In the dream, she was swimming. A pool, in the middle of her mother’s living room, grown to the size of a football field. She was wearing a cheerleader’s uniform, the wet weight of it pulling her down. Giant roaches hissed around her, skittering across her arms and up the back of her neck, through her hair. A man’s voice boomed in the distance, like a loudspeaker, but the man was muttering, and she could not understand him.
She tried to reach the side, follow the echoing voice, but she could not move and it faded. An airline mask hung above her, just out of reach. A familiar voice—Valerie, maybe?—was close by now, reciting the safety features of the DC-9-50. Rebecca screamed, but Valerie just got louder. It was all going black. A tiny circle of gray sky was all that remained above her and she gasped desperately for air. It would not come. She was suffocating.
Rebecca sat bolt upright, throwing the pillow from her face halfway across the room. It took a beat to realize that she was back in her hotel room, and that it was 6 A.M. Another beat to realize that she was not alone. He was standing by the door, silhouetted so that she could see he was wearing jeans but no shirt, hunched over and talking softly on a cell phone. She gathered the sheet around her, realizing in the process that she wore only underwear herself. Ugh. The granny panties. Dear God, what have I done?
Alex Chen put the phone in his pocket and pulled on a white undershirt before he crossed to her, smiling. She tried to ignore the lovely way the cotton clung to his muscled chest. “Anybody ever tell you that you punch and kick like an Ultimate Fighter in your sleep? It’s like trying to sleep in a boxing ring.” He handed her a glass of water and a couple of small brown pills from the nightstand. “Take these. You’ll thank me later.”
She did as he suggested, awkwardly trying to keep her body covered with the sheet at the same time. Her head was splitting and her mouth tasted like a drunk possum had died in it. Alex took the glass back and handed Rebecca her bag. “Here,” he said. “I know better than to dig through a woman’s purse. Can you get your keys out for me, please? Grier’s outside and I’m going to go back and get your car.”
Shame filled her as she realized she had almost no memory of what had happened the night before. “I didn’t drive?” she said tentatively.
“God, no,” he said. “Or me either. I would hate to have to arrest myself for DUI. Bethany dropped us off.”
Rebecca had a vague memory of climbing into blond Bethany’s car, and laughing. So much laughing. The car had smelled like strawberry air freshener. Memories were coming back to her in snatches. “Did I … did we sing together last night?”
He answered her with a decent Elton John impression, perfectly on-key even at this rough hour of the morning. “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.”
Oh God. Not only did you sleep with a guy you haven’t seen since you were fifteen, you were Kiki Dee. In front of people. Stellar night, Rebecca. Just stellar.
“Did we … um, I’m embarrassed to ask.” She glanced down at her clothes in a pile on the floor, feeling her cheeks burn.
“Afraid not,” he said. “Though you did suggest it repeatedly. You were … hard to resist, I’ll say that. But I have a strict policy of not taking advantage of women who are more than four times past the legal limit. I slept on top of the covers, and I was a perfect gentleman. Well, mostly perfect.”
His grin made her feel even more naked. He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “You should go back to sleep,” he said. “I’ll get your car and call you later.”
With that, he slung his plaid shirt over one shoulder and went quietly out the door, carrying her car keys. She glimpsed the side of a black patrol car in the parking lot before he closed the door. Part of her wanted to get up and eat something, and maybe try to puzzle through what had happened the night before. But a bigger, stronger part of her knew this would be an unwise course of action. She took Alex’s advice and lay back down to sleep instead.
When she woke again, she could see before looking at the clock that it was much later in the morning. Bright yellow sunlight invaded the room through the part in the curtains, and she was ravenously hungry. Her mouth still tasted horrible, but the headache was gone; she had Alex to thank for this small grace. On the table by the door, her car keys sat with her room key and a cup of Waffle House coffee that was already cooled to room temperature. A scrap of paper next to it held a phone number with a scrawled note. “Thought it would be less intrusive if I let you call me instead.—A”
The word intrusive had been underlined and there was a small smiley face next to it. It gave her a nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach, or maybe that was just hunger and the remnants of last night’s tequila. She studied the number blankly for a minute before tucking it into her purse and heading for the shower.