I catch my breath, lowering my eyes to his lips. My heart drums madly, driven by a will of its own. "I want that too," I whisper.
A knock at the door breaks the moment. "Room service," a man's voice calls from behind the door.
"I'll handle that," James says, standing up. He takes my hand and kisses the back of it, watching me longingly. Heat spreads through me, making my head feel bubbly.
The second James opens the door, I seize my chance, grab the backpack, and slip inside the bathroom.
I reemerge from it half an hour later. I don't quite look like a princess, but I no longer look like a witch, either. I had to seriously rub my face to get the mascara off, but now it's one hundred percent gone. As is the headache I woke up with. My black hair is clean and tamed, hanging around my shoulders in loose waves. I'm wearing a short green dress with a black belt and flip-flops. The room is empty, a smell of bacon and coffee lingering in the air. I plug in my phone and follow the smell outside on the terrace.
The sun shines brightly above us, inundating the terrace, in the center of which a table and two chairs appeared. James is now slightly more dressed, wearing a white T-shirt and his boxers.
"Oh my God, did you order the entire menu?" I ask, ogling at the ten or so platters on the table. It's only then that I realize James is talking on the phone. It's not a pleasant conversation either, because he's frowning, his palm rolled in a fist.
"We are not having this conversation again, Dani," he says, as I sit opposite him, and I can tell he's making an inhumane effort not to shout at her. Dani, on the other hand, isn't making any effort. I can hear her shouts from where I'm seated. I pretend not to hear anything, serving myself coffee, bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast. I'll try the five types of fish and almost as many jams later on.
"Fine, I'll talk to you later," he snaps, closing his phone.
"How is Dani?" I ask, smearing butter on my toast.
"She's starting to channel me when I was her age." His voice is trembling with anger. "I have no idea what's gotten into her. It all started with her wanting to go to parties more often, and now she's… I'm terrified of her going all alone to England."
"What do your parents say?"
"My mom lives on her own planet, and my dad won't realize something's off unless she busts her trust fund, like I did." He stabs a piece of bacon with his fork so forcefully that the metal pierces through it, scratching the plate underneath with an ear-splitting sound. "I don't want to talk about Dani anymore."
"All right." I ponder asking him about Parker—if he's still mad at me for using him like that, but James already is in a bad mood, and I'm pretty sure bringing up Parker is not the way to lighten him up. "So, tell me, why have you ordered food for ten people?"
"Well," he chuckles, "they do have an array of chefs in the kitchen and only two guests, so I thought why let them get bored? Now, tell me what you've been up to in the past month."
Between bites, I tell him about my new part-time job until graduation, as a programmer for my professor’s project. James congratulates me on making use of my computer science minor, insisting that programming is a good skill to have, even if I plan to go into investment banking. Who knows what I'll want to do later on. I nod, secretly thinking that even if I find out I loathe working in investment banking, I'd never consider programming. It's not my thing. I just wish I'd dropped computer science as a minor when I had the chance.
After we finish eating (I didn't even get to taste the jams), I lean back in my chair, closing my eyes. And, as the sun soaks into my pores, I remember that I was supposed to be somewhere else now, also in the sun. On a beach, playing volleyball.
"Crap." I spring to my feet.
"What's wrong?" James jerks so violently, he almost spills his coffee on himself.
"I have to text Abby."
"Who's Abby?"
"The captain of my volleyball team. Damn it." I always seem to completely forget about my Saturday volleyball when I'm with him. I walk inside the room. I've got five missed calls and a text from Abby when I check my phone. It reads: Where the hell are you? I'm tempted to write back In Heaven, but I just text, Still sick with food poisoning. Sorry. No need to brag about my bliss to everyone. When I put my phone back on the nightstand, I see James sitting on the bed, holding a laptop.
I raise an eyebrow. "You brought a laptop so you can work while we’re here?"
He blinks up, smiling. "No, I brought it so we can watch movies. I was thinking, you know, since we're here… how about watching the Lord of The Rings movies?"
"Oh," I say. "Umm… sure."
"You can say no, if you don't want to. We can watch something else. I also have some other things in mind we can do," he says in a low, raspy voice.
"No, I like them." I sit on the bed, next to him, deciding it's best to tell him the truth. "It's just that they sort of became my breakup movies. I watched them more than a dozen times after I broke up with Michael."
James turns to look at the laptop so fast his neck snaps. His fingers now clasp the laptop so forcefully, I wonder if the poor thing won't break before long. "Right," he says. "Have you heard from him since you broke up?"
"No." I take one of his hands in mine, interlacing my fingers between his clenched ones. "Don't be jealous of him, James. He's nothing to me. Nothing."
"Of course I'm jealous of him," he says, though the tension in his fingers loosens a tad. "The guy had you for six years. He must have done something right. I haven’t been capable of keeping you by my side for even six days at a time."