Kings of Wisconsin / Tronnor

iii. Rest

TROYE

Troye woke up the first time and Connor was nestled in the sheets next to him. His face and body was still, still flushed and slack with peace priceless like gold. With a grin, the model let his personal peace overtake him, falling back into sleep, and awoke a second time to a bed half empty. A blurry figure paced, talking back in fast, clamorous whispers to phone static. Troye eyes forsake the urgency as they drop once more, and the third time he woke up, Connor was gone.

He saw on his pillow, written on the motel stationary, a note of hurriedly looping cursive.

Troy,
Thank you for a wonderful night, it was a pleasure meeting you. You're very good at it. Pleasure, that is.
I hope you enjoy California.
-C

It read the way Connor talked when ruffled and, even with the fleeting tone, Troye loved it. He chuckled at the dear awkwardness and the botched address, because he never did tell Connor how his peculiar name was spelled.

That showed how little they were to know each other, he guessed. He looked at the note—the back of the note—there was no phone number. No way to ever get ahold of him. As fate would have it, it seemed this was a predetermined one-night-stand from the start.

A little bit of Troye would regret never seeing him again, but the rest just
stretched in satisfaction—of the body and heart. He ached in all the right places, felt muscles loosen wonderfully. His fingers had a flippant grip while he checked his phone for the time.

And that's when he panicked. The white pixels on his screen were aligned in misfortune. It had passed all reasonable landmarks in his plan—the time he was to leave, the time he was to reach Milwaukee—and was a mere half hour shy of the plane's departure. In layman's terms, he had slept in, and making his flight was no longer eligible to be on his to-do list.

His stomach rode a bungee cord to hell and back. He forgot about the loose muscles and satisfied libido, tugging his laptop from his suitcase in a fit of nausea. Bringing up the General Mitchell flight list, his first instinct was to speed dial Bethany.

Her voice hit him quick, the chirpiness unfitting in his world. "Hi, Troye!" She tweeted. "You in Milwaukee yet? You better not be on the phone driving, you know how much I hate that."

"Um." Troye bit his thumb nail. "About that. Don't get mad, please." He told her of his predicament, voice edging on calm hysteria. He wanted to stop talking but she wasn't saying anything, and her silence made him twitch. "I'm on the airline website right now, trying to find the soonest flight, so I can get there ASAP. I don't want you to worry, but I just wanted to let you know that if I'm a little late for rehearsals it's..."

"Troye." The silence suddenly wasn't there, but it wasn't an angry cut-off. There was no frustration, not even annoyance. In fact, Bethany emitted a laugh with just a pinch of concern. "Mr. Slimane and I have been worried about this."

Troye almost couldn't swallow this instant forgiveness. This worry. "About what?"

"You've been working too hard Troye." Bethany spilled. "Doing photoshoot after photoshoot, flying to Paris then back to Australia and then to London in the same week. Organizing all the models at every event, even though it's not your job."

Troye wanted to ask if that was a bad thing—he didn't think aspiration and spirit were bad things—but Bethany wasn't done. "We love your enthusiasm, Troye, and I appreciate your ambition. But we worry about you."