sigh, I reached into my back pocket. I grabbed my wallet, pulled out a black plastic card with a pair of silver loops and a number on it, and handed it to the woman. She took it with trepidation and a scowl.
“Call your corporate office,” I told her as I pointed at the card. “Then dial that extension.”
She eyed me, and for a moment I thought she might just call security and have us both thrown out, but then she picked up the phone and started dialing. I could feel Tria’s gaze on the back of my neck, but I didn’t look in her direction. I knew I was going to be pummeled with a bunch of questions as soon as the next opportunity presented itself, and I hoped to keep just a little bit of peace for a few more minutes. With any luck, she would be too tired to harass me and would just fall asleep.
“This is who?” The lady behind the desk was
speaking into the phone. “You…you mean Michael Teague? I mean Mister Teague? Oh!”
She looked back at me with astonishment.
“I’m terribly sorry, sir,” she continued. “Yes, I know it’s late, but…but I’m the night manager at location oh-seven-four in Portland, Maine, and there is a…um…gentleman here who handed me a card with…sir? Um…”
She leaned over to her right to look at me more closely, and I turned to show her the left side of my head. I reached up with one finger and tapped the two silver earrings hanging there.
“Yes, sir, he does. Um…tattoos?”
I sighed dramatically and turned around, then lifted my shirt to show her my back.
“Yes, sir.”
I watched her eyes get wider as she listened to the voice on the other end and stared unabashedly at me. Finally, she stopped and held the receiver in my direction.
“He’d like to talk to you…”
“No,” I responded as I looked back to her. “Just give me a fucking room.”
She licked her lips nervously before relaying my message into the phone.
“The presidential suite? Um…of course, sir. I’ll take care of it…anything he wants...of course...thank you, sir. It was a pleasure to”—she pulled the phone away from her ear and scowled at it—“speak with you,” she finished. She hung up the phone and looked at us again. “I’ll have you all checked in momentarily, sir.”
It was pretty impressive that Tria managed to remain silent as we were handed key cards and given directions to the executive elevator of the Silver Springs Hotel. She didn’t say anything as we got inside, and I pressed the button for the eighteenth floor. She managed to stay quiet all the way down the hall and to the door to the room.
Once I opened the door, she was too distracted by the room to ask any questions.
I had to admit, it was a pretty damn fine suite, all leather and cherry with a large screen television, a computer set up on the desk, and plenty of room for your own laptop if you brought one, too. There was a small hallway with doors to a closet and bathroom. There was a dining area, a living room, and large double doors that opened up to the bedroom and master bathroom. It was probably about double the square footage of our apartment.
Tria halted in the doorway for a moment and then made her way slowly inside the room. She took it all in with a couple of big sweeps of her head to the left and the right.
“Are you going to explain all this to me?” she finally asked without turning around.
“Do I have a choice?” I walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of orange juice and a tiny bottle of vodka. I took two big swigs out of the orange juice, added the vodka to it, twisted the lid back on, and shook it up.
Tria moved to sit on the plush couch and continued to look at me pointedly.
I dropped down onto the couch next to her and took a large gulp of my screwdriver.
“Can we just make out instead?” I asked.
“Not a single lip until you tell me,” she responded bluntly.
Well, damn.
“My uncle owns Silver Springs Hotels,” I finally said.
“The entire chain?” Tria asked with surprise. “They’re all over the place.”
“A hundred and fifty or so in the States, yes,” I told her. “There are a couple dozen outside the US, too.”
“So, he’s rich.”
“Without a doubt.”
“What’s with the earrings?” she asked. “I thought you just wore them to look cool.”
“Are you saying they don’t look cool?” I smirked at her, and she blushed. “I bet they make you hot, don’t they?”
“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer,” Tria said all haughty.
“You don’t have to,” I responded, “I can just tell.”
She snickered and then pondered for a minute.
“Wouldn’t he…you know…give you a job? I mean, if he’ll give you a suite for the night, he’d give you a job, too, wouldn’t he?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged and downed the rest of the bottle. I dropped it on the dark-stained coffee table, careful to avoid the coaster because I felt like being an asshole. “He’s offered.”
“Liam!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you realize what that means? You wouldn’t have to live like that anymore!”
“Like what?” I asked, knowing full well what she meant. I was baiting her, and I didn’t care. It was better she understood this now.
For a moment, she just stared at me.
“Like in that horrible neighborhood,” she finally said. Her face was tight, and her eyes narrowed at me. “You wouldn’t have to let people beat you up for cash.”
“They don’t beat me up.”
She reached over and touched the spot over my eye that still held stitches.
“Really?”
“It’s nothing,” I responded. I pulled back a little.
“You could live better,” she emphasized.
“I don’t care about any of that, Tria,” I informed her. “I’ve been there and done that, and I can tell you right now, it doesn’t mean shit.”
There was a long pause as I stared out the window and wondered who would be the most pissed off if I smoked in the room. There was a nice, big balcony—maybe I’d just go out there.
“What happened to you?” Tria asked quietly.
“Nothing,” I said automatically.
“Bullshit.”
“That’s my line.”
Another long pause. Just when I thought maybe she would give up, she spoke again.
“I want to know you,” she told me.
“Not much to know,” I replied with a little grin, which she did not return. I sighed, and then I was dumb enough to make eye contact with her. “I’m just me, Tria. I fight. I work out. I hang out with friends sometimes. That’s it. I don’t have anything else to give you.”
“Give me your past,” she whispered. “Tell me why.”
I watched her look carefully at me, searching my face for answers. I felt my resolve crumble around me. I couldn’t even identify the feeling; I just knew that there was a part of me that wanted her to know—to understand. There was a part of me that wanted to tell her everything.
I was never one to open up, but I could not deny those eyes.
Chapter 19—Tell the Tale
“My family has a lot of money,” I told her as she moved around the suite to get ready for bed. Even though we only had the bare necessities, Tria seemed insistent on putting everything in dresser drawers and out on the bathroom counter, which I thought was pointless, at the very least. I sat on the couch, drank another screwdriver, and tried to deflect her every question.
“Not just your uncle?” Tria asked for clarification.
“No,” I said, “pretty much everyone.”
“How much is a lot?” she asked.
“Only my father’s accountant knows,” I said with fake humor.
Tria stopped placing clean clothes into the dresser long enough to stare at me. I pretended to be very interested in the condensation of the orange juice bottle.
“Are you going to elaborate?” she eventually asked.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I replied. I tilted the bottle up to my lips before looking at her again. “It’s really late, and you need to sleep. All this shit is way too long a story for now.”
“You are just blowing me off,” Tria said, the accusation hanging between us.
I couldn’t really deny it because it was absolutely true. She still needed sleep, though.
“We stopped here because you were about to fall right off the bike,” I reminded her. “You need to go to bed.”
As long as she was moving around, she was awake, but I was pretty sure as soon as she lay down, she would doze off, and I would be saved. She crossed her arms and raised her brows at me.
“You’re exhausted,” I told her. “You need sleep.”
“Then tell me in bed.”
I rolled
my eyes and got up off the couch. Tria finally relented and agreed to get herself ready for bed. I let her take the shower first while I smoked on the balcony, hung out, and flipped through the crappy cable channels offered by the hotel. I was mildly annoyed by the realization that I could rack up a huge bill on the porn pay-per-view for Michael to sort out later, but having Tria there with me made that a lot less feasible. I decided to order almost one of everything for breakfast from room service to make up for it.
Once we were both ready for bed, Tria climbed onto the plush mattress and sighed deeply. I smiled, finding the decision to come here was a good one after all. At least she was warm, safe, and comfortable. I was almost glad the other motels and shit around the city wouldn’t take us because they would have been nasty. If nothing else, Michael made sure his hotels were the very definition of posh.
I climbed into bed and got into the usual position with her coiled up next to me. The bed was incredibly luxurious. The pillows were stuffed with something that felt like feathers but didn’t make my nose tickle. The sheets were obviously high quality, and I felt like I was merging with a pile of clouds or some such shit. It was good, that was for sure.
It was so good, I had to lean over and kiss Tria. She responded, and she brought her hand around my head, rubbing her fingers through my hair backwards again. I trailed my hand up her side, then back down again, moving a little lower to grip her hip. I started to move around to her backside, but she stopped me.
“You never gave me ground rules,” I reminded her.
“I know.”
I was pretty sure I could see her cheeks darken in the subdued light. I reached out and touched the side of her face. She turned toward me, and her throat bobbed as she swallowed.
“I’m not sure what they should be,” she said.
“Oh.” I had to think for a minute before I responded to that. “Um...well, the kissing is okay, right?”
A little smile crossed her face, and she nodded a couple of times.