Chapter 2 - Drink Before You Fall
The glass was cold enough to hurt my fingers. I held it with both hands the way he'd given it to me, like if I let go with one it would slide right through me and hit the white sheets.
My breath wouldn't settle. It came in short pulls through my nose, and my cheeks felt hot and wet at the same time. Mr. Russo hadn't moved from where he leaned against the headboard. His dark gray shirt hung open, and I could see the edge of the dragon tattoo on his left chest lift a little each time he breathed. He wasn't looking at the glass. He was looking at my hands.
"Chloe. Sit. Just before you fall down. Drink."
He'd said it low, not like an order shouted across a service hallway. More like he was trying to keep his voice from startling me. My name in his mouth sounded wrong. Nobody in this house called me by my first name except Marta, and never in that bedroom.
I did what he said because my legs didn't feel like mine. I dragged my bare feet under me and forced myself to sit back against the pillows, then to the side, upright. The mattress dipped. The white sheet stuck to the back of my gray uniform where sweat had soaked through. Black trim at my collar felt tight against my throat.
I lifted the glass. My hands shook so bad the water tipped against the rim. I sipped. It was just water, cool and plain, but my stomach turned and then settled. I sipped again because I didn't know what else to do with my mouth. Getting dizzy in front of a guest was one thing. Waking up barefoot in his bed was something I didn't have a form for, didn't have cleaning steps for.
He watched me drink without blinking much. His eyes moved slow from my face to the glass and back, restrained in a way that made me more nervous, not less.
I stared at the water to avoid staring at him. My reflection broke into pieces on the surface every time my hands trembled.
"Why didn't you wake me last night?"
My voice came out smaller than I meant it to. I hadn't planned to ask it like an accusation. I meant it like a real question. If I was sick, if I got dizzy on shift, there was a protocol. Sit down in the laundry. Radio Marta. Log it. Nobody was supposed to end up here, under his white sheets, with the dark frame of his bed around us and the blue window light cutting across the floor and the warm lamp low in the corner.
He didn't answer right away. A pause stretched out long enough that I heard the icebox hum through the wall, or whatever rich people kept humming behind dark marble-patterned walls at night.
"You looked exhausted."
That was all he said. No explanation. No timeline. Just those three words, calm and serious, like that was supposed to close it.
It didn't close anything for me. Exhausted didn't explain my shoes missing or my cart or why my shift hadn't been covered. Exhausted didn't explain why he let a sick housekeeper sleep in his bed instead of calling the supervisor.
He pushed himself up then. The bed shifted with his weight. He stood in one smooth motion, putting distance between us, his bare feet quiet on the floor. He didn't come toward me. He walked two steps toward the door, not to open it, just to check it. His eyes flicked to the narrow clock glowing beside the door, then back to me. Like he was counting how long we had before this night turned into morning and someone else walked into it.
Standing made him look taller, more in control. I suddenly felt very small sitting there on the edge of his bed with my pants wrinkled and my hair pulled back and coming loose, holding his glass like a kid.
I had to prove I was still on duty. That was the only thought that stayed solid. If I talked about my job, maybe this would go back to being about my job.
"My shoes," I said. "Did I — where's my cart? Am I late for my floor?"
He stopped checking the door and looked at me again. For a second something moved across his face, not anger, not pity. Something held back.
"Drink," he said again, nodding at the glass. "Finish it before you stand."
I lifted it and drank because arguing would have taken air I didn't have. The water steadied my hands a fraction. I set my feet flat on the cold floor to ground myself, toes curling against it. I was upright now, on the edge of the bed, perched more than sitting, ready to move the second he told me to go.
I opened my mouth to ask again about my cart, about what time it was, about who else knew I was in here —
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From out in the house came a dull thud, then the soft roll of a door on its track down the hall.
We both froze and turned toward it.
