Page 37 of VIP
“Yes,” he whispered, nodding fervently. “Yes, I’ll marry you tomorrow… sir.”
I swept Arlo up into my arms and spun him around like a scene out of a romance film, but nothing about this was pretend. Arlo loved me exactly as I was, and he made me feel more like myself than I ever had before.
Epilogue
The Staff
It was that time of day again. When the sun went down, the city lit up… and when the boss went home for the night. Even outside at his post, Gerald could practically hear the staff all breathe a sigh of relief.
“Have a good evening, sir,” Gerald said, doffing his hat as he held the door open for their manager, Monsieur Holland. No matter how much charm the doorman used, the younger man always walked like he had a stick up his ass, his icy blue stare as frigid as his heart. Gerald smiled harder to compensate.
“Yes, thank you, Gerald,” he replied. He seemed distracted this evening, his posture not so stiff, his shoulders slumped. He paused on the sidewalk to look back over his shoulder, through the lobby to the front desk, where Roland and Emily were working. It was hard to tell from here, but Gerald could’ve sworn Roland was looking back with an expression akin to longing.
Huh. How come I never noticed that before. Gerald took a moment to look at Emerson Holland a second time, through a new lens—that of forbidden love. Yes, perhaps their boss was more attractive than Gerald had previously thought, if dear sweet Roland was pining for him. Maybe his eyes weren’t icy so much as they were crisp, attentive.
Monsieur Holland seemed reluctant to leave, and Gerald rocked gently on the balls of his feet, waiting with anticipation. “Anything I can do for you this evening, sir?” he asked after the pause had gone on too long.
“Huh? Uh, no,” he said, shaking himself from his reverie. “No, it’s… nothing. Right. Good night.” It seemed to take great effort to get his legs to walk him away.
Emerson made his way to the lot where he parked his car each day, and as Gerald watched, he decided that you couldn’t pay him enough to be the manager of a place like The Scarlet Hotel. Nope, no siree, doorman was just right.
He sensed movement at the front desk behind him, but he waited, eyes fixed on the parking lot exit, waiting for their boss’s car to pull through. There it was! Slowly, he turned right into traffic, and still Gerald waited until the taillights blurred in the distance.
Then, quick as his knees would allow, he turned and pulled open the hotel’s front doors. “Wait for me!” he hissed as he hustled through the lobby to where the staff had begun to gather.
“Well, then hurry up, Gerald,” Benny, a server from their dining room, chided, his elbow propped up on the desk, his scruffy hair falling into his eyes. He was lucky Monsieur Holland had left for the night, or he would’ve probably taken a pair of scissors to those bangs. He insisted the staff always look their best.
“I told you, call me Gerry,” he reminded them.
Benny rolled his eyes and smirked. “Sorry. Habits are hard to break, Gerry.”
Emily rubbed her hands together with mischievous glee. As their supervisor, she probably should’ve been more mature, but what was the point once the boss had left for the day?
“Hey, Roland… Roland?” Emily nudged her coworker with an elbow to get his attention. “What have we got tonight?”
“Huh? Oh.” Roland was in a daze, his eyes unfocused, but he reached under the counter and pulled out the reservation book. “Um, only three rooms that haven’t checked in yet. We have 302, 517, and the penthouse.”
The staff started throwing around bets about what kind of guests might arrive. “Traveling salesman in 302.” “I’ll take 517, a family vacation.” “Oil baron in the VIP.”
Gerald, however, was wearing a knowing grin. “My money is on a honeymoon.”
Emily shook her head, tapping her pen on the notepad in front of her. “Are you sure? The odds on that are super low. We get honeymoons all the time.”
He licked his lips and pulled out his wallet. “Well, then how about a movie star honeymoon. Would you give me better odds for that?”
They all groaned. “You and movie stars,” Coral, the dishwasher, teased, her tattoos bright against the rolled sleeves of her kitchen whites. “You’re obsessed. You know they’re just people like us, right?”
Gerald wanted to laugh. Just people?! That was something only someone who didn’t know any celebrities said. “The odds?” he coaxed again, pulling out a few bills.
“Yeah, sure, whatever. A hundred to one,” Emily mumbled, choosing odds apparently at random. In fact, it probably should’ve been steeper, but Gerald wasn’t greedy. It wasn’t about the money. Emily accepted his cash before moving on to take everyone’s bets. If she’d been paying better attention, she might’ve seen Gerald smile knowingly, almost as if he had inside information. Was he cheating?
While Emily penciled all the bets in, Gerald looked over at Roland. He was a young man, kind, polite, and he’d been working here for years, but he was so damn quiet. It wasn’t normal. He was always distracted, with this glazed look to him, practically asleep with his eyes open. Gerald wondered what he was thinking about all the time.
As the group wrapped up their gossip, stalling before heading back to work, Gerald’s phone buzzed with a text. He pulled it from his pocket and glanced at the message, smirked, then went to scoop up the money from the desk before Emily could zip it inside the pouch where they kept the bets. “Hey! What are you doing?”
“Taking my winnings,” he said so matter-of-factly that it was hard to argue with him.
“You haven’t won yet,” she groused.