Rock N Soul by Lauren Sattersby Read Free Book Online Page B

Yeah, that was sort of a bummer.” I wrinkled my nose at the memory.
    A woman who was waiting in the lobby gave me a very strange look, and I suddenly remembered how odd I must look walking along and talking to myself. I clamped my mouth shut and kept walking.
    Chris wasn’t interested in being ignored, though. He kept walking backward, his gaze locked on me. “Seriously, did it mess you up?”
    I did my best to stare straight through him instead of letting my eyes focus on someone nobody else could see. The semitransparency helped a little. When we got close to the door leading to the foyer of the hotel, I reached through his stomach to grab the door handle and pull the door open.
    “Wow,” he said. “That was weird.” I walked past him, and he continued tagging along after me.
    The foyer, where I usually stood chatting with Mark the doorman until guests arrived, was empty at the moment, so I frowned and let my eyes focus on Chris. “If you don’t want people sticking their hands through you, don’t stand in front of them,” I snapped. “And you’re really going to have to stop talking to me while I’m working. It’s hard to concentrate on just, you know, working and smiling and not looking at you when you’re walking in front of me and chattering away.”
    He furrowed his brow. “I’m not really used to sitting back and being quiet.”
    “Well, do your best. Think of it as a personal challenge.” A taxi pulled up to the curb in front of the hotel, and Mark whisked in from the lobby to get the door for them. I lowered my voice so he wouldn’t hear and muttered to Chris, “Please, just be quiet. Just while I take their shit from them, okay?”
    “If I do, will you take me up in the service elevator?” He seemed ridiculously excited by the prospect, so I nodded and then grabbed one of our shiny gold luggage carts and wheeled it out to the taxi. Mark was busy juggling the purses and backpacks of a woman and her two teenage daughters while her husband eyed him suspiciously.
    Even though it was really Mark’s job, I went ahead and opened the trunk of the taxi to get the luggage while he handled the ladies’ things. Chris stood back close to the hotel doors, clearly trying hard to be quiet and still. Apparently, though, the prospect of riding in the service elevator only appeased him for about seventeen seconds. Then he trotted over and leaned in beside me as I pulled a large pink polka-dotted suitcase out of the taxi’s trunk.
    “Do you ever rifle through their stuff while you’re taking it up?”
    “No,” I whispered. “I need this job, dude. That would get me fired so fast that Einstein would have to rethink relativity.” I put the suitcase on the luggage rack. “Now shut up before they hear you.”
    “They can’t hear me,” Chris pointed out, smirking so obnoxiously that I would have been tempted to punch him in the teeth if he’d had corporeal teeth to punch.
    “Yeah, well, you can’t hear me unless I talk to you out loud, so it doesn’t do you any good to talk because I can’t answer you while they’re in earshot.” I smiled and waved at the family belonging to the pink suitcase and hefted the other luggage onto the cart while Chris, shockingly, wandered away from the taxi.
    Then I had a thought. So . . . can you hear me? I mentally projected at Chris.
    He continued stalking an unsuspecting pigeon that was strutting its way down the sidewalk. That answered that question, then.
    I pushed the cart back toward the door and then stopped and smiled at the family again. “I’ll have your belongings up in your room in just a few minutes,” I said, offering my best “I’m a nice guy who isn’t going to steal your shit” impression.
    “You sound so earnest!” Chris called from behind me, where I assumed he must be ghost-petting the oblivious pigeon.
    I didn’t dignify him with a response. Which was probably a good thing, since the man of the family already seemed very distrustful