“When did you get back into town?”

Priscilla kept the door open halfway and talked to him from the safety of room’s threshold. It wasn’t that he was physically dangerous. God, forbid. Sure he could be rough, but that was under very selective and enjoyable conditions. It was the emotional danger she was worried about. If she let him get a full look at her, if she stood there in front of him with the door wide open and inviting, they would both be done for and she wasn’t ready for that yet. Not quite yet.

He smiled (the fucker, she thought).

“The cab from JFK just dropped me off in front and I came up here to see you.”

“I won’t ask how you got my room number. I’ve kind of given up trying to figure that one out.” She sounded exasperated but in truth, there’s something cool about someone being so desperate to see you that they figure out new and conniving ways to get your secret hotel room number. It was quite the catch-22 inside her every time time he showed up unannounced at her room. She kept asking how he did it and each time it was a new way. She finally gave up.

Truth be told, she secretly wanted him to find her, of course. It was part of their game, their dynamic. She feigned distress at him finding her, he smiled with glee at his resourcefulness, and then an hour later the front desk would call with a noise complaint.

“I’ve given away far too many of my trade craft in that regard. I will reveal no more secrets about my methods. Just know, that I will always find you, always come to you.”

“My trade craft? You just step out of a spy novel or something? Holy cow.”

“Sorry, you always bring it out in me.”

He waited patiently for her to ask him into her room. She always did, she always will, he thought. Hoped? Expected? Anticipated? No, best to be eager, not take her for granted. One day that door could remain shut or she doesn’t let him in. It was better if he anticipated every time that she would not let him in, which made the invitation that he always received that much better and welcoming.

He waited some more.

“I’m thinking,” she answered to the unasked question.

“I will not presume to think that you will, of course, let me in. I know it’s been a long two months. I didn’t mean to be gone this long this time. But a story came up in France and I couldn’t leave it. I thought I had explained that pretty well in my letter.”

Part of the reason he kept getting invited into her room, and, subsequently, into her, were those letters. Who the hell writes letters anymore? He does, she sighed. Beautiful letters. Always on paper that came from wherever he was for his writing assignment. That made it special. That the letter was wholly about his restless and endless journey made her smile at some level. Sure, she got emails and texts from him, but the letters….someday she would donate them to a museum and they could could make an exhibit. People would learn about passion and love and desire and all the complicated stages of life. They would be a tool to teach other women about what to demand out of a partner and life. Actually, she thought one time, it may backfire. Some crazy Tik Tok addled teen or 20-something would probably take a picture of them, throw some god awful emojis on it and post it to get a million likes and consign it to a joke or cheap trope. Better to keep the secret right now, she realized.

“Oh you explained it, doesn’t mean I accepted it. You kind of left me high and dry.”

“That was never my intent of course.”

“Doesn’t matter what your intent was, it only matters what you did.”

Diego shifted uncomfortably. He expected to be in her room already but she was either making him work really hard for it or he might be in actual trouble. It was a little touch and go and he had to watch for mines as he stepped through the field.

“You’re right. I did leave you in a tough spot and presumed too much. I shouldn’t have and it was disrespectful,” Diego said. When all else fails, he thought, simply rely upon the truth. Most men could never do that, but then most men didn’t have this woman waiting for them. He would never lie, never take advantage of her, no matter how badly he wanted to be in her arms and rolling through a soft bed. The rolling was never his goal, actually. It was when the rolling stopped and she lay her head upon his chest, hair cascaded across his skin, her hand resting on him, and him watching her rise and fall with each of his breaths. That’s what he really wanted. Well, and some rolling.

“I promise you this. No more sudden departures. Never put a story above us. I get something big when we are together or have plans, then I pass. I never want to pass on you again. I can’t do that.”

Priscilla looked at Diego. She weighted all his pros and cons. The scales rocked back and forth in her head and her heart.

It wasn’t easy this time, she thought, surprised at herself. She had enjoyed the game before, but this time something felt different she realized. She was genuinely hurt at the distance and time. And for what? Another story about another quaint and beautiful village in another distant country that every annoying tourist with money and camera had to visit and rush around snapping their for their Instas? She was worth more than that jumble of words. She wanted him to know that, to believe it, but she now had doubts.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep. You not writing is about as likely as me saying no to coffee.”

“I just mean when we have a conflict in meetings. If I’m with you or about to see you then I don’t take anything on. Not have this happen again.”

Diego gave her a small smile and looked in her eyes.

“I mean, it would just be the worst to be lying there in bed, the room quiet except for the traffic of the streets down below, your head on my chest, rising and falling with my breathing, your hand stretched over me, resting on me, and my hand tracing slow random patterns on your back before it comes back to get tangled up in your hair…”