Really bad.
And although the pain would dim with the memories, the hole, she was certain, would last a lifetime.
“Hey, Noel,” It was Lucas, one of the front desk clerks. “That guy, Mr. Stanton? He left something for you up front.”
Noel nearly dropped another fricken glass when she heard these words.
What would he have left? Surely not the sock she was missing when she got home? A letter? A thank you note?
She flinched at the thought.
His address? His phone number?
All these possibilities raced through her mind as she calmly left the bar and approached the long counter in the lobby. “Hey Molly, Lucas said there was something left for me?”
Molly, a pretty brunette, nodded and then furrowed her brows. “Where did I put that?” She opened a few drawers and looked perplexed. “Let me check in back.”
Seriously? Really? If Molly lost it. Noel swore under her breath. She’d kill her! She nearly hyperventilated at the thought.
What if he wanted her to stay in contact with him? What if he was declaring his undying love? And she would never know, and they would be tragically separated for all time because fricken Molly misplaced the–
“Oh, here it is!” She returned to the desk, triumphantly holding one of the hotel envelopes with the name Noel Blake scrawled across the front.
She casually thanked Molly and took hold of it with hands that suddenly weren’t too steady.
Now what? Open it behind the bar? Hell no!
She slipped into one of the guest restrooms and locked herself in a stall.
Inside of the envelope was a…
Check.
A check?
Same scrawling penmanship.
In the memo line it read, “Try not to work so hard.”
It was written out for the amount of one hundred thousand dollars.
One hundred fucking thousand dollars!
Was this a joke?
The check seemed real enough. Drawn from a well-known bank. Elliot R Stanton written clearly at the top. No address though. No phone number.
No declaration of love.
Was he paying her for their time together? That Rat Bastard!
Her first inclination was to tear it into one hundred thousand fucking little pieces. She started to tear the paper in two separate directions, but then she stopped herself.
That bastard!
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t throw his payment into the toilet.
Which made it all the worse.
