He’s at the end of the block when I wake up and lunging back into my car, I grab my disguise and my fat hobo – can’t forget my hobo – before following after him.
My entire body is stiff and my legs are going to abandon me any second but I keep walking. I have a feeling that he’s going to throw my luggage in the trash or something just to make it clear how much he doesn’t want me here. So I need to be there to fish it out of the dumpster.
But shockingly, he doesn’t.
He keeps walking and walking, and then enters the same bar I found him at. The sign says closed, but still he pushes the door open and gets inside.
What the hell is he doing?
I reach the threshold of the bar and my feet come to a stop. I literally can’t move them and make them take the last step.
God, sometimes I think I’m a vampire or something. Or one of my ancestors was a vampire. I love the night. I’m pale as fuck. I can’t enter through front doors.
The only thing left is sucking blood.
So maybe I’m like, seventy percent vampire.
And Mr. Edwards doesn’t like that.
Of course.
By the time I make it to the bar, he is already in conversation with a guy behind the counter. A heavy-set, bearded rocker guy that I caught a brief glimpse of before darting my gaze away. Now, Mr. Edwards looks at me and glares when he realizes I’m not moving.
“What’s the problem?” he asks impatiently.
I wince. “I… What are we… What’s happening?”
“Get in here.”
I lick my lips and look at the doorjamb. Thank God, I had enough presence of mind to put on my disguise because the guy behind the counter is staring at me with amusement.
“I don’t think that I can.”
At this, Mr. Edwards really glares. Like, really. This is the glare to end all glares. Then he addresses the man and excuses himself and marches over to me.
I take a step back as soon as he reaches me. He studies me for a second and I’m already cringing at the lie I’m gonna have to tell him when he asks about my fear of the front doors.
But then, he grabs my arm – over the t-shirt, mind you – and drags me inside.
Reaching the man at the counter, he clips, “Key.”
The man throws it to him and he catches it with his usual, familiar athleticism before getting on with the dragging.
We go through the back of the bar, take the hallway and climb up the stairs until we come upon a room, the door to which he opens with a jerk.
Dumping my suitcase, he faces me. “Since there are no drunks passed out up here, Billy will let you stay here for the night. But only one night. Tomorrow, you leave.”
And just like that, he spins around and begins to climb down the stairs.
Did he just… kinda book me a room?
I look back at the room and yes, there’s a bed, a dresser, a small chair even and an ajar door that opens into the bathroom.
He did find me a room. The very thing I was dreading.
Not to mention, he forced me to enter through the front door and he did it so fast that all I felt was this great jolt and nothing else.
Nothing. Else.
I mean, he did leave me on the side of the road. But then, he didn’t have to do any of this. The man hates me. He could’ve left me there and I would’ve slept in the car. Because let’s face it, I was not going to do something that involves talking to a stranger to book a room for the night.
But because of him and his twisted ways, I get to sleep in a bed.
I take a step forward, toward him to thank him maybe, but he’s disappeared from view. And I have absolutely no idea what to feel in this moment except a big surge of relief.
***
I hear his voice.
It’s coming from downstairs. A little dull and diluted and mixed in with another voice. This one belongs to Billy, the amused man I saw last night in passing, I think.
So, he’s downstairs.
Mr. Edwards.
What is he doing here?
He’s probably here to see if I’ve left or not. Because he said that he wanted me to leave today.
He did say that, right?
So much of what happened last night feels surreal. It feels like the dreams that I don’t see anymore.
But no, it happened.
He did find me a room and I did sleep in a bed like the dead. Then I woke up, took a shower, and as soon as I got out, I heard his voice.
And now, I’m out the door before I’ve thought my game plan through.
I’m not sure what I’m going to say to him or how I’m going to break the bad news that I’m not leaving yet, but I have to see him.