Five Days in 'Frisco

“Would you excuse me for a minute?” He darted to the bathroom, closed the door and picked up the phone. He hit the button for the front desk and waited. Someone answered on the second ring.
“Front desk, Alicia speaking, how may I help you?”
In the background he heard the white noise of the crowded lobby and the rattling of old-fashioned printers spitting out paper.
“This is Samuel Williams in four-ten. A woman named Talia Lopez just entered my room. She seems to think we’re sharing accommodations.”
“One moment please!” A few seconds later she came back on the line. “Yes, that’s right, Mr. Williams. You and Ms. Lopez are here for the Buy and Flip con.”
“I am?”
“Yes. I have a notation in your record that says Ms. Lopez called to let us know she’d be sharing a room with you, and that you’re both getting the special conference rate.”
“When?” What did it matter when? Sam didn’t even know Talia Lopez. Never seen her before in his life. She was absolutely radiant—and gorgeous—but he was sure she wouldn’t want to share his room if she knew he was nowhere near gay. “There has to be some mistake. My secretary called a few days ago to book my room. I stay here twice a year. Are you new, Alicia?”
“Yes, I’m new at the front desk but I don’t think I made a mistake, sir. Ms. Lopez called a month ago to book her room—and she called back a few days ago to add you as her guest. I know that, you see, because I was working in reservations for a month and a half until I got moved over to the front desk. I was the one who took her call on both occasions. I remember her. She’s the really bubbly lady, right?”
“Yes, that she is, but you don’t seem to understand, Alicia. This room only has one bed.”
“Yes, sir!” She chirped merrily. “And they’re very comfortable beds, too!”
“That’s not the point. We’re not lovers.”
Stone cold silence. Then, “You’re kidding.”
“Noooo, I’m not.”
“Well . . . um . . . I could send you up a cot. Wait, no I can’t. I just loaned the last one out ten minutes ago. Oh goshdarnit. I’m going to lose my job for this, I just know it! I should have checked how many beds were in that room before putting the both of you in it. Oh, I messed up so many times in reservations they moved me to the front. And now this. What will I do? I’m a single mom. I need my job.”
She was asking him? Hell, he didn’t know. And he certainly didn’t want the poor girl to lose her job. He finally said, “Uh, look, foul-ups happen. It’s not big deal. Do you have another room that I can use?”
“No.” She whispered, sounding near tears. “We’re all booked up. There’s so much going on in San Francisco right now that there won’t be a room available within miles—unless you want one of those sleazy little ones along the strip but I think even they’re all taken right now. Apart from the Buy and Flip Conference, there’s also the Gay Parade—”
“Never mind all that. I’ll—I’ll think of something.” Sam hung up the phone and stared blankly at his own reflection in the mirror over the sink, telling himself to sort this logically. Talia seemed to think she knew him. She was obviously expecting to share a room with someone by the name of Sam Williams and whoever this other guy was, he was obviously gay.
So . . . he could tell her she was mistaken and ask her to leave. No. Not a good idea. No self-respecting man would send a woman out to search for a sleazy little room that may or may not be available on the strip. Besides, what if this room had belonged to her and they had accidentally put him in it? He wasn’t about to wage war over a hotel room. He wasn’t a Type A personality who got all anal retentive over stuff like that.
He supposed he could take one of the dumpy rooms. No. Yuck. This one was as low as he was prepared to go. Maybe he could camp out on his sister’s couch for a few days. But no, she really didn’t have the space with two kids, another on the way, and a husband in a two-bedroom apartment, which was why he was building a home for her in the first place.
Shit. That bit. He’d planned to run sis’s designs by her place and then take a few days of much needed R & R, maybe go on a date or two if he met someone he liked. Not that he really expected to have any more luck in San Francisco than he’d had in New York, where the population was over eight million people, more than fifty-two percent of which were female. Over four million women and he hadn’t met one that he wanted to get serious with. But he did break that stinking, lousy habit of jumping into bed with women just because he could. Three months and counting.
God, I need a smoke. Force of habit made him slap his t-shirt pocket, but his hand resounded on bare skin. I want a fuckin’ cigarette, damn it! NOW! No. He took a deep breath. He had been smoke free for eight months. Why couldn’t he just get past it? Goddam addictions, he grumbled inwardly. They rode on person’s back forever.
He slipped a roll of mints out of his jeans pocket, popped one into his mouth and chewed it while he considered what to do. A squirt of his own saliva sailed against the back of his throat, sending him into a coughing jag. He spat the bits into the sink before he inhaled one.
“You okay in there?” Talia called out.
His hand around his throat, he sucked in a shallow but deliberately steady breath to . . . well . . . get his breath, and answered in a high pitched squeak. “Yeah.”
The phone hanging on the wall beside his shoulder buzzed. He anxiously picked it up, hoping the front desk had found him another room after all, and squeaked again. “Yeah?”
“Hi, love. Sam Williams here. You were such a dear to agree to share your room with me. I was so looking forward to finally meeting you but I can’t make it after all. I’m befrigged in Podunk. My sister has broken both hind paws and is dragging her ass around the house with her very battered elbows. Poor mutt. It turns out one of her wrists is sprained too. Long story. Oh, and my ulcers are acting up—again . . . .”
Sam’s pulse accelerated, while Sam from wherever kept talking. So that’s what happened. There were two Sam Williams. Apparently, Little Miss New to the Front Desk had gotten confused and assigned them both to the same room. But the other Sam was canceling. That meant he wouldn’t have to go room hunting after all? He and Talia were both adults. No reason why they couldn’t share the space for a few days. He definitely liked her.
The gay Sam went on. “I’m just going to stay with her until I get her settled in with a nice patient nurse maid, which will take a few days around here. I swear to God, this place is in the butt-crack of the universe. Why she’d want to marry a cretin who’d stick her in a place like this is totally beyond me. The man has absolutely no finesse at all. Anyhow, after I get her situated I’m going to go home, so I guess I’ll meet you the next time you visit the Big Apple. Okay, hun?”
Anytime opportunity knocked, Sam never slammed the door in its face. He said, “U-huh. Okay, hun.”
“Oh, dear God. She’s screaming for me again. Okay, well, I’m gone now.” The other Sam hung up.
Sam replaced the receiver in the cradle. Well, I guess I’m going to be posing as a queer for awhile. But at least he had a handle on what was going on and could relax again.
“I’m just curious!” Talia called out cheerfully from the other room. “When you go to the washroom, do you stand up like a guy or sit on the seat like a girl?”
Sam strode into the other room with his fingers thrust into his jeans’ pockets and gave her a half grin. “Either way I dunk it in ice water. Why do you ask?”
She was in the process of inserting a contact lens, but stopped and cocked her head, apparently thinking about his comment. A second later she let loose a deep, guttural laugh. “Omigod! You’re so bad! I love it!”
“My nickname is Tripod.” He joked, as he crossed the room.
“You’re hilarious. So I guess you didn’t—you know—have the operation?” she asked while screwing the caps on her lens case. Stretching her jaw, she opened and shut her eyes a few times to get the lenses to sit properly on her irises.
“Hell, no. Everything’s still there and it’s working just fine.”
“Suzie did mention that you came across as very straight. I’m just being nosy, I guess. Just tell me when I’m probing too much, okay?”
“You got it.”

Talia turned her head toward him, glanced away then did a sharp double-take. “Holy . . . .” Her gaze flittered up and down in a quick, preliminary sweep, and then started over from the bottom.
Dusty brown, well-worn cowboy boots thumping into the carpet came as an invitation to follow the legs up. He wore boot-cut denims faded in all the right places, enhancing a set of well-defined thigh muscles. The bulge at the crotch revealed he had not, in fact, had it chopped off. And he wore no shirt.
A tiny shiver coursed up her backbone. Suz was right. He did look like a Chippendale calendar model. Wow! He was tanned, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, with a decadent little treasure trail of dark hair starting at his navel and disappearing into the waistband of his jeans. His abs were ripped. You could bounce marbles off that belly. Another patch of hair darkened the middle of his chest between a set of pecs that made her glands start producing excess saliva. Good God, she thought. What a waste! And then she finally looked at his face.
“Oh. My. God.” The floor under her felt as if it cracked wide open. For the first time in seven years, she stood face-to-face with her daughter’s father.