Is he trying to garner my sympathy vote?
“I couldn’t care less if you were a unicorn named Bob. Do you think I care about all of this?” I wave my hand around at the expansive bathroom, double the size of my own next door. “Five days ago, I didn’t even know you existed. I’d never even heard a song of yours.”
Alexander lifts his head, wiping at his nose. His eyes make intermittent eye contact with me, finally turning into a sustained stare.
“And that’s one of the reasons I’m so attracted to you.” He takes a step toward me, then another when I don’t respond. Butthe third step sets me off. Not only has my privacy been invaded, but now my personal space has too. His body is mere inches from me.
“Stop. Just stop, Alex. You can’t just talk your way out of this.” I turn to leave the bathroom, going out into the bedroom, through the lounge, and toward the door.
Alexander grabs at my shoulder as I reach for the door handle.
I jerk my shoulder upward, knocking it away.
“Don’t go, Christopher, don’t leave me.” He drops to his knees, his deep blue eyes looking up at me like a dog not wanting their owner to leave.
A pang rises in my chest like a balloon, whispers at me to give him a chance, but I pop it with a pin. I need to get out of the room before he breaks me down. Before I regress into my old ways of letting myself get walked over.
I open the door to the suite, startling Rob, and walk past him toward my room. Alexander follows me out, barefoot, the towels the only thing covering him. I remove my room key and hold it up to the reader.
“Please Christopher…” His voice carries down the hallway as he approaches. Rob follows behind him. I push open my door when the green light appears.
“No,” I say, walking into my room. I slam the door shut behind me and bolt the lock. I storm past the desk and over to the minibar.
I’m half expecting Alexander to bang on the door like a crazy person, but I get the feeling, from the look in Rob’s eye, that he wanted to get Alexander out of the hallway and back into his suite before anyone saw him.
I pull the refrigerator door open, retrieving the half bottle of wine left over from Friday night, and knock it back in one. I plonk the bottle next to my laptop and pull out my phone. Istart scrolling through my call log, needing to speak to someone, anyone, just to make sure I’m not crazy. That Alexander getting a dossier on me is way beyond reasonable.
I stop myself from calling Stephen, knowing he won’t be able to comprehend anything beyond the fact I’ve been hooking up with Alexander. I also skip past my housemate Andrew back in LA. He wouldn’t be much help either. Yes, he’s great with advice, but what could I say? I already signed the MNDA, and I don’t fancy being sued for defamation if Andrew ends up spilling the tea to someone.
My finger stops on Kelly’s contact. She already knows about Alexander, but she’s getting married in five days and the last thing she needs right now is my drama on top of everything else.
Maybe Alexander has a point after all. It’s hard to know who you can trust when there’s potential money to be made. The love of money is the route of all evil after all. I fling my phone onto my bed.
Ugh.
Well, I guess I might as well put that journal my therapist told me to get to good use. I retrieve it from my bag before collapsing onto the bed, pull out the pen, and open it to the first page.
Tuesday
Hours later, I wake to light streaming through the drapes. I reach up to cover my eyes, the journal still open across my chest. God, my back aches.
I must have passed out from a combination of tiredness, a depletion of the adrenaline and cortisol pumping through my body, and the half bottle of wine I necked.
I roll over, the journal falling off my chest, and reach for myphone, but it doesn’t turn on. Damn iPhone batteries. I lift my wrist, but my watch isn’t faring any better, probably because I haven’t charged it since I arrived.
It takes three attempts to lift myself up off the bed, unstrap my watch from my wrist, and retrieve the cables from my bag. I plug them into the wall and then to my phone and watch before grabbing the TV remote, turning on the TV, and collapsing back onto the bed.
The first channel is BBC Breakfast, broadcasting a segment about the importance of Pride Month for the LGBTQIA+ community and being true to who you are. That’s ironic, given my current predicament.
I catch the time on the screen, 9:17 a.m., and flick the TV back off. I really should be getting up and on with my day.
I head into the bathroom, removing the clothes I fell asleep in, and brush down my hair, which is shooting out in all different directions.
A wave of guilt hits me for what happened last night. Journaling made me consider Alexander’s point of view just as much as my own. But I’m also proud that I stood up for myself and for what I felt was right. I’m a relatively open book, and I had meant what I’d said at Abbey Road about being more intimate. I want to learn more about who he is—who we both are. But not from Google or a dossier, but from each other.
They say you should never go to sleep on an argument, but I needed the night to cool off. To allow my anger to subside. To be able to speak to Alexander rationally about what happened, rather than emotionally.
After freshening up, I consider going down the hallway to Alexander’s room, but there’s no point. He’s likely left already for his Radio One Live Lounge performance, and I can’t text him as my phone still hasn’t turned back on yet. The charge is taking forever.
