Page 2 of Jonesing for a Spy

The sun is hot. The tea is sweet. Football is life, and manners are expected no matter what. I hold his gaze. “I could kill her.”

I don’t add that she’s my mother.

Or that I’m working.

Or that places are tingling that shouldn’t…

Because there’s shit to do.

Strider

If this is the kind of room service the hotel provides, color me intrigued…. And weirded out. I didn’t think a place in coastal Alabama would serve up a beautiful woman with coffee. Minus the coffee.

The woman in my arms is young, gorgeous… and pissed, if the color in her cheeks is anything to go by.

Mostly to herself, she adds, “I might kill her, actually.”

She squirms from my hold and returns to the hotel room door. But instead of running for her life from a strange man she doesn’t know and is essentially trapped with, she presses her ear to the place the steel kisses the frame and leans in.

“No offense, but⁠—”

She holds up her hand in a gesture somewhere between wait and shush.

And I shut up. I don’t know why. Well, I do. And I’m annoyed by it.

One, I didn’t order room service. Two, this isn’t room service. Three, I’m in only a towel that allows the air-conditioned breeze to flow dangerously near my dick while a beautiful woman is in my hotel suite.

And she’s shushing me.

Of all the odd things a work trip could bring, this is the last I would have ever imagined.

I grab my underwear and pants and head into the bathroom. “Excuse me,” I offer as I close myself in.

Did I really just pardon myself in my own room from the woman who barged in? I’m too nice. More aptly, I’m too polite.

I dry off my exposed skin, as dry as one can get when the humidity outside is the same as inside the shower, and pull on my boxers and khakis. I run my fingers through my towel-dried hair and pull open the door to find the woman staring through the peep hole, a cell phone in one hand, her thumbs flying over the keyboard without even a glance down.

“Excuse me,” I repeat, more forcefully this time, sliding my glasses on. This time it’s not in an effort to be polite.

When she doesn’t acknowledge me, I consider what it would take to get her attention and, coming up with nothing, press my ear to the door, facing her.

We’re inches apart, our breaths mingling, and I stare at her as she gazes away, deep in concentration.

“What are we listening for?” I whisper, noticing too late the pounding of my heart, the cold of the metal pressing into my shoulder and neck, and the freckles that tiptoe across her button nose.

Her eyes flit to mine. They’re an odd gray-green—neither hazel, nor blue. They’re captivating. And they’re doing their job, because I’m held hostage in their depths.

She studies me, her eyes roaming me from hairline to chin, making me wish I hadn’t shaved before my shower. Maybe I’d look more rugged or at least less boyish. I thought this baby-face thing would’ve faded by my age. I was wrong.

Forty, single, and cute wasn’t where I saw my life going. Then again, being alive is enough on most days.

“They’re gone.” Her words are quiet and sure, but her gaze never leaves me.

“I’m sorry for interrupting your morning.” She moves back and pulls open the door. “Enjoy your stay in Fairhope.”

She studies me for one more moment—appraising me with an appreciation I’m glad I didn’t experience earlier—and is gone.

Enjoy your stay in Fairhope.