other. Her glasses slid down on the tiny bridge of her nose as they always did when she looked down, and she had to thrust out her tongue to catch them.
But before she managed to get the cigar, she became aware of two things: firstly, there was a cold draft on her backside from where her gown had ridden up to her waist, and secondly, that whistling draft was not loud enough to cover the sound of someone sucking in a breath to her right.
How can there be a draft, if the door is closed…?
Leigh gingerly turned her head toward the doorway as one would in a nightmare, when they sense something emerging from the darkness nearby, and she almost suffered her second heart attack for the day when she saw HIM standing in the threshold to her room- not the attentive concierge she’d half-expected, but the musician.
No. No. No….
But it was him, all six feet something of leather, ripped and faded denim and incredulous neon blue eyes. He was clutching a copy of The Hardest Fall in one hand and a rectangular white box and her travel wallet in the other, and his mouth was falling open at such a rate, that Leigh knew he’d soon have to drop her things in order to catch his jaw before it hit the floor.
Leigh froze as she was; bare-ass naked to the chandelier and holding her glasses with her now aching tongue, tasting overpriced Brut and lens cleaner, feeling only the anguish of terminal humiliation.
If I don’t wake up in my bus seat next to Greta in exactly two seconds, I am going to scream!
‘Um…’ the guy seemed to snap out of his stupor just as Leigh’s own took possession of her every nerve ending and thought. ‘Ryan Weaver, reporting for duelling duty?’ He leaned against her doorjamb, his unexpected grin quick and blinding, and his eyes vibrant with mischief. ‘But who the hell is Gilbert Blythe? Is he big?’ He wet his lips and treated her to a simpering smile. ‘Think I could take him?’
Leigh jumped as his voice tugged on every one of her nerve endings like marionette strings- and then she promptly somersaulted off the edge of her bed, feeling like she was falling in a nightmare and praying that that was the case.
Three
T he carpet became the ceiling, the ceiling became the hem of her skirt, and Leigh’s ears were struck so hard by each knee on either side of her head that for a moment, all she could hear was the blood thumping inside her skull.
No. No, no, no, no NO!
He was laughing, and his laugh was that of someone who knew they oughtn’t be doing that; husky as he attempted to swallow breaths big enough to smother it. For a moment, Leigh sat in the world’s most uncomfortable yoga pose, as stunned as a fish that had been struck over the head by an oar. But when she heard him move, she became Sonic the hedgehog and rolled her way out of the cramped position, by pushing off the mini-fridge with her bare feet and then wriggling back towards the picture window, snapping her knees together before getting them beneath her.
‘What are you doing in my room?’ she sounded like a six-year-old, felt about two and knew she looked about eighty in her get up. She spat out the glasses she’d caught with her teeth and shoved them into position. ‘How did you find me? How did you get UP here?!’
The guy stopped moving and his eyebrows lifted to match the shrieking pitch of her voice. ‘I came to return your things,’ he said, slowly raising his hands once more. ‘Your passport and stuff, and your hotel info was in there so I-’
‘And the concierge just let you UP?!’ she demanded, bypassing the relief to have her things returned to her, for fear for her life. ‘What kind of security is that?!’
The guy’s brows lowered, and his cheeks had gone from pale to rosy. ‘The staff here know me…and Bruce said that you’d be stoked to have your stuff back, and would wanna thank me in person…’ he turned his face slightly in profile, regarding her with one eye. ‘A bit of an overestimation on his
Jonathan Strahan [Editor]