She wakes up in her Marriott and lies still for a moment, listening to the silence. After a while she stretches a hand under her tanktop, rubs lazy circles over her stomach. She gives up after a while. She can’t mimic his hands.

She eats breakfast at that awful buffet downstairs with runny eggs and sickly sweet donuts. The toaster pops every time somebody uses it and her heart jumps a little, remembering another sunny morning with burnt toast and whipped cream and laughter. She dips her head down to scan the morning paper again, lets her fingers rest on just the inside of her hairline.

There’s a guy with sea-green eyes glancing up at her every few minutes. It would flatter her if he weren’t eating slightly crisp toast.

~~~!~~~

Her new job is just as boring as the last, maybe more. Her coworkers are nice people and invite her out for drinks during her first morning, but she politely declines and tells them she still has unpacking to do in the house she’s definitely bought. There’s a woman in her late thirties with soft brown hair and kind eyes who sits across from her, smacks the guys away when they pass by to ogle and just nods when she tells them she’s still got six boxes to go. Her name might be Ellen. Or maybe Pamela. She doesn’t let herself favor the former.

Later that first morning, she’s sitting at her desk emailing her mom when the guy with the sea-green eyes walks in and settles on a desk next to hers. Ellen-Pamela smiles at him too, and they all invite him out for drinks. He smiles and says no thanks, he’s got unpacking to do. Ellen-Pamela calls him Drew.

She tries to eat lunch alone at her desk, but the salad she Tupperwared that morning looks like faded scraps of bedsheet now. Her stomach rebelliously growls a little, but she drinks down a little bit of a Sprite and fills out some forms.

“Hungry?”

She looks up, startled. Sea-green eyes on hers and a dark, messy haircut, a confident smile that’s even on both sides.

She lets herself smile back. “Yeah.”

He offers her a cleanly cut half of a turkey and tomato sandwich. “Couldn’t steal a lettuce from the Marriott, but I think I did okay.”

She takes a bite and laughs. He misses the surprised look on her face at the sound.

~~~!~~~

She comes down to the hotel bar about half an hour after the guide says it opens. The concierge patiently explains to her that the time is wrong, she’s got another half hour to wait. She settles on a couch in the lobby and pretends to read a day-old newspaper, skips the articles that mention Pennsylvania and flips quickly over an ad for Romano’s Grilled Cheeses.

There’s a pair of really nice dark men’s slacks behind her paper, and the laugh is familiar. She puts the paper down and smiles up at Drew with the sea-green eyes, makes some joke about stalking and laughs when he does. He sits down on the couch beside her and they make small talk for a while about transferring and adjusting to a new city. He’s got a serious side to him that melts slowly into jokes and she tries hard not to giggle too much when he says he plays the guitar sometimes and sings.

Half an hour later, the bar opens and he cranes his neck over to see. There’s a hollow where his neck meets his chest and oh god he’s tan. He turns back around to smile that gorgeously even smile at her again and says quietly to her, “You really wanna go to the bar?”

~~~!~~~

She tries hard not to think easy and desperate and rebound as he kisses her and rests her gently onto the mini couch in his room. He’s a damn good kisser, slow and sweet and urgent and fiery all at once, and his hands cup her jawline and stroke her hair instead of wandering down. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches sight of a guitar case lying crooked on his bed and laughs into his mouth, tangles her hands in his dark hair when he smiles back.

It’s as far as either of them want to go that night. They huddle on the mini couch until way too late, watch some Adam Sandler movie on USA and talk about each other. Before the credits roll, easy and desperate and rebound have turned into honest and guitar and start in her mind, and she can feel herself smiling when he walks her back to her room and kisses her at her door.

~~~!~~~

Ellen-Pamela knows.

She doesn’t care. She just wants to get back to the hotel. It’s Friday, anyway.

He promises to drive.

~~~!~~~

They got too drunk at the bar. She got the time right today, and was flummoxed when she showed up five minutes early and he was already there.

“Want a drink?” And a smile.

She settles on the barstool next to him and orders a round of bourbon. Before long, she’s let herself free and drinks shot after shot, just takes another when he laughs about her drinking abilities. Fixes him with a dark stare and asks, “Are you gonna get drunk?”

She wore something low-cut, and skinny jeans.

It doesn’t matter in the long run, because soon there’s a tequila stain on her left thigh and everything’s on the floor.

~~~!~~~

After, her head is lying in junction of his shoulder and their breathing has finally settled, the alcohol mercifully waiting to kick in. She doesn’t say anything, just buries her face in his skin and smell.

“There was a guy, wasn’t there,” he says, and her heart flakes away.

“Yeah,” she admits, and lies still. He doesn’t nod, doesn’t shift, just lies there with her.

“You can always tell when there was a guy,” he says to the ceiling. “They don’t smile unless you make them.”

He shifts then, gets out of bed and kisses her sweetly on the cheek. Pulls his boxers and his pants and his white shirt and his wrinkled jacket back on, softly turns off the light in her room, and leaves quietly.

Pam lies there until the warmth he left is too much to bear. Ties her straightened hair into a messy ponytail, sits up in bed still naked and watches Who Wants to Be a Millionaire reruns until Saturday morning light filters in through her blinds.

“For one hundred dollars: Which of the following cheeses is typically used in grilled cheese?”

Now she lets herself cry.

~~~!~~~