Page 33 of Manhattan Kiss

“That’s right. I’ve done the role before, but not in New York.” She doesn’t need to know I haven’t had the deputy manager role before. I’ve been duty manager, and although deputy manager is a step up, I don’t want anyone to think I’m a newbie. Even if it wasn’t planned, I’ve had decades of hotel experience.

“Back in the UK?”

I nod. “Worked there nearly twenty years.”

“I like it,” Bev says. “Working in hotels.” She pauses. “If you’re in the right one. In this place, I always feel like we’re part of the same team. I’ve worked in other places where the kitchen and the waitstaff are always fighting. It’s exhausting. The chefs here are okay.”

“They make a good steak?” I ask on a smile.

“Looks like it,” she says.

At that moment, one of the chefs comes over with the first room service order of the night. We have a separate pass to the rest of the restaurant, although both are quiet at the moment.

“You’ll need a saucer for the jug,” he says.

Bev rolls her eyes at the chef trying to tell Bev what to do. “Should we give them a knife and fork too?”

“Keep your panties on. Just trying to be helpful.”

“That’s the problem with men,” Bev says. “They think mansplaining is helpful. I swear to god, if my ex-husband had been sober enough to actually make it to my daughter’s delivery, he would have told me how to push her out.”

I laugh.

And the chef who delivered the steak calls over his shoulder, “Can we have less talking about your vagina tonight?”

“My vagina has done things that your hands aren’t capable of. Ever birthed a human, Issac? Ever pushed a living being out of your body?”

My stomach lurches at the feeling of loss that sweeps over me. Am I going to be lumped in a pile with the chef? With all people who haven’t given birth and are somehow considered less because of that?

“Bev,” Joey says, pulling me out of my head. His tone is a warning. “Let’s keep the vagina talk to a minimum.” He nods in my direction.

I shrug. “I have a vagina too.”

“Right,” Bev says. “You got kids?”

I shake my head.

“Whether or not you’ve birthed a human, still means you’re as strong as fuck.”

I smile.

“Get that steak up to Room 325, Bev, and don’t start waving your vagina about in Mr. Black’s face, no matter how much you want to,” Joey says.

Everyone collapses into giggles, and Bev pushes the trolley out the door and in the direction of the lifts. I follow, as we’d previously agreed. I’m here to see how every department works—and every department seems to have some interaction with Mr. Black.

“You are going to die when you see this guy,” she says.

“I think I know the one you mean,” I reply.

“Oh yeah, you’ve been on reception. You’ve seen him, then?”

I nod. “I had to deliver towels to his room once.”

“Hot as fuck, right?”

“He’s very handsome,” I reply.

She laughs. “You’re so goddamn British. It’s cute.”