Kiss and Make Up (gxg)

Chapter 21

The first week in the hotel was very much an up and down experience. I'll admit, retail therapy helped quite a bit during the initial days. The first morning I woke up with a bad hangover, but powered through and took an Uber back to the airport to rent a car so that I could explore my little getaway of a city, and then went shopping. I needed pretty much everything, so I went to the Fashion Valley mall, where I spent a lot more than I normally did on a regular shopping excursion. The only useful work thing I did was electronically sign the power of attorney for Harper to sell the businesses.

               I had nothing to wear but one wrinkled and messy business outfit, which I dropped off at a dry cleaner and hoped for the best, a pair of high heels that might need to be thrown away, and a bra and panty set that needed a good wash cycle. But that certainly wasn't going to get me through a month. I didn't go completely crazy, because sooner or later I'd have to take everything home and I didn't even have luggage yet, but I got enough clothing to last ten days that I could wash several times to get me by.

Granted, some of that was clothing amount was cheating, because I just got two pairs of jeans, one of which was nice and could get me into a semi formal restaurant, and then a bunch of shorts. There were most certainly not going to be any business meetings out here, and so relaxation was the goal in my outfit choices. I bought a dozen pairs of comfortable panties, half a dozen bras and three bikinis. I had a feeling that bikini tops under my various tee shirts would be bras on many days, as I planned to spend a lot of time on the beach for this getaway. The shoes ended up being a couple pairs of converse and then two pairs of comfortable sandals. I got a little makeup, but not much. The hotel had a pool, and the ocean was right there, so it seemed pointless to go overboard with it. I did get a lot of sunscreen though! There may have been a few wine bottles too. All in all, I thought I was pretty well set for a month of vacation.

And then the evening came, and I got a text about a no show charge at the Mandarin Oriental hotel back in New York, because obviously I never went there with Shiloh, and I lost it. My day had been going so well, I'd done my best not to think of her, though it was hard not to when I was in Victoria's Secret buying my underwear. I purposefully went with comfort instead of sexy so I wouldn't worry about what she'd think if she saw me, because right now I didn't think she ever would.

But the hotel was supposed to have been our get away, and it all came rushing back because I'd completely forgotten to cancel the reservation. At least they were nice enough to cancel the second night, but it didn't stop the tears as I curled up in bed and silently sobbed. Why had all this happened? What did I do wrong? I knew that in the past, work and school had gotten in the way of my barren love life before I'd been foolish enough to agree to the marriage with Blake, but was I really that bad at it? Or did I just have horrible luck when it came to meeting women?

Hope sucks. Dreams suck. No matter what I did, I was stuck with my reality.

That became my routine for that first week. Have a nice day, and then a miserable night. Drink a lot of wine to forget things, sleep in, and then puke all morning while praying that the hangover would go away. It was a poor coping mechanism, and I realized that. Had I been home, Harper probably could have helped me, or at least given me a lot of hugs, but I wasn't there. I was petrified that Shiloh would come to visit her house, and that I'd break down just hearing her voice.

So, I ignored everyone. I replied to a few texts, like when Harper told me that the company was sold, and when she was just making sure I was alive, but that was it. I didn't tell her where I was, or how I was. I ignored her when she told me that indeed Shiloh had stopped by the house, multiple times in fact, and that she'd seemed genuinely sorry. I didn't need to hear that. She should be sorry. Sorry was a basic human feeling when you fucked up. Sorry certainly didn't mean I ever wanted to see her again though.