"I got you covered," Ida said, holding out a thermos.
"You brought your own?"
"Zarah let me empty out the minibar when I stayed in her suite last night," Ida said. "You make a real nice hotel, Archer."
Archer was actually a good model. When he wasn't making lewd comments, he stayed pretty still. I walked around the class and helped with technique.
"That was fun," Archer said when it was over. He grabbed me and kissed me. "I feel like I'm on vacation. It's nice being with you."
"Okay, Mr. Model, put on some clothes."
56
Archer
Icouldn't convince Hazel to come back and stay at the hotel.
"I can't just take your money," she said.
"Of course you can," I told her, hovering around her while she packed up the clothes I bought her. I'd had everything delivered to her café. Hazel looked longingly at the dress and all the outfits I'd bought her.
"You should return these."
"Already took the tags off."
"Okay, then take them back to your house."
"You don't want them?" I asked her, feeling slightly stung that she didn't want my gifts.
"I don't have anywhere to put them," she said. "You've seen my building. It's crawling with crickets."
"I'll save them for you. Come visit your clothes anytime you want."
I took her garment bags of clothes back to the estate. I didn't really want to deal with the chaos and listen to Hunter's yelling. I thought about staying in the hotel, but I didn't want to stay there without Hazel. I didn't know where to put her clothes, so I took them to my bedroom. I even cleared a space in my closet for them. I lovingly hung everything up, then I buried my face in one of her dresses. It smelled like Hazel.
* * *
Hunter wasin the home office working.
"Did you solve the McKenna situation?" he asked when he saw me.
"You're not going to solve it for me?"
"I'm busy with this lawsuit," my older brother replied.
"About the popsicles?" I asked, incredulous. "Dude, just pay to get a food permit. They could have had that by now."
"It's the principle of the thing."
"You mean it's the Meghan of the thing."
"Don't you need to figure out your land situation?"
"Not really."
"I'msorry," he said. "This isyourbusiness."
"I don't know what to do. Garrett's not being helpful. I wasn't even going to worry about it until I knew whether or not we would be getting the conference."
