Page 57 of The Law of Attraction
Olivia went back to her knitting, settling down on the floor again with her back against the window. Outside, the rain pattered a steady, lulling rhythm, punctuated by an occasional increase in intensity when a gust of wind blew it against the glass.
Adam pulled out his phone with a sigh, thumbed through it for a minute, then shoved it back in his pocket with another, louder sigh. He got up and wandered over to the minifridge, stooping to examine its contents for a minute before shutting it again. He paced over to his suitcase, stared at it for a second, then paced over to the window to stand next to Olivia again.
“Dude, you’re making me nervous. Find something to do.”
“I’m bored,” he said with a grumbly sigh. “I can’t even play games on my phone, because I don’t want to run the battery down. Not that I have a cell signal.” He glanced at her. “Have you heard anything more from Gavin?”
She set down her knitting and checked her phone. No new emails or texts. “Nope,” she said, picking up her knitting again.
It wasn’t even ten in the morning. This was going to be one long-ass, unbearable day.
Adam sank down on the bed again. “What the hell did people do before electricity and television and the internet?”
“I think most of them worked themselves half to death just to stay alive.”
“Okay, but what about rich white people with servants to do all the work for them? How the hell did they pass the time?”
She thought about all the costume dramas she’d watched. “I believe their lives were so dull they considered a turn about the room entertainment.”
His eyebrows lifted in amusement. “So I should go back to pacing, then?”
“Please don’t.” She tried to recall what else the idle rich in historicals did to fill their time between meals and dressing for meals. “They wrote a lot of letters. There’s probably a pen and stationery in the desk if you want to give it a shot.”
He made a face. “I’m not doing that.”
“Needlecrafts,” she said smugly over her knitting.
“Good for you, but I seem to have left my embroidery back in LA.”
“Painting, drawing, music, and other artistic endeavors.”
“None of which is of any use here in this motel room.”
“They read a lot—or read aloud to each other.”
“Do you have any books?”
“On my phone.”
“Great.” He fell backward onto the bed, arms akimbo above his head, and let out another dramatic sigh. “I guess I’ll just lie here and contemplate existence, then.” Who knew he was such a baby?
“They also played games,” she offered.
He swiveled his head toward her hopefully. “Do you have any games?”
“On my phone.”
“No deck of cards in your Bag of Holding? I’m disappointed in you, Woerner.”
Her stomach did a swoop. It had annoyed her the first time he’d called her by her last name, but she was starting to like it. “Too bad you can’t play D&D with just two players.”
“You can, actually, but one person has to play the dungeon master and all the other party members and NPCs.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Sounds like a lot of effort.”
“It’d be pretty impossible without internet access or rule books to refer to.”
“Or dice,” she added.
