Category: IST

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“Let me sort this,” I said, and picked up the phone on the desk before she could argue.

Reception answered on the ninth ring. The same flustered girl. The system had crashed at nine, she explained, and they’d been checking people in by hand ever since. Somebody had written 714 twice. She was very, very sorry. They were completely full because of the conference, but she might be able to find me something. Could I give her twenty minutes?

I put the phone down. Priya was watching me from the bathroom doorway, the towel still clutched at her chest.

“Twenty minutes,” I said. “Maybe.”

“Maybe.” She sighed. “I’m Priya, by the way. Twenty-seven. I’m here with my friend Rosie, who’s in 716 next door and is currently, I’d guess, three cocktails deep in the bar downstairs.”

“Liam. Thirty-eight. Here for a conference about firewalls, which is exactly as exciting as it sounds.”

That got a smile out of her. She had a good smile, a little crooked, the kind that made you want to earn another one.

“Well, Liam who likes firewalls,” she said, “I’m not putting clothes on for twenty minutes. So you can either wait here and keep your eyes on the telly, or go downstairs and shout at someone in person.”

She sat on the end of the bed, crossed her legs, and the towel parted along one smooth brown thigh. She didn’t fix it.

→ I wait in her room for reception to call back

→ I go down to the lobby to sort it out myself

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It was nearly midnight. Reception was a mess. And she was laughing, which felt like a good sign.

“Look,” I said. “I’m not going to make you get dressed and go downstairs to fight about this. I’ll ring them in a bit. In the meantime, I’m happy to take the chair, or the floor, or the bath. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

She studied me for a long moment, still dripping on the carpet. “You’re offering to share.”

“I’m offering not to be a nuisance.”

“I’m Priya,” she said finally. “Twenty-seven. Here for a weekend away with my friend Rosie, who is next door in 716 and will absolutely kill you if you turn out to be a creep.” She nodded at the connecting door between the rooms. “That’s not locked, by the way. Just so you know.”

“Liam. Thirty-eight. Network engineer. Extremely boring.”

“Boring I can work with.” She tucked the towel tighter and padded over to the minibar, bending to open it in a way that made the towel ride up the backs of her thighs. I looked at the curtains with enormous concentration.

“I was going to have one of these anyway,” she said, holding up two tiny bottles of whisky. “Seems rude to drink alone when there’s a strange man in my room.”

Then she glanced at me, rumpled and sweaty in my conference shirt. “Or you could use the shower first. You look like you’ve been on a train all day.”

→ I accept the minibar whisky and sit down with her

→ I take her up on the shower first

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I went down in the lift in my crumpled suit with my wheelie case and my dignity in roughly that order.

The lobby was chaos. A queue of grumpy conference delegates, a printer making death noises, and the poor girl on reception typing with two fingers. I joined the back of the line.

That’s where Rosie found me.

I didn’t know it was Rosie yet. I just knew a curvy blonde in a green satin dress had wandered over from the bar with a cocktail in each hand and was looking me up and down like I was on a menu.

“You look like a man who’s been through something,” she said.

“Somebody else is in my room. Room 714.”

She lit up. “Seven-one-four? That’s Priya’s room! Oh my God. Did she scream?”

“She threatened me.”

“That’s her.” She handed me one of the cocktails without asking. “I’m Rosie. Twenty-nine. Best friend, travel buddy, bad influence. I’m in 716, right next door to her.” She clinked her glass on mine. “Priya’s lovely, by the way. Terrible taste in men. Excellent taste in hotels.”

The queue hadn’t moved. Rosie’s dress had a slit up the side that went most of the way to the equator. She stood close enough for me to smell her perfume and the rum on her breath.

“You know,” she said, “you could wait here for an hour. Or you could come upstairs to my room and wait in comfort. I’ve got a minibar and very low standards.”

→ I go upstairs with Rosie

→ I stay in the lobby and wait for a new key

← Back

I sat in the armchair by the window and pointed myself very firmly at the television. It was showing a documentary about otters. I have never watched otters so hard in my life.

Priya didn’t put clothes on. She got two miniature gin and tonics out of the minibar instead, handed me one and curled up on the bed with hers, the towel tucked under her arms.

“You’re very polite,” she said.

“I’m in your room. It’s the least I can do.”

“It’s nice. Rosie would have had you thrown out by now. Or snogged you. Hard to say with Rosie.” She sipped her drink. “Tell me something interesting about firewalls.”

“There’s nothing interesting about firewalls.”

“Then tell me something interesting about you.”

So I did. My divorce, three years ago, amicable and still sad. The allotment I was failing at. The fact that I’d never once in my life done anything impulsive. She listened with her chin on her knees, and somewhere in there she stopped watching the otters and started watching me.

“Never anything?” she said.

“Never anything.”

The gin was warm in my chest. She’d let the towel loosen. I could see the soft curve of her breast where it gaped.

Then the phone rang. Reception. They’d found a room on the fourth floor. A porter could bring the key up in five minutes.

Priya looked at me over the rim of her glass and said nothing at all.

→ I tell reception not to bother and stay where I am

→ I take the new room like a gentleman

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“A shower,” I said, “would genuinely save my life.”

“Go on, then. Towels are on the rail. Don’t use all the hot water, I might want another one.”

I locked myself in the bathroom, stripped off a day’s worth of trains and conferences and stood under the water with my eyes closed. It was glorious. Hot, hard, the good kind of hotel shower that hammers your shoulders flat. For about three minutes I forgot there was a beautiful stranger in a towel on the other side of the door.

Then I heard the lock turn. It was one of those bathroom locks you can open from outside with a coin.

“Don’t panic,” Priya said through the steam. “I’m not a murderer. I just had a thought.”

The shower screen was frosted, but not that frosted. I could see her shape. I watched the towel drop to the floor.

“The thought,” she said, “is that I’ve been single for a year, I’m on holiday, and a man just walked into my room and was nicer about it than most of my dates.” She paused. “And you’ve got a very nice back. I looked.”

“Priya…”

“I’m asking,” she said. “Can I come in? You can say no. I’ll go back out and we’ll never mention it.”

My cock had already answered for me. It was standing up under the water like it had been called on in class.

→ I slide the screen open and let her in

→ I tell her to wait, and that I’ll be out in a minute

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I took the whisky. She cracked hers open, poured both into the hotel tumblers and handed me one. Our fingers touched. She didn’t move hers away.

“To booking errors,” she said.

“To booking errors.”

We sat on the end of the bed, a respectable foot apart, and talked. About my day, which made her wince. About hers, which had involved a spa, a bottle of prosecco and Rosie flirting with a lifeguard. She worked in architecture, she said, drew car parks for a living and dreamed about libraries. She laughed easily. She kept forgetting to hold the towel.

The second little bottle came out of the minibar. Then a third. The foot between us became six inches, then nothing. Her bare shoulder rested against my arm. She smelled of hotel shampoo and something warmer underneath.

“Can I tell you something?” she said quietly. “I’ve been wondering for about ten minutes whether you’re going to kiss me.”

So I did. Slow at first. Her mouth tasted of whisky. Her hand came up and curled into my shirt, and the towel slid loose and fell into her lap, and she didn’t pick it up.

Then a knock. Not on the corridor door. On the connecting door to 716.

“Pree?” A woman’s voice, giggly and loud. “Are you up? I’ve brought crisps. And gossip. Let me in.”

Priya pressed her forehead to mine and groaned. “Rosie,” she whispered. “Your call.”

→ I ask her to keep the connecting door shut tonight

→ I tell her to let Rosie in

← Back

“Thanks,” I told Rosie, “but I’d better wait.”

She pouted, shrugged, and drifted back to the bar. “Your loss, lobby man.”

It took forty minutes to reach the front of the queue. By then the flustered receptionist had gone off shift and been replaced by the night manager, a tall woman with short silver-blonde hair and a name badge that said ESME. Thirty-three at most, calm as a lake, the only person in the building who seemed to know what she was doing.

She looked at my booking, looked at her screen and sighed.

“Mr Byrne. I am so sorry. Somebody’s double-booked 714 and we are completely full.” She tapped a few keys. “I have one room left. It’s the penthouse suite. It’s not technically available because the bathroom’s being retiled. But the bed’s fine and so is the view.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Good.” She slid a key across the desk. Then she hesitated. “The bar’s closed, but I’m on until six and I’ve got a kettle in the back office, if you want a cup of tea before you go up. You look like you need it more than I do.”

The lobby was empty now. Rain against the big front windows. She had very grey eyes and she was smiling, just a little.

I looked at the key. Then at her.

→ I take the key, go to bed and sort it all out at checkout

→ I stay for a cup of tea with the night manager

← Back

Rosie’s room was a bomb site. Dresses on every surface, a hair straightener on the desk, three pairs of heels by the door. She kicked off her shoes, dropped onto the bed and patted it.

“Sit. Drink. Talk to me, lobby man.”

I sat. She poured two vodkas from the minibar, mixed them with a can of something orange and handed me one. Then she leaned back on her elbows and the slit in her dress fell all the way open, showing a long pale thigh and the edge of black lace.

“So,” she said. “On a scale of one to ten, how naked was Priya?”

“Nine. There was a towel.”

“Ha! Good for her.” She clinked my glass. “She needs some excitement. She’s been single for a year and she’s driving me mad.”

Through the connecting door I could hear a television. Priya, on the other side, a wall away.

Rosie talked. Her job in recruitment, her ex who’d moved to Dubai, the lifeguard at the spa. She talked fast and laughed loud, and every few minutes she touched me: my arm, my knee, my chest. She was nursing the same drink the whole time, I noticed, sharp-eyed and completely clear-headed under all the noise.

Then she put her glass down, slid her hand up my thigh and pulled me down onto the bed beside her. Her mouth found mine, hot and confident.

“I’m not drunk, before you ask,” she murmured against my lips. “I know exactly what I’m doing. Do you?”

Her fingers were on my belt. But through the wall I could still hear Priya’s television, and I couldn’t quite stop thinking about a towel and a crooked smile.

→ I let her pull me into bed

→ I admit it is Priya I keep thinking about

← Back

I took the room. It was the right thing to do. She’d been in a towel with a stranger for half an hour; she deserved her room back.

The porter brought up a key for 417. Priya walked me to the door with the towel clutched to her chest.

“For the record,” she said, “you could have stayed.”

“For the record, I’m now regretting it.”

She laughed, kissed me quickly on the cheek and closed the door.

Room 417 was smaller, at the back, overlooking the bins. I showered, finally. I lay on the bed in the hotel robe, flicking channels, wide awake and replaying every second of the last half hour. The towel. The thigh. The way she’d looked at me over her glass.

At twenty to one there was a knock on my door.

Soft. Two taps. Then a voice I already knew.

“Liam? It’s Priya. I, um. You left your phone charger in my room.”

I looked at my phone, plugged into my own charger, sitting on the bedside table. Then I looked at the door.

“Also,” she said, quieter, “I might have used that as an excuse.”

I got up. My heart was going hard. Through the spyhole I could see her in the corridor, a hotel robe belted loosely over what was very obviously nothing at all, her hair down now, a charger cable dangling from one hand.

I had a choice. And I’d spent my whole life making the sensible one.

→ I open the door

→ I stay quiet and pretend to be asleep

← Back

I picked the phone back up. “Actually, don’t worry about it. I’ll sort something out with the guest. Thanks.”

I put it down. Priya was staring at me with her mouth slightly open.

“Did you just turn down a room?”

“I did something impulsive.” I sat back in the chair. “First time. How am I doing?”

“Badly. You’ve got nowhere to sleep.” But she was smiling, slow and pleased, and she patted the bed beside her. “Come here, then. Impulsive man.”

I sat on the edge of the bed. She shuffled closer and leaned against my shoulder, and I could feel the heat of her skin through my shirt. She smelled of soap and gin.

“Here are the rules,” she said. “I’m on holiday. I’m single. I’ve had two gins and I’m not drunk. And I think you’re very handsome in a tired sort of way.” She traced a fingertip along my jaw. “So I’m going to kiss you now, and you’re going to let me decide how far it goes. Deal?”

“Deal.”

She kissed me. Soft, then hungrier. Her hand undid my shirt buttons one by one and slid inside, nails dragging lightly down my chest. The towel slipped and she let it, pressing her bare breasts against me.

Then she pulled back, flushed, eyes bright, and reached for the room service menu on the bedside table.

“I’m also starving,” she said. “Is that unsexy?”

→ I tell her to forget food and let her set the pace

→ I order room service for both of us