Fabulous. It looked like it had been yanked apart. “Don’t go there,” she muttered to herself, unwilling to think of how that might have happened. Whatever, the damn thing was unwearable, unless she wanted the whole world to glimpse just how badly she wore a thong as she walked down the street and tried to hail a cab.
With a sigh of exhaustion, Leah fell against the door of the bathroom and slid down to her haunches. Where was this place? She glanced up at the ceiling—stained and peeling in here, too, she noted. The rest of the bathroom looked like a seedy hotel. The linoleum on the floor was cracked, the mirror was tarnished, and a dark, rusty stain around the edge of the toilet made her shudder with revulsion.
She pushed herself up and looked around for something to put on. Finding nothing, she donned her dress with the ruined zipper—a dress she’d paid very good money for instead of buying it at a discount barn like she normally did. That really pissed her off. What sort of guy was Adolfo, anyway, that he’d ruin a dress someone worked to pay for?
She yanked open the bathroom door and marched into the small bedroom with the intent of giving Adolfo a piece of her mind. Except that Adolfo wasn’t in the bedroom— she could hear him banging around in another room.
There was, however, a bag next to the chair in which he’d been sitting, and she bent over, peering inside. It was full of men’s clothes. Apparently Adolfo was thinking of making a weekend of it. She squatted down, picked up a shirt lying on top, and stabbed her arms into it, tied the ends around her waist, looked around for her fabulous shoes, which were, thankfully, at the end of the bed, and picked them up before marching into the adjoining room.
Adolfo had donned a pair of jeans and a polo shirt and was at the kitchen sink, such that it was, cutting up an apple, munching as he went along.
There were a couple of brown paper bags on a counter cluttered with pots and pans and dishes, as if he’d just gone to the grocery store. “Ah,” he said with a bright smile when she stomped in. “You found your dress. And my shirt.”
“Yes. I’m sorry that I looked in your bag, but since my dress was ruined” —she paused there to glare at him for a moment— “I had to have something to cover it.”
“Yes, that was regrettable, but necessary,” he said. “Orange juice?”
What is with the orange juice? she screamed in her mind. And what the hell did he mean, it was necessary? Since when was ripping clothes off a comatose woman necessary? “Adolfo . . . we need to talk.”
“Please,” he said, gesturing to a scarred kitchen table.
Leah ignored that, and ignored him as he passed by and set two glasses of orange juice on the table. “I am having an apple. Would you like?”
“No! I don’t want any orange juice, or apples. Adolfo, please listen to me. I don’t remember anything from last night,” she said gesturing wildly.
Adolfo laughed, as if fooling around with a woman who didn’t remember it was funny somehow.
“It’s not funny,” she snapped. “Regardless of how we ended up here—and where is here, by the way?” she asked, looking around the dilapidated kitchen.
For some reason, Adolfo looked around, too, as if he had just noticed he was in a strange cabin. “A cabin of some sort,” he said. “Perhaps it is for the holidays, although I cannot imagine who would want to holiday in such a place.”
“Huh?” Leah asked, confused by his answer, but quickly shook her head. “Never mind. I guess what I am trying to say is that whatever happened, it happened, although I don’t know how it happened, but the thing is, I never intended for it to happen in the first place, and I’m sorry, but I guess I got really drunk, and you know how it is, you never know what you’re doing when you drink, and who are we kidding—I especially didn’t know it last night. But at any rate, I can’t let it happen again. I mean, my head’s not into it, and while it’s been a lot of fun flirting with you, Adolfo, it should never have gone this far. Do you understand what I mean?” She paused to take a breath.
Interestingly, Adolfo did not seem upset. He seemed to mull over what she said and nodded thoughtfully. “Si, if this is what you want.” He smiled again. “Have some orange juice to feel better.”
“That’s it?” she cried, incredulous. “Have some orange juice? And will you stop with the orange juice already?” She fell into a chair at the table. “I’m glad you understand, Adolfo, but I thought there might be a little more reaction than that.”
“Of course I understand,” he said, seeming a little affronted that she thought he wouldn’t. “It is clear to me. It is the bastard, no?”
“No!”
“No?”
“Well . . . all right, maybe a little,” she admitted, and picked up the orange juice and took a sip. It tasted funny, like processed orange juice.
“Si, si I know this for a very long time,” Adolfo said matter-of-factly. “He has hurt your tender heart, yet you cannot get him out of it.”