Drake waited alone at the pick-up curb for the Uber. Once every other minute, he’d look back over his shoulder at Lulu, sitting on a bench on the other side of the automatic door, rubbing her legs for warmth. Even for someone who likely hadn’t left Miami in her entire adult life, had she really not considered warmer clothes?
The wind picked up in the traffic tunnel, carrying snow dustings on it. Drake quickly fell back toward the wall to hide from it.
The automatic door opened beside him.
“Is it almost here?” Lulu asked, shivering through a yawn.
Drake checked his phone. “Just another minute. You holding up alright?”
She rubbed her eyes. “Tired. Cold.”
“Should wait inside, then. Don’t worry, I’ll come get you when it gets here.”
Lulu pushed up beside him. “It’s cold in there, too.”
The wind tore through again.
“Should get a coat on our way back here in the morning.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
Drake checked his phone again. The icon of their approaching car hadn’t moved on the map since the last time he checked.
The wind tore through once again, and the sound of Lulu’s teeth clattered in his ear.
He grumbled to himself, then took off his sweater. “Here,” he said begrudgingly. “Wouldn’t want you to die before we got to the hotel.”
Lulu was quick to snatch it. “Ugh! You’re a lifesaver.” She took off the jean jacket, revealing a cropped tank over a bikini top, and pulled the sweater over her head.
“Holy shit,” he laughed. “You really didn’t expect to fly today, did you?”
She didn’t answer immediately, struggling to stop the chattering of her teeth. Only when the headlights of an approaching vehicle temporarily blinded them did she say, “It worked itself out, didn’t it.”
Drake couldn’t have said why he did it, but he put his arm around her and pulled her in close. “What would you have done if you didn’t get to steal my seat?”
The Uber pulled up beside them, and Drake waved the driver down, rushing both himself and Lulu to the back door.
She laughed, “Doesn’t matter now, does it? Thanks.” She jumped into the backseat as he held the door, and he scootched in next to her as another gust of wind filled the right side of the car with snow.”
“Thanks for the pickup!” Lulu said to their driver, receiving no response except a foot on the gas.
Now that they were in the car and out of the cold, the two no-longer-strangers left plenty of room for Jesus in the center seat. The warmth of the back seat seemed to have a strange effect on them that put their previous closeness into better perspective. For the entire twenty-or-so minute car ride no one said a word, instead opting to listen to the overtly political, and very aggressive, podcast that their driver had playing.
After the twenty-or-so minutes of the podcaster ranting about gay immigrant terrorists, and their co-host ranting about the lack thereof, the Uber pulled up to a snowed in, single-story hotel, and sped off as soon as the back door was shut again to force the next pick-up to listen to intolerable politics.
Drake led the way through the half foot of snow to the front door of the hotel. Lulu trailed close behind him, hopping into the imprints in the snow he left behind. The wind blew, and though the cold bit at her bare legs, she was glad her torso and arms were at least kept warm.
The lobby itself was barren. Fully lit, but fully devoid of life.
Drake stepped up to the counter and slammed his fingers against the bell. “Anyone around?” he called. “We need to check in! Hello?”
Lulu walked around the counter to the hallway and saw no sign of life.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” he muttered, ringing the bell again.
“Alright, alright,” Lulu whispered, hopping back over to him. “We don’t have to wake up the whole hotel. Maybe whoever’s working tonight is just in the bathroom.”
“Or we’re shit out of luck. Should’a stayed at the airport. It’s gonna be a bitch trying to check in again in the morning. TSA’s gonna be insane.”
“Only if you let it get to you,” she said. “Here, look!” Lulu reached across the counter for a laminated document. Drake took it from her and read through it.
“After-hours check-in,” he read. Lulu watched his eyes move across and down the page. Then, unironically, he announced, “The way of the future,” and held up his phone. “Already got the key.”
While this hotel didn’t look it, they were actually pretty up-to-date on the latest hotel tech. He didn’t know this when he booked the room, but with the confirmation email, Drake also received a digital key to Room 109. Just as he’d done for every other purchase that evening, when they got to their room, all he had to do was tap his phone to the lock, and in they went.
They both dropped their bags on the bed at the same time, then paused and stared each other down.
“Right, I’ll take the pullout,” Drake conceded and moved his things. As he tried to figure out how to pull out the pullout, he said, “I’m gonna set my alarm kinda early if that’s alright with you. I know it’s already late, but I want to get back to the airport as soon as possible. Five a.m. sounds alright.” Then, to himself, “How the fuck does this thing work?”
“Five? That’s only three hours!”
Drake found the right latch to release the mechanism and was immediately disappointed. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Lulu didn’t have to ask to see what was wrong.
The mattress was there, but it had seen some better days. In the center, the only part of it which wasn’t ridden with mold, just plainly didn’t exist. In place of proper support for the lower back and a rear end was just a hole, charred around the edges.
She looked up at him, then at the queen-sized bed. He only looked at her.
“Nuh uh.”
“Seriously?”
“I’ve already made at least a dozen mistakes that’ll get me on Sixty Minutes, tonight. You have, too! Actually, you’re probably more likely to end up on Sixty Minutes than I am, being the hot one.”
“You think I’m hot?” she teased, feigning surprised flattery.
At this point, he had to admit out loud, even if in a dismissive, matter-of-fact way, “You’re an objectively attractive woman. Point is, you got your way; you’ve got somewhere to bed down for the night. At least just toss me a pillow, and I’ll be fine on the couch.”
Lulu shook her head and unzipped her backpack to find her pajamas. “You’re a pretty weird guy,” she said.
“That’s fine.” Drake, seeing she wasn’t making his request a priority, snagged one of the pillows from the bed.
“Isn’t this, like, every guy’s dream? Meeting a girl on a plane and hitting it off? Well, now you’re sharing a hotel room with the girl.”
Drake folded the pullout back into its couch configuration. “Are you saying you want me in that bed with you? Cause honestly, that’s a signal that you will try to kill me. Just getting me to lower my guard and steal all my stuff.”
“You sleep wherever you want. I’m just saying, I don’t think I’ve ever met a guy like you before.”
“Yeah, yeah. Toss me one of the blankets?”
Lulu held up her pajama set for him to see. Neither piece of it covered much more than the outfit she wore onto the plane. “Trade you a sweater to keep the blankets?”
Drake huffed. “Whatever. You can go three hours without murdering me, right?” He tossed the pillow back onto the bed.
“I won’t if you can promise the same thing.” Lulu held her pinky out over the bed to seal the promise.
Drake's response came in the form of fixing two of the pillows, one from each side of the bed, to form a wall down the center.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” she began, “but are you…?”
“What?”
“You know.” She touched her fingertips together. “No judgement if you are. Just, the vibe I’m getting.”
“Sixty minutes,” he reminded her. “You stay on your side, I stay on mine.”
“And the walls of Jericho in between.”
“Sure, yeah. Whatever.” He crossed around the bed, carry-on bag in hand, to use the bathroom.
Disappointed in his lack of response, Lulu followed him. “No? Come on, that doesn’t put you at ease about me?”
Drake remained focused on the task at hand. He rifled through his bag to find his toiletries and retrieved his toothbrush. “Is Jericho supposed to mean something?” He rinsed the brush, applied toothpaste, then rinsed again for good measure.
“You’re hopeless,” she pouted and wandered back over to the bed to get her own toothbrush. Calling back over her shoulder, she said. “It’s just a joke from an old movie.” Then, more to herself. “Clark Gable just being a romantic.”
Drake called back after spitting out his mouthful of toothpaste, “I must’ve missed that one.” He ran the water to wash his face, then changed into grey sweatpants and a fresh shirt. Then, leaving the bathroom to her, he made his way back to the bed and said, “Hope you don’t like to sleep with the lights on.”
He was under the covers and on his side before she could respond.
“See ya in the morning,” she said.
* * *
An hour later, Drake was awoken by something on the other side of the wall. Was somebody having sex in the room next door at – he checked his phone for the time – 3:15 in the morning?
He buried his head under the pillow and tried to block out the noise. Yet gentle, rhythmic moaning seeped through the walls and the stuffing of his pillow, right into his ears.
Drake turned over to grab another pillow from the barrier. Lulu wasn’t tossing like he was, so maybe she wouldn’t mind the breach. No, he thought, she wouldn’t complain one way or the other. Nothing seems to get to her.
Eyes shut tightly, he pressed both pillows to the side of his head.
Next came the murmuring. It was dirty talk, clearly, but inaudible. And, was it actually coming from the other room or somewhere else? Somewhere closer?
Before his mind could come to the correct realization, the moaning was overpowered by a buzzing sound.
He couldn’t keep his eyes shut. Something had to be done about this. Other people needed to sleep, too, and he more than anyone after the night he’d had.
Drake threw the pillows down to rebuild the barrier, and cast the blankets off.
“This is fucking bullshit,” he muttered, sitting up straight. Momentarily forgetting his manners, he spoke aloud to Lulu beside him. “Can you believe this?”
Not a word in response. In fact, Lulu wasn’t even beside him.
Drake looked up from the empty spot on the other side of the wall of pillows and saw a sliver of light on the wall across from the bathroom. He focused, quieting his heavy, irritated breathing, and determined that the sounds were in fact coming from his own room. And it wasn’t difficult for him to figure out what she was doing.
With unquenchable frustration for the entirety of this trip so far, Drake threw the covers off of himself and stormed around the bed toward the bathroom. He stopped at the door and raised his fist to knock. There was no intention of spying on her. He truly wanted to put a stop to the noise and get some sleep. But just before his knuckles came down on the door, he did catch a glimpse, and it was not at all what he expected.
Lulu was undressed, but not totally nude. She knelt on the bathroom floor in her underwear, talking to her phone. The buzzing he’d been hearing was not sourced from a rabbit as he’d thought. It was somehow worse. And, seeing what it was, Drake couldn’t help himself from muttering a little too loudly, “What the fuck…”
Through the crack in the door, he saw her face go pale and eyes dart up at him.
“Oh, fuck!” she shouted back, and dropped what was in her hand to reach for her phone.
In a panic at being caught, Drake shut the door completely and backed away against the closet opposite the bathroom.
Only a moment later, the door was pulled open again with Lulu backlit by the bathroom’s ceiling light. The left side of her curly blond hair was now shaved, and in one hand she held an electric trimmer. She covered her chest with her other arm and Drake’s lent sweater.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a whispered shout.
“Me?” he asked back, a little louder. “What are you doing? Did you go through my stuff?” He pointed at the trimmer. His trimmer.
She began, stumbling through her words, “I- What? No. No, I- I mean-”
The initial shock of catching her doing whatever it was she was up to was beginning to wear off. She had made noises like, and dressed like, she was doing something lewd. But all that just to cut her hair? And why this late at night? Why at all?
Drake reached around her to grab his trimmer back. Lulu didn’t put up any resistance. With his act of assertion, the temporary advantage she had when calling him out for spying felt as if it had poofed out of existence.
He held up the trimmer between their faces. “What the hell are you doing with my things? This isn’t even for your hair! It’s for…other places.”
Lulu sucked in her lips. How could she explain this to him without getting laughed at, or not believed at all?
“Huh?” he asked, giving the trimmer a shake. “You take anything else? Go through my wallet? What, my sweater wasn’t enough?”
“No, I swear!”
“Fucking hell!” Drake glanced aside and saw his open suitcase at the base of the hotel dresser. He gave the trimmer a shake and a quick swipe along the blades with his hand to pull off the stray hairs, then tossed it onto the pile of clothes that filled the suitcase. Half to himself, he muttered, and he paced in front of the bed, “This was a mistake. This was a stupid fucking mistake.”
“I’m sorry!” Lulu said, walking up behind him. “I swear I wasn’t trying to steal anything. I just needed to borrow it. I was gonna put it back.”
Drake raked his hands down his cheeks, totally exhausted, and groaned to show it. “I can’t do this. You’ve made this trip hell from the moment you stole my seat on the plane.”
Feeling suddenly freezing, Lulu pulled the sweater back over her head. “That isn’t fair! You know that’s not how it happened.”
“You took my seat, you got free drinks, a free ride, and a free hotel room out of me. I’m guessing that wasn’t your mom you were talking to in there to ask for that money, huh?”
Even in the darkness of the hotel room, Drake could tell her cheeks were turning red. He could see her lip beginning to tremble and reflections of the falling snow outside twinkling in slowly growing wet spots in the corners of her eyes.
“No,” she said, so quietly the words almost didn’t make it off of her tongue. “I wasn’t calling my mom.” She took a deep breath and held her arms tightly around her torso. “But I was trying to help pay you back a little. And was going to cover what I said I would.”
Lulu licked her lips then wiped her face with the sleeve of Drake’s sweater. Before speaking again, she sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the molding of the wall across from her. “I make content for a living. I was trying to be discreet, and I’m sorry I woke you up. I’m sorry I went through your stuff, too. But I had a request I couldn’t turn down that’ll cover my end of things with a little left over just in case.” She lifted the hair from her scalp that came down over the now shaved left side of her head. “Some people have weird kinks,” she said.
Drake groaned and turned away from her, looking out the window at the falling snow in the hotel parking lot. “Holy shit,” he laughed. “I can’t believe I got stuck with a fucking wannabe pornstar.” He shook his head.
Behind him, Lulu shot to her feet. “Hey! I don’t need to take that from you!”
Drake looked over his shoulder with an arrogant grin. “What if I pay a dollar a month?” he teased, then walked over to his side of the bed. He could sleep just fine now on the couch with a pillow and spare blanket. “Look, if you’re willing to sell yourself like that, I don’t think you’re in any place to get defensive when people call you out.”
“Hey!” she shouted again, demanding his attention. “I’m sorry things worked out so much better for you than they did for me. I’m sure your life is just perfect, and you’ve never struggled a day in your life. But some of us wanted something out of life, and are willing to put the work in to get to where we want to be. It might not be pretty along the way, but I don’t care. I’ll put up with the bullshit the world throws at me, because I know that one day all the blows I take will pay off.
“But this isn’t one of them. I like what I do. I set my limits, and I’m free to do what I want with my body. I’m empowered by this. And you can judge me if you want, but you know nothing about me or this life. You took one look at me when you got on that plane and knew how you felt about me, even if you hadn’t seen this. It must be so nice living such a perfect existence where everything happens just the way you want it, and whatever doesn’t fit you can just throw it away. The rest of us can’t do that. The rest of us have to roll with the punches and figure out how to get from one day to the next.
“So I’m not going to let this get to me. Because maybe you do know what it’s like. And even if you’re going to look down on me for this lifestyle, I hope that whatever it is you’re looking for in life, you find it. And I hope no one tries to shame you for the choices you’ve made along the way.”
Throughout all of her speech, Drake tried to block her out. He made up a place to sleep on the couch and fluffed his pillow. But by the time she was finished, with no more bed to make, he found himself standing before her. He stood taller than her by a good foot, but her words dragged him down lower than the floor.
But what was there to say?
She looked up at him, and he down at her, but in reality it was the other way around.
“I’m sorry I went through your things,” she finally said.
Drake sighed. “It’s fine. Please don’t do it again.”
“I won’t.”
He nodded.
“Do you want your sweater back?” she asked.
Drake shook his head. “Keep it. It looks better on you anyway.” The latter came out of his mouth as if another person took over his mind.
Lulu’s arms fell slightly, and she was able to laugh away the tension that filled the space between them. “Thanks. It is really comfy.”
There was another moment of quiet between them. Where do two strangers stuck in a snowed-in hotel at 3:30 a.m. go from here?
“We should probably still try to get some sleep.” Lulu offered.
“Yeah, probably,” Drake agreed, backing away and turning to the couch.
Lulu hit the bathroom lights and returned to her side of the bed. “Worried now you’re gonna catch something?”
Drake reclined on the couch. “This isn’t ‘Pretty Woman’, Lulu. No offense.”
She laughed. This time it was a full, truly amused laugh that earned a bang on the wall from their neighbors. “I meant a disease, but that’s a better one.”
“I know, Lulu. Just didn’t wanna get you worked up again.”
“Smart. Well, if you change your mind, the wall is still up.”
“Goodnight, Lulu.”
“See ya in a few hours, Drake.”
To this he didn’t respond. Drake turned over and buried his face in the cushions until he heard her voice again.
“Hey, Drake,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Are we still travel buddies?”
“Sure,” he mumbled.
There was a pause, then she asked, “What are we gonna do if the flights get cancelled tomorrow, too?”