Let It Snow (71 page)

She shrugged. “I think it happens more than I’m aware of. I can’t really say.”

“You’ve always been like that?”

“As far back as I can remember. It seems to get worse the older I get. My grandmamma used to say it was the devil trying to get inside me and do his work.”

“I’ve always thought you had the devil in you, but not that way.”

She rolled her eyes. “If I’ve got the devil on my back, then he’s blue-eyed, wears leather, and has size eleven boots.”

“Eleven and a half, actually.” He grabbed the chair next to the dresser and pulled it closer to the foot of the bed where she sat. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“You were talking to the naked people in the black room.”

“G, That was twenty minutes ago. I left them there to fondle the equipment and each other, should they be so willing.” Max suspected that one of them was more willing than the other, and that was why he left them to their own devices. Eventually, that lady would find someone more compatible to play with. The guy didn’t seem so picky.

She let out a long exhale. “I feel like one of these days I’m going to zone out and walk into traffic.”

“Fuck, and you worry about something happening to me? Honey, at least I’m conscious when I’m supposed to be.”

“It’s not the same, and you know it.”

“But, it’s scaring me all the same.” He raked his fingers through his hair and tugged it. “God, girl.”

He’d been trying to take care of her for years, but this—
this
knocked him off his axis. The possibility that she actually,
couldn’t
take care of herself seemed very real. If something happened to her…

He shook his head on the thought.

He wasn’t going to let anything happen to her. No fucking way.

She stood and scanned the room. “Where are my clothes?”

He leaned back in his seat and watched her search the drawers in vain. “G, you don’t need them at the moment.”

“If I lose that uniform, I have to pay to replace it. Assuming I actually have a job come tomorrow. I don’t buy for one minute my ass isn’t out of here the moment Mr. Beaudelaire comes to his senses.”

“I’ve always found Henri to be reasonable.”

“But, this isn’t reasonable, Max. Not even a little bit. In any other hotel, I would have been marched straight out to the street by security and had any shit I left behind mailed to me along with what was left of my docked paycheck.”

“Don’t worry about the bills. I’ll take care of them.”

“I don’t want your money.”

He knew that was coming. “You keep telling me that, but, I’m not giving it to you. I’m simply repaying Henri.”

“I don’t need you to. I fucked up. It’s my responsibility.”

“But I have the money to burn. You don’t. How is this any different than me buying you lunch when we were kids?”

She dropped her chin to her chest and leveled him with a withering stare. “Three or four bucks here and there is not the same thing as paying for a defaced ice sculpture and room damage.”

“You don’t have to pay for the sculpture. That was going to melt anyway, and there were four others the guests are likely enjoying as we speak. The other things…” He shrugged. “Well, I feel somewhat responsible for those.”

“Bullshit. I don’t want to owe you anything.”

“You don’t
owe
me anything. Except maybe your affection.” He winked.

She sneered at him.

Typical G.

He grinned. “Look, G.” He reached out and laid his hand on her knee. “You need to find ways to get it under control if this is what happens you get stressed or angry.”

“Or scared,” she said in a low voice he suspected wasn’t meant for him to hear.

He swallowed. God, she needed a firm hand, and not just in the dungeon. “I’m not a psychologist, but I’ve taken enough classes to know there’s probably a clinical diagnosis for that.”

“We don’t do diagnoses in my family.” She scoffed and made swirling motions around her head. “If it can’t be fixed with Tylenol or cod liver oil, then it must be a demon that needs to be let out.”

“G…” He sat back and loosened his hair tie. “These things don’t fix themselves.”

“I didn’t go to college like you, but I do know that. I don’t think this”—she pointed to her head—“is going to stop on its own. It plagued my grandmamma until she died, and though she tries to hide it, I know my mother has a problem, too. Me and Mama, well, we’re a lot alike.”

Her jaw tightened and she pulled her feet up under her.

He’d never met Giselle’s grandmother, but he had interacted with Mrs. Burke on numerous occasions. He’d spent so much time at their house during his and Giselle’s years that her mother had threatened to charge him rent a few times. She meant it in jest, of course, because the very next thing she’d do was slide a platter of food in front of him and command him to eat. “Does your mother still make that fried okra?”

Giselle’s shoulders fell. “Is that the only reason you ever visited?”

“Besides to let you copy my homework?”

Her jaw dropped, and he laughed.

“I didn’t copy it! I was just trying to figure out why mine was always wrong.”

“I don’t remember it being wrong. You just didn’t show your work.”

“Because the way I get from point A to point B on things doesn’t make any damn sense to anyone but me.” She sighed and scooted back on the bed.

He took a moment to admire her contrast in tones. Her richly hued skin, dark brown hair, and dark robe against white sheets. If he’d had more than a cell phone camera within his grasp he would have taken a picture. He grunted and took the picture anyway. She’d probably delete it when she scrolled through and found it. She always did for reasons he didn’t understand.

He left the phone on the dresser and walked to the closet. The layout of the white rooms—the Hotel Beaudelaire’s most basic offering—were unfamiliar to him. Most of the people who used the black rooms, which weren’t in general circulation and thus didn’t have sleeping accommodations, were assigned red rooms. Those rooms were laid out assuming the guests would welcome an audience of one or two. They were deep, with lots of places to sit and fuck. The red hues stirred passions that lasted late into the night.

White rooms were cooling in contract. They were basic. If guests wanted heat, they had to bring their own.

He grabbed a knit blanket from the closet’s top shelf and closed the door. Draping it over Giselle, he felt that same familiar pang he always did when he realized she wouldn’t let times like these be guaranteed in their future. He’d felt it every time she was at his apartment making herself at the home he kept insisting should be hers. But she breezed in and out, breaking his heart every time she left. He couldn’t exactly force her to stay.

Sinking onto the bed beside her, he grabbed the remote from the top of the headboard. “If you’d like to go to the ball, we can see about getting you something to wear.”

“Fat chance. That’d be too weird.”

“Why weird?”

“Okay. Maybe not weird.” She put her hands up in concession. “Embarrassing. I bet everyone knows what I did.”

“I doubt that. I’ve never known Ms. Gibson to gossip, and Henri’s discretion is impeccable.”

“Maybe so, but what’s the staff going to think about me being down there when, number one,” she counted off on her fingers, “I’m supposed to be working right now. And number two, I’m still sort of breaking the don’t-fuck-the-guests rule.”

“Do you care what they think?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. That’s a shocker.” He turned the television on and scrolled through the offerings. “I thought you didn’t care about this job and were only here for the paycheck, not to make friends.”

“I never said that.”

“It was implied, honey.”

She sighed. “It’s the best I can do.”

“Bullshit. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with working in a hotel, even if you’re not striving for upward advancement.”

She groaned and shook her head. “I’m in the wrong department. You’d think my job is so easy. I deliver meals and go around picking up the trays later. I’m a glorified waitress who gets hit on all the time by drunk, horny lechers. When I applied, I wanted to work in the kitchen, but the pay was better in room service.”

“I remember you telling me that.” He stopped scrolling when he found a home improvement show, knowing Giselle had a minor obsession for them, and set down the remote. He’d told her numerous times she could fix up his place if she wanted, but she always gave him that same, withering look that needed no translation. “Can you ask to be transferred?”

She shrugged and laid her head on his lap.

Immediately, he began smoothing her hair on the sides. It’d taken a long time to get her comfortable with him messing up her hair. He doubted it was a luxury she afforded anyone else.

“I think about it every time there’s an opening in the kitchen, but I never do it. Like I said, the pay is lower there for prep cooks than what I’m earning now. It’d be at least a year before I’m up to my current pay level.”

“If you moved in with me, you wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

“Don’t start that again.”

“Remember what I said earlier? Pretend that nothing bad is going to happen.”

“I’m trying, but it feels like I’m talking myself into believing a lie.”

“We can’t control fate. Can’t predict what’s going to happen, and building up defenses to things beyond our control is sometimes a waste of energy. We can play the cards we’re dealt using the best information we have at the time, and hope everything turns out all right. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

She didn’t respond. He hoped that, maybe, she was learning.

He rubbed her hair some more and loosened it from its ponytail. “Think about your happiness for a change. You do everything you can to stave off bad shit happening, but you’re doing it at the expense of your present wellbeing. That’s not a fair trade-off. You deserve to feel good at the end of most days, even if life isn’t perfect.”

“Do you feel good at the end of most days? Doing what you do, I mean.”

“Mm-hmm.” He twined a length of her shiny, brown-black hair around his fingers studied the shift in sheen as he moved his hand. His own hair had bluer tones, darker than both his parents’. Genetics was sometimes a crapshoot that way. “I love my job. Yeah, there are some days that all kinds of fucked up, but I can’t imagine doing anything else for a living. It’s fulfilling and makes me feel useful.”

“Even though it might kill you.”

Seemed as good time as any to remind her. “G, the chances of me getting killed on the job aren’t any different than the typical cop or even a soldier’s deployed overseas.”

She stiffened. Had he found one of her buttons?

“You’re not a typical cop, though,” she whispered.

“I am in some ways. Sometimes I get put on shitty beats, just like everyone else who works in law enforcement.”

She rolled over and pushed up onto her forearms. “Who do you work for? I keep asking. You never tell me. I’m starting to think you can’t.”

Oh, he could. He’d just chosen not to because he didn’t think it’d assuage her panic any. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe if he told her the letters, she could put it all in context and compartmentalize the way she needed to. “I work for ATF.”

He could practically see the gears moving in her head at the mention of the letters.

“That’s alcohol, tobacco…”

“Firearms and explosives. Yeah.” He laughed, but there was no cheer in it. “If you study weird shit in college, you get recruited by unexpected agencies. Truth be told, G, I spend most of my time behind a desk nowadays. I haven’t been undercover for a while and don’t anticipate that changing anytime soon.”

“You get picked to work undercover a lot?”

He shook his head. “No. If I think I can help, I volunteer.”

She tried to pull away from him, but he grabbed her arms before she could move away. That was her natural response.
Run
when she didn’t like what was said. He wasn’t going to let her do it this time.

“I don’t have a death wish, G, so don’t even think it.”

“Then tell me what it is, because it sure seems that way to me,” she said through clenched teeth.

“I take calculated risks just like any other cop.” He tried to settle her back against his lap, but she wouldn’t budge. He sighed. “Sometimes the odds aren’t in my favor, but probability says it’s unlikely I’ll ever get shot or seriously injured again.”

“I trust probability about as far as I can throw it.”

He pulled her again, and this time she relented. He’d never been able to direct her so easily when it came to matters of the heart. Sex? Yeah, there was some pushback there, but she conceded to his wishes for the most part. Played along because she trusted him then. But how could he extend that bubble of trust to cover all circumstances?”

With her head on his lap once more, he resumed stroking her hair. He’d asked her to just pretend everything would be okay, so the least he could do was help her feel like it. He didn’t have to get her all worked up. He could be gentle.

“Hey. Did you know Kate Gerrish got fired this spring?

Her jaw twitched against his thigh, and then a smile pulled her lips.

There we go.

“Finally. Cranky old hag. What happened? Did she finally humiliate the wrong student and get the hammer of Hell brought down on her for it?” She sucked her teeth. “God, I always hated her. She had it out for me.”

He chuckled. He could say it wasn’t true and that their old ninth grade English teacher was just set in her ways, but he
did
think she had it out for Giselle. Him as well. He never got higher than a C on anything he turned in. She always found something to knock off points for. His handwriting. A wrinkle in his loose-leaf paper.
Something.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. I’m sure she’d had a lot of complaints racked up over the years, but the camel’s back has to break eventually. From what I heard through the alumni grapevine, she insinuated that one of the new board members’ kids wasn’t intelligent enough for college.”

“She said the same shit about me, though.”

“And I didn’t believe that was true, either, but in this case, the board member had a lot more clout to throw around than your mother did, and she saw to it that old Katey got forced out.”