Page 29 of Raff
“The accommodations are decent,” he told me, waving around the room.
Decent was right.
It wasn’t necessarily in the top ten hotel rooms I’d ever seen. It was small, stucco-walled and cement-floored, colored in bright reds and deep browns, with all-white linen bedding. The attached bathroom wasn’t overly fancy either. It was modern and clean, at least.
Certainly not something I could see influencers lining up to book.
Until Raff pushed open the door to a little courtyard.
Then I got it.
Three sides were encased in some sort of rusty metal fencing. Everywhere. Except for a long, narrow window overlooking the desert.
Right in front of that window?
A bathtub.
You could bathe outside in the desert.
“Oh, wow.”
“And, of course, the stargazing bed,” Raff said, gesturing toward the bed set up a few feet from the tub.
“This is… incredible.”
“Thought you might get a kick out of it. And in case you aren’t fond of bathing naked outdoors, I got you this,” he said, unzipping his duffle bag and producing a white one-piece bathing suit.
The crazy part? It was exactly the kind I would have chosen for myself.
“And, as always, I am available for my photography services. Clothed. Or naked,” he told me with a smirk.
I shook my head at him.
“So, what do we do about food? I didn’t see any staff.”
“There is no staff. I mean, I’m sure they’ll be around, and they do housekeeping. But this is more of a glorified guest house.”
That was why he’d had a code to open the front door.
“You called it a hotel.”
“An… embellishment.”
“And said we had to go to Joshua Tree to delay check-in.”
“A fib.”
“Have you told me anything true today?” I asked, smiling.
“You are the prettiest thing in this whole fucking place. Now I’m gonna go check out my room, then we’ll talk ordering food.”
“Wait,” I called, rushing out into the hall. “Are there other guests?”
“Two rooms. Just the two of us for the night.”
There was no good reason that sent a thrill through me.
While Raff was gone, I went ahead and freshened up, slipping into the bathing suit but putting my clothes back on over it.
