Page 42 of The Law of Attraction
“How many rooms?” the desk attendant asked. He couldn’t be much older than twenty-five, but he had wispy, thinning hair and a leathery look about him, like bacon that had been left in the skillet too long.
“Two,” she and Adam both answered at once.
The attendant’s eyes shifted to Olivia, lingering on her for an uncomfortably long time before returning to his computer screen. Everything about him looked vaguely greasy. Greasy scalp, greasy beard, greasy clothes. He looked as if he’d smell like the inside of a deep fryer if you got close enough to smell him—which she planned to avoid at all costs.
She crossed her arms over her chest and shuffled closer to Adam, suddenly reminded of an old episode of Criminal Minds where the creepy hotel proprietor had let himself into female guests’ rooms in the middle of the night as they slept. “Preferably adjoining rooms,” she added. “If you have them.”
Adam gave her an odd look but said nothing.
The attendant finished checking them in and gave them their keys, his eyes slithering over Olivia once more as he slid the plastic cards across the counter. Adam held the door for her as they exited the lobby, and she felt his hand lightly brush the small of her back as she stepped past him.
She wondered if he’d sensed her unease or noticed the attendant leering at her. Had he been trying to comfort her or warn the other guy off?
The rooms they’d been given were side by side, on the front of the building facing the highway. There was indeed a connecting door between them Olivia discovered after she bid Adam goodnight and let herself inside.
The single queen bed was shrouded in a hideous polyester spread that matched the hideous orange carpet. She could hear the sound of a TV coming through the wall from the room beyond hers, and the window rattled every time a truck blew past on the highway outside. Despite all that, it looked decently clean, although she wouldn’t want to go over the place with a black light.
She engaged both the deadbolt and the safety latch on her door before stripping out of her still-damp clothes and washing her face. While she was digging through her suitcase for dry pajamas, there was a knock on the door.
Panic clogged her throat for a second before she realized it had come from the adjoining door to Adam’s room and not the outer door.
“Hang on,” she called out, hurrying to pull on a black T-shirt and pair of pajama pants before opening the door.
Adam had changed too, into gray sweatpants and a plain white undershirt that was so thin she could actually see his chest hair through it. The dark hair grew in two small tufts around his nipples, and in a thin trail down the middle of his abdomen. Was it her imagination, or was that the contours of an actual six-pack beneath the fabric? She’d thought only actors and bodybuilders had six-packs, yet here was one in the flesh, and almost close enough to touch.
“You look different,” Adam said.
Olivia dragged her eyes away from his torso and reached up to touch her face. “I took off my makeup.”
“I almost didn’t recognize you.”
She didn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered. “Thanks?”
“No, I mean…” He shook his head, grimacing. “I like your face without makeup.”
“Oh.” She was so stunned all she could do was blink as he shifted from one foot to the other.
“I’m starving,” he admitted sheepishly. “I don’t suppose you have any food in your Bag of Holding you’d be willing to share?”
“Sure,” she said, grateful for something to focus on other than the fact that he’d just said he liked her face. “Come in.” She left the door open and crossed to the table where she’d set her purse down.
Adam padded into the room behind her. “You can say it if you want.”
Her fingers stilled inside her purse. “Say what?”
“You were right. I should have bought more food at the truck stop.”
She let out the breath she’d been holding and went back to laying out the food in her purse. “Can I get you to repeat that so I can document it for the record? ‘Adam Cortinas officially concedes that Olivia Woerner was right.’”
He let out a low, husky laugh as he surveyed the selection of granola bars, nuts, chips, cookies, and beef jerky she’d arrayed on the table. “Sure, if I can take a picture to document this bag-lady food stash. Were you seriously carrying all that in your purse?”
“Yes.” She’d bought snacks to last the whole week, in case there wasn’t an opportunity to replenish her supply after they started working.
“Why are you like this?” he asked as he chose a granola bar.
“I just am. This is the personality I was born with.”
He shook his head as he tore open the wrapper. “There has to be a reason you are the person you are. Something in your past that informed your hoarder tendencies.”
