Page 26 of Dirty Beasts: Chance

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, unfortunately I know just the spot.” I shove open my door. “I’ll drive.”

4Confessions and Kisses

Chance

It’s exactly what I asked for: a cheap, shitty, run-down no-tell motel, with a parking lot bathed in shadows. Annika’s got cash and I don’t, so she pays for the room for the night, with a little extra for the clerk to deny having seen her. I wait in the car while she gets our key. The room is ground floor, a corner room where the L-shaped building angles away from the office.

Inside, the room is what you’d expect: a single queen bed, a thin springy mattress on a cheap frame and box spring, cheap bedding; a TV that was cheap and shitty twenty years ago, with exorbitant rates for pay-per-view porn posted under laminate on the wall; the TV is chained to the pressboard bureau, as is the cable box; the carpet is slightly squishy, for some reason, which makes my stomach turn; there are dead flies in the bottom of the tub, and the toilet is truly and unspeakably vile.

I slump onto the bed after inspecting our room. “Well. This is romantic.”

This gets me a snort from Annika. “Only the best for you, dear.” She looks at me. “Brave of you, putting your ass on that bed.”

I groan, stuffing a pillow behind my head and lounging. “Yeah, well, what are you gonna do? Stand there all night?”

She sighs, and settles herself onto the bed beside me, leaving as much room between us as possible without falling over the side. “Sure as hell not getting under the covers, though.”

I close my eyes and let myself settle. “How do you know about this place?”

She doesn’t answer for a while. “You need to ask?”

“Guess not.” I look at her; she’s staring up at the ceiling, features pinched, unhappy. “Not good memories, I take it.”

“No,” she says, with a soft, sarcastic snort. “Not quite.”

It’s kind of awkward between us. Stiff. Tense. We don’t really know each other, but we share a common bond, and now we’re stuck in this situation together. Plus, speaking for myself, I’m insanely attracted to her, physically. I feel like she reciprocates, but it’s hard to tell. She plays her cards close to the vest.

“Nope.” She says this without looking at me.

I snicker. “Nope what?”

“Don’t look at me like that.” She laces her fingers behind her head. “That thing you did, back in your room? Not happening again. I was disoriented and freaked out. Don’t get any ideas.”

“Wasn’t looking at you any kind of way.”

“You were.”

“How was I looking at you, then?”

She moves her bad knee, bending it, straightening it. “Don’t play games, Chance.”

“What thing I did back in my room?”

She sighs, as if in long-suffering annoyance. “Where you grabbed me and force-cuddled me.”

I can’t help a burst of laughter. “You say it like I assaulted you with snuggles.”

“You did!” She can’t quite stifle a giggle. “It was snuggle assault.”

“You weren’t arguing then.”

“I was…taken by surprise.”

“You could have gotten up at any time. I asked you to give it thirty seconds, and you did, and you stayed your ass in my arms.” I roll to face her, head pillowed on the crook of my arm, bent beneath the pillow.

“Call it a moment of weakness.” She remains on her back, eyes on the ceiling.

“Could you rehab your knee more, if you worked at it?”