Not That Bad #Wattys2018

Chapter Twenty Three

Saturday morning is nice and sunny but there's traffic on the highway as usual. We're stuck in traffic even as we turn off the highway and onto the road that leads to the boardwalk. The Rose Inn is supposed to be somewhere along the way. According to a waxy paper brochure Dad gave me, all we have to do is turn right from there and follow the track.

But in the meanwhile, like I said, we're stuck in traffic.

Eli turns up the volume of the radio. I put my head back inside the car and cringe at the song playing. I reach forward to change the station but Eli grabs my hand and stops me. "This one is dedicated to all the ladies." Eli winks at the elderly ladies in the bus next to us and they all sigh and giggle. I roll my eyes. With only one hand on the wheel, Eli sings loudly.

"I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it hurts." Eli sings. He acts like he's going to take his shirt off and one lady bangs on her window and gives me a thumbs up. It's freaking hilarious.

"Wow Eli." I say, "You even have old ladies swooning over you." He grins and shrugs like it happens all the time. I'm not even surprised. Eli is hot. Looking at him now, with his hair all tousled and his perfect arms in that blue muscle tee, it's even harder to believe I didn't even notice him before. He's like, Abercrombie hot.

Eli's singing his own lyrics now. "I'm too sexy to wait in traffic. Too sexy for this truck."

"Then get out and walk!" I say, laughing. Eli puts his free hand on my thigh and squeezes. "But Rori is too freaking sexy for me." he says this completely off tune. I grab his face and kiss his cheek.

He finally turns off the main road and then we're on our way to Rose Inn. It's on the coast and the air is salty and fresh. I stick my head out the window again. As we get nearer, we start to notice rose bushes growing on both sides of the road. There aren't only red roses, but white and pink and yellow too. We pull into a paved parking lot and Eli parks.

The place is, like, ten-star fancy. Of course. My parents wouldn't settle for less. The lobby has glass walls that let in a lot light and there are these really vintage rose pink sofas that are crazy soft. I sit on one while I wait for Eli to check us in. There are tiny clay pots with grafted rose bushes almost everywhere.

We have to walk along a winding cobblestone path to get to our rooms. But while Eli is busy pointing out a pool and a restaurant and Look a miniature golf course! I keep noticing the couples around us. Kissing, holding hands, going to their rooms. We're clearly the youngest. But I barely have time to think about it when I actually see our room.

It's like a huge glass tower. We dash up the stairs to the top, throw our bags onto the floor and run onto a balcony at the front. From here, we can see the whole hotel and all the different glass tower rooms, and pool, and restaurants and gardens. I look away from the couple kissing below us and turn to face our room. "Why glass?" I say, "It's so fragile."

"The most beautiful things are fragile." Eli tells me. He smiles at me softly and tingles run down my spine. As he shifts toward me his hand brushes against a small orange button on the balcony railing. Immediately, dark blinds tumble down from the ceiling and close.

"Oh cool. For privacy." Eli winks. He kisses me behind the closed blinds and then press the button to open them up again. I lean forward to press the button and kiss him on his jaw line. He presses the button and kisses me on my neck.

A lady in a rose pink uniform balances her tray of drinks in one hand and signals for us to stop.

***

We spend the day doing the things that my parents had planned-- lunch, lame ballroom dancing, sucking at miniature golf, lots of kissing in the gardens, dinner-- until we're exhausted. But we plan to go midnight swimming in the pool later. Eli collapses onto the bed and kicks of his shoes, but being back in the room with him gets me all agitated so I change into a swimsuit and go exploring. What I find is another balcony at the back of our room.