Page 18 of Saxon

I bounce off one wall and then the other, and then actually accidentally trip as my bare foot catches on the floor, sending me sprawling. Making the best of the actual fall, I cackle crazily, rolling around as if I can't figure out which way is up.

Abruptly, I realize—due to the draft I feel on my undercarriage—that I never put my thong back on. Where is it? Still on the floor? Can't worry about it now. Just go with it.

"Hey, hey, you are not be here." Her heavily accented voice comes from above me, sounding both amused and annoyed. "Employee only."

"'M a little lost. Hey! You know where my room is? I can't find it."

"What is room number?" Cool, hard, dry hands pull at my arms, and I sag against her, struggling to my feet with her assistance.

"I Dunno. It's the…whaddyacallit…hent-pouse. No, that's not right. The big one. Up on the tippy-tippy top."

"Oh, da, is penthouse. Come, come, I take you. This way." She wraps a shockingly strong arm around my shoulders, offering support that is at once kindly assistance while firmly directing me where I’m supposed to go. "You are drink too much. Bad, bad. Young lady, very pretty, some piece of shit man do bad thing."

We come to the service elevator, and I'm frantically trying to come up with a way to explain the presence of hunky, sexy, studly Saxon. The service elevator door has remained open, and we turn to board the elevator. My helper halts, abruptly, and judging purely by the tone of her voice, she's cursing floridly.

"Is he belongink to you?"

Saxon clearly doesn't miss a trick. He's sprawled on the floor of the lift in the corner, face smushed against the stainless-steel wall, mouth agape. His hair is mussed, his shirt is halfway unbuttoned, and the buttons that are done up are all wrong, and his trousers are unzipped and unbuttoned.

Relief floods through me. I'm gonna have to kiss the hell out of the man for this. Or, more likely, show him what I meant when I told him I could suck a marble through a straw. He's earned it.

I lurch out of her hold and let myself topple awkwardly to the floor, collapsing roughly onto Saxon. To his credit, he doesn't so much as twitch when I land on him. "Eddie! Wake up, ya drunk fuck!" I shake him roughly, and he pretends to slowly rouse as if from a deep, drunken sleep.

"Whazzit? Quit shakin' me, woman. Fuck." His Boston accent is impeccable.

"Fuckink Americans," the woman grouses under her breath, although since it's in English, I think we were meant to hear it. "Come, come. Up to your feet. You cannot be here. Is for employee only. You are in penthouse, da?"

Saxon tries to get to his feet and fails. If anything, his physical acting is even better than mine. He sways when he gets to his feet, peering blearily at the hotel maid.

"Who're you?" He mumbles, visibly confused.

She stares at him without expression. "You are in employee area. She say your room is penthouse. You have key?"

"Key? Key…key…" He rummages in his pockets, coming up with a packet of gum, a stupid thick roll of cash bound by a rubber band, and a plain black keycard—he somehow manages to make it look like he's rifling his pockets thoroughly without ever revealing the spare clips or whatever they're called, or the multiple handguns I know he's carrying. It's an impressive bit of misdirection.

"Aha!" He hands her the black keycard, which I can tell is obviously not for this hotel. It doesn't have any markings at all to say what it is for, piquing my curiosity.

She frowns at it, then at him. “Is not for hotel room."

"I…shit." he looks at me, his eyes going cross-eyed and then normal as if the room is spinning for him. "Babe, you got yours?"

I opt to play the belligerent drunk bitch. "What, I look like I got a room key stashed in this thing?" I pat my hips. "Let me check my pockets, oh wait, I ain't got none, ya brainless fuck. Maybe it's in my purse, which…oh, right, you forgot in the Uber."

He plays right along. "I forgot your purse? How'm I responsible for your shit, ya ditzy lush?"

Good thing this is all fake, or he'd have a broken nose. I let the anger that seems to always be simmering just below the surface of my daily emotions color my fake response.

"I’m a lush? You're the one passed out in a fuckin' service lift, ya overgrown, limp-dick caveman."

The maid steps between us. "Blyat. Okay, okay, is enough. I am not havink time for this govno." She tugs her own keycard from a pocket of her apron, swipes it, and presses the button for the penthouse.

It's a short ride up, and then the door opens to another service corridor, this one quite short and clogged with cleaning supplies, boxes of paper towels and toilet paper, cleaning carts, and empty room service carts. There's an exterior window facing an alley, and two maids are hanging half out of it, frantically puffing away at cigarettes and spewing the smoke out the window opening. Our maid scolds them in a mixture of English and what I'm now fairly certain is Russian. They toss their butts out the window, close it, and scurry onto the lift we recently have departed.

"Is against rules to smoke inside building," She mutters to us, "but is long shift and not enough breaks, and the place for smoking is far."

"Ain't gotta tell me twice," Saxon grumbles. "When you need a smoke, you need a smoke."

"Da, is true." She herds us out of the service corridor and into the public hallway, a short, narrow, high-ceilinged place that's more foyer than hallway. There's the private elevator, the doorway to the emergency stairs, a window facing the street, and a side table decorated with a huge vase filled with an elaborate bouquet. "Here, is penthouse. Next time, drink less, da? You are lucky I am finding you. Others would not be so nice as I am beink."