The entire walk through the gleaming hotel lobby to the elevator, I expect to be stopped and asked if I need directions or help. I grew up in Santa Monica; I went to school with the children of celebrities. I don’t feel out of place in the fancier LA spaces, but I was also raised by parents who help me when needed but don’t support me anymore. I carry myself, and that means I support myself in LA each month on what many people in this hotel are paying for a weekend getaway in California. My suitcase is probably worth less than a box of the straws they use in the bar, and I’m still wearing what I had on for the signing. After a sweaty, muggy day, the straps of my black tank top are—predictably—much less robust than the straps of my bra and seem to take turns sliding off my shoulders.
But stepping into the air-conditioned calm of Alec’s suite feels like stepping out of the LA I’ve known my whole life. I mean, at no point in my adult existence would I ever experience a hotel this way unless I was here for an interview. A villa suite, it said on the gold-plated placard outside the door. A hallway leads to a wide circular living room with seafoam-green furniture, gold and white accent pillows, and lamps and a coffee table that probably each cost more than my monthly rent. A dining room is separated from the space by an open bookshelf dotted with tasteful curios: a black-and-white Art Deco vase, a brushed-brass statue of a horse, art books, framed black-and-white prints.
Dragging my hand along the dining table, I take in the Asian-inspired sideboard, the delicate gold prints on the walls, the plush white chairs—six of them, like we might host a dinner party. The windows span the back wall of the dining room and living room, curving along the path of the building and revealing an unreal view of the enormous terrace and the Hollywood Hills beyond. This is the view people imagine when they think of Los Angeles. Not the traffic-clogged, billboard-dense stretches of Sepulveda north of LAX or the wire tangle of freeways smack in the middle of the city but this: wide-open sky, lush green hills, palm trees lining wide streets.
I pull out my phone, texting Eden. Having a Pretty Woman moment.
Be more specific, she answers. Were you shunned from stores or are you in a bubble bath?
Neither. But this suite is unreal.
It had better be.
I grin down at her Alexander Kim adoration and drop my phone in my purse, leaving it slung over a dining room chair as I explore the rest of the suite.
I’ve had this man inside me, have kissed nearly every inch of his body, and yet I still break out into a cold sweat when I see the enormous, neatly made four-poster bed stacked with plush white pillows. It’s such a picturesque bedroom it’s almost absurd, and all I can think about is how it’s a bed for honeymooners. For consummating something, and we’re going to sleep here. Out of four nights, we’ve already spent two together, and now this is our bed. I think about my bed at home—a comparatively tiny full-size mattress; it wasn’t nearly long enough for him, but it didn’t matter. I know now that if Alec could have his way, he would curl up, be my big spoon all night. Better yet, he would sleep on top of me.
Just as I walk into the bathroom and catch sight of the truly mammoth tub overlooking the Hills, my phone starts to explode with texts, with emails. For a few minutes I’d forgotten that this room wasn’t the only way my life was changing today.
The story is live.
* * *
I hear the sound of the key, the door unlocking, and then Alec is making his way down the short hallway.
“Gigi?” he calls out.
Relief and excitement hit with laser precision right at the center of my chest. I’ve been reading a book—getting my mind off the comments flowing in online, the reactions from the community and the LA Times staff—but I drop it onto the coffee table just as he emerges into the suite’s living room. His face erupts in a relieved smile.
“You’re here.”
I bite my lips, attempting to tamp down my urge to scream in happiness. He’s wearing what he had on at the signing, but it feels like he’s changed; everything about his posture is somehow more relaxed. Relieved, maybe. “Hey.”
His gaze tracks around the room as he clocks my shoes at the end of the hallway, my suitcase tucked against the wall, my book facedown on the table. “Good,” he murmurs. “You brought things.”
What a weird feeling this is. We’re going to be staying together. Living together, in this suite. Meals and sleep and showers and work. We can’t commit to anything beyond this, but we’ve committed to this much, at least. Temporary cohabitation but indefinite infatuation.