Paranormal Erotic Romance Box Set (34 page)

When we entered the lobby, I took a deep breath and looked
around. There they all were, my team. They were arranged by the front entrance,
posted at the front desk and perched around the fountain. Waiting.

“Nothing’s happened so far,” Céline said as she walked
toward us and hugged me. “Some of them have been here since dawn.”

“Good morning, everyone,” I said. “Thank you again for
everything you’ve all done. Here’s to a great day.”

“Sophia,” Andy Larabee shouted from the front entrance,
“is that them?”

I looked out the window as a handsome man helped a
beautiful woman out of a Jaguar.

“No, Andy, that is certainly not them,” I said and smiled.

“Look at Conway,” James said, “he looks more frazzled than
you.”

Mr. Conway paced behind the front desk. Every time the
door to the lobby opened, he stopped whatever he was doing and watched. He was
a sweating, hand-wringing mess and we all knew why.

“I can’t stand this,” Judah Roderick said. “I wish someone
would give me a Valium.”

“No Valium, Judah,” I said. “We’ll be fine.”

“What time should we have the dogs over here?” Anthony
said.

“Um, well, if everything goes as it should, after dark
some time,” I said.

“And if it doesn’t go as it should?” May Gaspar said.

“It will,” James said. “Everything will go as it should.”

“It has to,” I said.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” James said.

“Than--”

I closed my mouth as I watched a peeling yellow cab stop
in front of the hotel. As the passenger door opened, I walked to the window and
one of the hotel’s senior bellhops, Scott Williams, walked outside to greet the
cab.

“Holy shit,” I said.

She backed out of the cab with a considerably larger ass
than she had the last time I saw her, but I knew the way her hair hung limply
against the back of her fur coat that it was her.

“Is it?” James said.

I held my hand up and waited for her to turn toward the
front of the hotel.

“Look at me,” I said.

She held her hands out into the open cab and I held my
breath. For a moment I thought a child was going to jump into her arms. She
stopped and turned toward the entrance of the hotel and looked up at the sign.
Her face was as round as the moon and she looked doughy and as if she was
covered in wax.

“Yes,” I said.

The others stampeded toward the windows and watched.

“Oh my goodness,” Céline said. “Is she wearing...sequins?
And during the day!”

“That fur she’s wearing has to be the most ticky-tacky
thing ever,” Tara Holderman said and clucked her tongue. “It’s yellow for
Christ’s sake!”

“She looks as if she pulled absolutely everything out of
her closet and stuffed her body into it. She’s wearing a stole as well,”
Jennie-Lynn said and giggled.

Scott Williams said something to Nellie and she put her
hands on his chest and pushed him back a step.

“Mr. Conway is watching,” Anthony said from behind us. “He
sees.”

I turned around and Mr. Conway stared out the window from
the front desk. He wiped his face with his handkerchief and bowed his head.

“He dumped you for that?” Perry Alden said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Worse, Perry, my friend,” Patrick said. “He killed her
for that.”

“Where is he?” James said.

“Still in the cab,” I said.

“I can see him through the back window,” Heinrich said.
“He appears to be asleep.”

Nellie turned around and shouted into the cab and then
threw her hands in the air. She slammed her hand on the roof of the cab several
times and turned around and looked at the hotel. The bellhop came back inside and
stood beside the fountain and waited.

“What’s going on out there?” Mr. Conway shouted across the
lobby from the front desk.

“Seems the mister won’t get out of the cab, sir,” Scott
Williams said and looked outside.

“Well, we cannot have this!” Mr. Conway shouted across the
lobby. “T-tell them we can’t have this. Tell them to leave.”

“No!” we all said in unison.

“Sir?” Scott said and tugged at his gloves.

“We can’t have a scene,” Mr. Conway said.

“Get out of the cab, Brandt,” I said. “Get out of the
fucking cab.”

The cab driver got out of the cab and sat on the hood of
the car and lit a cigarette. Nellie and he spoke for a moment and she walked
back to the passenger side of the cab and stuck her head inside.

“I hope she stands up soon,” Andy Larabee said. “I’m
looking at the ass-end of a bus.”

Nellie backed herself out of the cab and looked around.
She walked toward the hotel and opened the front door.

“A little help, please?” Nellie said to Scott.

“Yes, ma’am,” Scott said and walked outside with Nellie.

I looked at Mr. Conway and he shook his head as he came
out from behind the front desk and walked toward the window. He almost knocked
Andy Larabee over as he wedged himself between the couch and an end table and
stood next to me.

“Brandt’s not getting out,” Céline said. “What the hell is
wrong?”

We all stood at the window and watched as Nellie paced the
front entrance and flipped the multiple fox tails on her stole.

“Good grief,” Anthony said, “this is maddening.”

I watched Mr. Conway looking at them. He opened and closed
his mouth like a guppy.

“Just go away,” Mr. Conway said under his breath. “Go
away, go away, go away.”

“I think he’s speaking to you,” James said and nudged me.

“No, he’s certainly speaking to you. He finds your Old
Spice offensive.”

James smelled the arm of his shirt.

“This is not Old Spice, smart ass. Besides, I lifted it
from that dashing Italian man. I thought you liked it.”

“I do, it’s very sex--”

“Sophia,” Patrick said, “I think he’s coming out!”

I turned back toward the window and saw two slippered feet
resting on the asphalt outside the cab. Nellie bent down in front of him and
bobbed her head as if she was giving him a large piece of her deranged mind.

“Couldn’t that fucking cow move?” Judah Roderick said.

“That’s why he can’t exit the cab,” Céline said. “You
know, I once fucked an astronomer from Austria--”

“Here we go,” Patrick said and chuckled. “Lollipop tits,
if we had a nickel for every story you told us that began with
I once fucked
,
we’d own this place.”

“Would you please let me finish, this is very relevant,”
Céline said.

“Go on Céline, it seems we may be here for a while,” I
said.

“Well, when I look at this big ass sticking out of the
car, I think of the astronomer. He was very famous for--”

“Having the biggest penis in Austria?” Tara Holderman said
and giggled.

“No,” Céline said, “although he was very well endowed. No,
he was famous for--”

“Fucking his mother?” Judah said.

“Oh, here comes Dr. Freud,” James said.

“There is nothing wrong with consensual intercourse
between two members of the same gene pool,” Judah said and flicked a piece of
lint off James’ shoulder.

“Judah,” I said, “I don’t think you’re even in the same
tidal pool as the rest of us. Let Céline tell her story.”

“You have all taken the funny out of it now,” Céline said.

“Oh, Christ, just tell the fucking story,” Patrick said.
“You, Austria, some guy with a great big cock who looked at stars...”

“Fine,” Céline said and looked out the window. “As I was
trying to say, my lover was extremely famous because he located a new star in
the galaxy. This was quite an accomplishment and the honor of naming the star
was bestowed upon him. One night, he showed me his star. He was tickled because
his was the biggest star discovered. This star has an extremely wide girth
between its points. It is a very fat star.”

“A fat star?” I said.

“Oh, yes,” Céline said and wiped some condensation off the
window. “The Austrian named his star
Ginormica King
. And that is what
looking at that ass reminds me of.
Ginormica King
.”

“Very nice story, Céline,” I said and glanced at Mr.
Conway whose forehead was wet with sweat.

“She’s moving!” James said.

Nellie moved away from Brandt, but his face was still
hidden from the darkness inside the cab. He swung his legs back and forth. He
wore pajamas. Pajamas and slippers.

“He must be sick,” James said

“Let’s hope so,” Anthony said. “This could prove easier
than expected.”

Nellie extended her arms toward Brandt and he gripped her
hands. She pulled him out of the cab and he rested unsteadily against the door.

“What the hell?” Mr. Conway said.

Scott Williams retrieved a single suitcase from the back
of the cab.

“Check them in!” Mr. Conway screamed across the lobby at
the reservation clerks.

An old couple gazing into the fountain next to us looked
up and stared at the usually soft-spoken Mr. Conway.

“Sir?” Tommy Chartrand said from the front desk. “Check
who in?”

Mr. Conway pointed outside.

Nellie grabbed Brandt around the waist and pried him away
from the cab. He shuffled his feet as Nellie dragged him toward the front door.

“He must think he’s Keith Richards with those dark
glasses,” Mica Morrison said.

Brandt looked like he lost twenty pounds since I saw him
last, but he had a beach ball gut that made his robe stick out like he was
pregnant. His usually neat hair had grown long and looked like it hadn’t been
washed in a very long time. His skin, always smooth and tan was now pasty white
and covered in spots.

“Sweet Jesus,” I said, “I don’t know if I even have the
heart to kill him. He’s positively pathetic.”

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for that piece of shit,” James
said.

Mr. Conway scurried toward the front desk as Brandt and
Nellie walked into the lobby.

Nellie had a big smile plastered across her giant face as
if she took home the blue ribbon in a 4-H radish growing contest. Brandt
grabbed the frames of his sunglasses and pushed them up and into his hair. He
put his hands behind his back and looked up at the chandelier and then down at
Nellie.

“Where are we?” he said

“Would you stop, you great big joker!” Nellie said and
rolled her eyes. “You know where we are.”

“Ma’am,” Scott said, “if the mister would like to have a
seat, I’m sure you can check in right now yourself.”

“Yes, thank you,” Nellie said and looked at the floor.

Scott walked up to the front desk with their suitcase and
Nellie led Brandt toward the couch beside me. As they walked past me, I dug my
fingernails so deeply into my palm, I broke my skin.

“Soon, Sophia,” James said and stepped aside to let Nellie
and Brandt pass. “You’ll have her soon.”

“I will be right back, baby. I’m gonna check us into our
suite,” Nellie said as she turned toward the front desk. “It is a suite,
right?”

“She hurts my ears,” Andy Larabee said.

“Because her voice sounds like a fire truck siren,”
Patrick said. “What a racket.”

The three reservation clerks who stood behind the front
desk all looked out into the lobby with the same horrified looks on their
faces. The old couple who were in attendance for Mr. Conway’s outburst, walked
out of the lobby shaking their heads.

I knelt on the floor in front of Brandt. I moved my face
close to his and looked into his eyes. The whites of his eyes were now antiqued
and flimsy tendrils of red capillaries networked around his iris. His eyes were
no longer blue, they were grey. He stared back at me, but looked through me. He
also looked through the other guests, through the lobby and through the walls.

“He has some kind of a sickness,” I said and stood up.

“Yeah,” Judah Roderick said as he examined Brandt, “dope
sickness.”

“No, Brandt’s never done a drug in his life,” I said.

“Didn’t this ape have you convinced he was a lawyer?”
Patrick said.

“Yes, but this is different,” I said.

“I guarantee it,” Judah said. “Heroin, Dilauded...some
sort of injectionable. I bet he has tracks all over his arms. Look at him, he’s
wasted.”

“He’s wasted away,” I said and sighed.

“Sophia...” James said.

“I don’t feel sorry for him,” I said.

“Ginormica is arguing with poor Tommy,” Céline said and
pointed at the front desk.

“And Conway’s hiding behind the columns like a little
bitch,” Patrick said.

“You guys stay here and keep an eye on Brandt,” I said and
started toward the front desk. “Girls, come with me.”

“Uh, I don’t think Dr. Comatose is going anywhere,” Judah
said.

“Just watch him,” I said and walked toward Nellie.

I stood next to her at the front desk and inhaled. She
smelled like alcohol.

“Are you listening to me?” Nellie said to Tommy Chartrand.

“Ma’am?” Tommy said and shook his head.

“The room?” Nellie said and sighed. “Are we or are we not
getting Room 165?”

“Um, yes, ma’am,” Tommy said. “However, we still need a
cash deposit. It covers incidentals. You know...phone calls, room service and
such.”

Nellie swiped at her damp, doughy face and then wiped the
makeup residue on her hand across the white marble on the side of the front
desk.

“I know what fucking incidentals are!”

“Yes, ma’am, well, we still need a deposit,” Tommy said.

“But, I don’t understand,” Nellie said. “Are you requiring
a deposit just from us or do you make all of your guests fork over cash?”

“Jesus, just pay the deposit, you cunt. You have all my
money,” I said.

“Nice language,” James said from the couch.

“Just focus on Brandt, please,” I said as I watched Nellie
dig through my beautiful Chanel purse. “What’s he doing?”

“He’s concentrating on his spit,” Patrick said.

I turned around and James and Patrick sat on the couch on
either side of Brandt while Judah and Anthony sat on the floor at his feet. A
string of drool hung from Brandt’s bottom lip and his eyes crossed as he stared
down at it.