Samuel did not make it to work the next day and the day after that. It was unlike him. He did not call or answer her calls either. She tried calling him fifteen times already. 'Maybe he went back to his pack.' she thought. For some reason the thought hurt her, she did not know why. The only thing left to do was to go to his apartment and check herself. For work related reasons, they had some crucial meetings in Europe tomorrow, they had been hard to get and schedule so she just wanted to make sure he was good and ready before the time came to go.
She arrived at the hotel, parked her car and walked her way to the entrance. Every step she took reminded her of that gala night and she swallowed thickly. Nothing had changed about the place, it was still incredibly beautiful and elegant, from the flowers outside to the royal blue carpet, chandeliers and marble pillars inside. It all looked like the work of several extremely talented and careful hands, even the receptionists looked elegant themselves. Rita silently hoped that neither of the two currently on duty remembered her. Anyway, they could not possibly, they saw a lot of visitors, she would be one face in a sea of them.
She just wanted to check on Samuel and get out. Just one phone call from the receptionist's desk would be okay. Something she was not sure she could do at this particular establishment. Rita walked up to them.
“Good evening Ma'am, what can we help you with?” one of them, the male one, asked her, beating the woman beside him to it. His silver name tag identified him as Axel. Upon second glass he withdrew most of his attention. Probably because she was not wrapped head to toe in designer or diamonds. Rude much?
“Good evening,” she returned the greeting. “I'm looking for Princeton Samuel. Is he still in the building?” she asked.
She got both their full attention when those words left her mouth. It felt like they were analyzing and profiling her. Scratch that, they were. Their eyes narrowed. The one that had addressed Rita was the worst because she was directly in front of her. Rita's hair stood on end and chills crawled up her spine. These were not just receptionists, they were a line of defense. If these two judged her as a threat she doubted she would be left unscathed. She did not remember this part of the hotel, because it was not there the last time. Well, at least they did not recognize her.
“And who are you?” the receptionist asked. She could imagine his hands going for a small button on the desk below her line of vision.
“I am Mr Princeton's Personal assistant.” Rita answered. She patted herself on the back for getting the words out in a strong and confident voice.
“Can I see some ID?” He asked.
Rita opened her purse, thank heavens she thought to bring it with her, and took out her company card and handed it to him. “Here.” The receptionist from the card to her, looked it over, then scanned it before giving it back.
“Ok, step into the circle please.” he said and pointed his hand to the floor on his left side.
What circle? Before her eyes a glowing silver circle of glyphs appeared on the ground. Oookay, definitely not here the last time, these must be new measures after the bomb incident. She stepped into the circle and they lit up before spin clockwise like the hands of a clock until they abruptly stopped and turned gold. Rita had no idea what that meant but she prayed to God that it was a good thing. The circle disappeared a few seconds later. The faces on the receptionists completely transformed back to the images of hospitality and friendliness. She would admit that that did calm her down a tad but the image grained into her head was narrowed eyes and hostility.
“You are all clear.” he pronounced as he typed away at his keyboard. “Sorry for any inconspicuous, standard security measures” he explained.
“It seems Mr Princeton has not left his suite in the last day.” he said.
“Could you ring him up for me?” she asked. Please say you could.
“Of course.” he smiled. He went for the telephone, placed the receiver to his ear and dialed a number. A minute passed and no response from the other end. “It seems Mr Princeton is not answering. I'll try again.” He tried again, same thing.
“He is not answering.” Well that was obvious..
“Did anyone else come to see him?”
“We aren't allowed to give out that information Ma'am.” If they could just tell her then this would be way easier.
“Can I go up and see him? Maybe he'll answer.” She offered. The receptionist shook his head.
“Look he has his bodyguards in the hotel right? Just send one with me or you could call in security to follow me and if Mr Princeton or one of them doesn't get back to you then you can sound an alarm or something.”
The two seemed to deliberate on the thought before giving her an answer. “There won't be need for that. I can follow you.”
“I'd feel better if she followed me instead. No offense.”
“That's fine.” he said, nodding to his counterpart.
The female receptionist grabbed a key card from the board behind her and walked from behind the desk to stand beside Rita. Her name tag read, Cynthia.
“Ok let's go.” Cynthia said, leading the way.
Rita already knew Samuel's door number, 568, but the receptionist did not know that and she did not need to know. They passed by a few people, they were decked in finery and Rita wondered if there was a party going on somewhere in the building.
They came to Samuel's door, and the receptionist knocked. “Mr Princeton, you have a visitor.” Samuel did not respond. A minute passed. Then two. “Mr Princeton, we are coming in.” She swiped the key card on the lock. The lock made a small beeping sound before the door opened. They made their way in only to see Samuel lying on the floor in the living room still in yesterday's clothes, an empty bottle of alcohol in his right hand and several more bottles scattered around the room.
“Mr Princeton? Is that you?” Cynthia asked.
“You were drinking?” Rita asked. It was more of a statement, the answer was clearly all over the place. She walked to where he lay on the floor, bent down and took the bottle out of his hand and dropped it on the floor further away from him. Then she and Cynthia struggled to pick him up, he must have weighed more than them both, if there was no one here with her there would not have been a chance in the world for her to do this on her own. They dropped him on the couch with a thud.
“Mr Princeton, this is not what I meant when I told you to go home.”
Samuel's voice was groggy and whinny when he replied. “I know but I couldn't stop thinking about Sydney.” Neither of them thought he could manage it. Cynthia went to the telephone on the side table.
“Yes, he is inside. He's just having a hangover. Send up room service.” she said
“Sit here. While I go get some aspirin or something or whatever werewolves take when they're hungover. Wherever that is.” she fumed.
“Don't leave.” Samuel groaned.
Rita found her way to one of the bathrooms but nothing. She tried again and found his room. She stopped at the threshold, memories resurfacing. She left.
“Cynthia, are you still there?”
“Yes, Ma'am.”
“Please tell room service to get something to get rid of his hangover too.”
“Already on it.”
Room service arrived came in five minutes later. “Please get this cleaned up.” Cynthia instructed. The maids and the butlers got set to work cleaning up. One of them gave her a bottle of pills which she handed over to Rita. Rita looked at the bottle. Yeesh, one tablet of these could put her out!
She went to the kitchen and got a glass of water. She came back to where Samuel was lying down on the couch like a log. She set the glass and the pills down on the center table and pull him into a sitting position.
“How could you get this drunk and hungover?! We have a slew of important meetings tomorrow morning! In Europe!” she fumed, taking a pill and the glass of water again.
“Swallow this.” she instructed, bringing the pill close to his lips. He opened his mouth and she dropped it in. She gave him the glass of water. When she turned around Cynthia was gone, only the cleaning crew remained and the place was spotless.
“Wow, you people work fast.” She knew why they were still waiting. “Here's a tip.” She reached for Samuel's pocket and withdrew his wallet. It was his mess, she was not going to pay for it. She gave the three of them a twenty each.
“Thank you Miss.” They said and then left. Rita closed the door behind them.
When she came back, Samuel was done with the water. “Great, you're done. I'll just take that.” she said, taking away the glass. Before she could move any further away his arms went out, snatched her around her waist and off her feet. The glass tumbled out of her hand and dropped on the couch.
Her back was to his chest, and a wave of alcohol hit her, his B.O did not miss out either. She struggled. “Mr Princeton, let me go.”
“Please don't call me that. Call me Samuel.” He said, nuzzling the back of her neck. “Please?” he begged and closing his arms around her even more.
“Fine Samuel, just let me go.”
She tried to pry herself out but he held fast. This is exactly what she wanted to avoid. Being this close to him, being trapped. Five attempts at escape and he was still clutching her like a kid would a teddy bear. She refused to to be that teddy bear, more specifically she refused to be his teddy bear.
Her purse was far on the opposite seat, her phone too. He moved, to lie down. No no no. He did and took her with him. He held on to her tighter.
“Samuel?”
No response.
“Samuel?” He passed out and he was still holding onto her. Great. Just great. Why did he have to be a cuddler? Why now? He never did that before. The last time she had been cuddled like this was with Sakaer. This was different though, there was a slightly annoyed yet warm feeling in her chest, one as warm as the arms around her stomach and as real as the strength in them. To top it all off her nose was screaming. How much alcohol did he chug down his throat?
Tiredness was starting to take over, she had not had proper sleep in two days trying to set up this oaf's schedule. She tried again to get out of his hold but still nothing. Her eyes began to droop and soon after, whether from exhaustion or olfactory overload, she was fast asleep.