Free CRASH (A Logan Brothers Novel) by L. A. Shorter Page B

trying to keep her voice down. “Can we just
go Kyle, it's creeping me out.”
    “ No one knows you baby. Can't
you just relax and have a good time?”
    “ But what if the concierge is
up there, at the front desk. What if he sees me, recognizes me?”
Her words were slightly frantic, no doubt made worse by booze.
    “ He's not here any more Alice,
he probably doesn't even work here. Did you see him on the way in?”
    “ No, but..”
    “ Well then what's the
problem?”
    “ He might be working late or
something, I don't fucking know. Why are you being such a dick about
this. You told me yourself not to come here, remember?”
    “ Yes, but that was ages ago.
The dust has settled now, nothing's gonna happen to you, to us. What
was I gonna tell my brothers? That I can't come to their birthday. I
had no control over where they planned to host it.”
    “ Yeah well I didn't need to
come. I shouldn't have agreed.” Her tone was hardening.
    “ OK, lets just give it another
hour. We'll go back in, hang with my brothers, have a drink, and
relax. I swear we'll leave in an hour and then you'll never have to
come back here again. Deal?”
    I slowly crept towards the
bathroom as a brief silence fell inside the room. Then I heard Alice
mumble her agreement as I quickly slinked into the bathroom and shut
the door behind me, making sure to close it without a sound.
    My breath poured out of me as I
heard Alice and Kyle open the door outside and walk back off down the
corridor.
    The mystery of that girl
deepens further.

Chapter 9 - Crash
    Crash

    The light spilled into the room,
burning through my eyelids and waking me up in a flash.
    “ What the hell Mel, I told you
not to open the fucking curtains so early.”
    “ Sorry babe, but it helps wake
me up.”
    Mel was a 'comfort girl' as I
called her. Not a prostitute. No, I would never pay for it. She was
just a girl I knew. A girl who helped satisfy my needs when I needed
them taken care of.
    I rolled over and covered my
eyes up with the pillow. How this girl survived on only a couple of
hours of sleep was beyond me.
    My memory swilled with images
from the previous night. I looked over to see my tux hanging loose on
a chair. Zack and Cade's party, what a fucking drag.
    I had no mind for such formal
events right now. No time for them. No interest in them. The thought
of spending hour upon hour chit chatting about nothing of importance
was beneath me. Now I was swimming with the sharks.
    I'd seen Elle there, sitting
alone across the room. Poor girl looked like a tree in the middle of
an open field, totally secluded and out of place.
    I went over to her and asked if
she wanted to leave. Kill two birds with one stone: save the poor
girl and save myself.
    I took her upstairs into the
hotel bar. It was quiet there, only a couple of late night guests
lingering around, nursing whiskey and their troubles. We fitted in
perfectly.
    She began to come out of her
shell as we spoke. I guess she wasn't overly comfortable in large
group situations. She was young, only about 20, so that sort of thing
might be intimidating.
    She was sweet though, innocent
and untouched. She might have been a virgin for all I knew. It wasn't
just the way she looked: cute blonde hair, big blue eyes, button
nose. It was the way she looked at me, her eyes glancing at me when
she thought I couldn't see, this coy expression on her face when I
said she looked pretty.
    It appealed to me in a way I
didn't expect. I'd lived my entire life fast and loose and liked my
women just the same. But I was 27 now and had never had a proper
relationship, never felt anything more than lust towards a girl. Kyle
had been the same as me and now look at him. He was thinking of
giving up everything for a girl. It was a feeling I couldn't compute
in my head.
    When I asked her about her
previous relationships, her eyes flashed in a way that told me she
had a serious history with someone. I don't know why, but a tinge of
jealousy struck at my