Arielle walked through the door to the hotel lobby that Mitchell held open for her.
Because they were getting back somewhat late, the lobby teamed with people milling around the transparent columns with vases that seemed to hold flowers suspended in midair. Over where couches were placed around low tables, more people gathered, drinking and laughing while they networked.
Mitchell caught up to Arielle with a few strides of his long legs. “I’ll talk the front desk into finding another room for me tonight.”
“Right, right,” Arielle said. “Surely, someone checked out or canceled their reservation today, so they’ll have another room. I’ll just dodge into the lobby convenience store here to pick up a few things.”
Mitchell looked at the store and then back to her. “Make sure you charge it to the room.” He strode away.
Arielle told herself that she wasn’t sure what she was looking for in there, maybe chocolate, yet she made a beeline directly for the prophylactic section.
They weren’t for her. Wait, she meant that they weren’t for them.
It was just because he’d said that he hadn’t packed any condoms in his luggage.
Mitchell was a handsome single guy who traveled a lot for business. A guy like him shouldn’t be running around without protection. It wasn’t safe for him or others.
Buying Mitchell a few condoms to tide him over until he got home was practically a public health service.
If he’d mentioned that he’d forgotten to pack socks, Arielle would have bought him some socks. Or toothpaste. That was another necessary personal item that people don’t travel without for their health. If he’d forgotten to pack a medication he needed, she would’ve found a pharmacy to get a few to last him until he got home.
She wasn’t going to use them with him. She wasn’t insinuating anything at all.
Arielle was just concerned about Mitchell’s health.
In the prophylactic aisle, there were a lot of choices. Blue boxes and yellow boxes, boxes and three-pack strips, ribbed and regular, lubed and not, latex and other things, and there were sizes.
Men’s socks only came in two sizes, regular and weirdly enormous for really big and tall guys.
Why were there five sizes of condoms?
Mitchell was a tall guy, she surmised, a really tall guy. She was pretty sure he’d said he was six-four at some point. He probably had to buy suits for super-tall guys when he went clothes shopping.
Getting the XXL condoms seemed logical.
And yet once she’d determined the size, her choices had only reduced somewhat.
Arielle grabbed five different strips and took them to the cash register. “They’re not for me.”
The cashier nodded. “Fifteen. I like your optimism. Cash or room charge?”
Arielle walked out of the convenience store with a bag that she stuffed into her purse.
Mitchell was back from the reservation desk. “They don’t have any more rooms. I asked. I tried to bribe. They really don’t have another room.”
Arielle gestured toward the front doors, vaguely indicating the outside. “I can call my aunt in Poway. Maybe she can send one of my cousins to pick me up.”
He frowned. “Poway is by San Diego. That’s an eight-hour drive from here. You couldn’t even get down there and back to make your flight tomorrow. I can activate my boarding school network and see if someone has a house or an apartment here in San Francisco where I can crash for the night. I swear to God that this one guy I knew, Micah Shine, lives up here somewhere.”
They walked toward the elevator because whichever one of them left would need to pack their luggage anyway.
“Are you hungry?” Mitchell asked. “The restaurant here is excellent.”
“I’m fine. I ate off the catering buffet at the photoshoot. I’m not hungry in the slightest, and it’s nine o’clock already.”
The last time they’d been in this elevator, Mitchell had grabbed Arielle and shoved her up against the wall, kissing her until she thought she was going to pass out.
Not that she was thinking about that.
Not that it was going to happen again.
They’d discussed it that morning. What had happened last night absolutely wasn’t going to happen again, and it certainly wasn’t going to go any further to such a stage where they might need condoms.
The bag crackled inside her purse as Mitchell waved his phone and opened the penthouse door.