The other man was wearing board shorts and a tank, with hiking shoes on his feet. He was also wearing sunglasses, and he was smiling broadly as he made his way down the hall. Obviously excited. He was quite a bit shorter than Tal, but he was very wiry, and Tal remembered Mischa telling him her husband was a marathon runner, had gone to the University of Michigan on a track-and-field scholarship. It showed.
“Hey,” Michael said as he passed, smiling and giving a head nod.
“Ciao,” Tal replied in a low voice, nodding his head as well. He could be polite to the other man, had no reason to be rude at all.
Fucker.
They passed each other without saying anything else. Just barely brushed arms.
Mischa had once told Tal that when she was with him, she felt like time would stop. Like they were in another realm, another dimension, something. “A timeless existence”, she'd called it. He'd written it off as romantic notions from a lonely woman experiencing passion, real passion, for the first time.
But now Tal understood, because that was exactly how he felt. As he turned to face the elevator, he could still see Michael out of the corner of his eye. Could watch as the other man knocked on the door, could see that door open, and had to witness as Michael immediately pulled Mischa into his arms. Wrapped her in a hug and picked her up off the ground.
Picked Tal's woman up and touched her body.
Except she's not yours. Not completely. Not yet.
Tal went down to the lobby and seated himself in a cushioned chair. Clenched and unclenched his fists. He and Mischa had come up with a plan, and originally, Tal would have left in an hour or two anyway. He'd booked a room at a different hotel. They figured it was safer that way, in case something happened and Mike refused to leave. Mischa absolutely did not want the two men meeting. It would be bad enough hurting Mike; she didn't wanna rub Tal in his face, and she didn't trust herself or Tal to keep away from each other if they were in the same hotel.
But Tal couldn't leave. Not yet. He kept his sunglasses on and picked up a newspaper. Read it forwards and backwards. Kept glancing at the elevator.
What are they doing up there!?
The problem with existing in Mischa's “timeless place” – fifteen minutes felt like an eternity, but that was all the time that elapsed between Tal leaving her floor, and the couple entering the lobby. He peered over the top of the newspaper, watching them pass in front of him.
He wondered how Michael could be so clueless. It would have been obvious to anyone with eyes and a brain that there was some sort of problem between the two. Michael strode across the lobby, all eager and excited to hit the town, almost marching in his haste to make it outside.
Mischa moved much slower, more languidly, and she didn't look excited at all. She looked somewhere between annoyed and going-to-her-own-funeral. She had a fedora shoved down low on her head, covering hair that looked damp, and she wore a large pair of sunglasses. Her dress was long and simple enough, but the thin material clung to her curves, and she held it up and away from her feet as she walked. So graceful. So beautiful. So out of place with the other man.
They don't even look like they're together. At all. Just two strangers who shared an elevator. That poor man. That poor girl.
~Well, I Didn't See That Coming~
Mischa glanced at her cell phone, then glanced at her husband. Jet lag had knocked him out, like a baby. He was even still wearing his clothes, stretched out on top of the covers, snoring away.
She chewed on her bottom lip, debated whether or not to answer the incoming call, then grabbed the phone and tiptoed across the suite. She slowly opened the door, wincing at how loud it sounded. But when she glanced at the bed, Mike was still out cold. She slid out of the room and eased the door shut.
It was an all out dash after that; she ran to the other end of the hall, answering the phone as she went.
“Hello?” she panted, stopping when she got to a wall.
“What the fuck is going on?” Tal demanded. She grimaced. He sounded pissed.
“Nothing, I just snuck out of the room,” she whispered, pacing back and forth, staring at the door she'd just left.
“You wouldn't have to sneak out if he wasn't there,” Tal snapped.
“I know, I know,” she groaned.
“What the fuck happened to the plan!?”
“It's still the plan!” she snapped back. “It's just … delayed, alright!?”
“No! No, not fucking alright! Grow a backbone, Mischa!”
“Hey! I'm trying! This is hard for me, and you're not exactly making it any fucking easier!” she hissed.
“Well, excuse me, but I'm already very aware of how shitty you are at dealing with difficult situations. Why is he still there?” Tal asked. She chose to ignore his “shitty” comment.
“Because, I didn't get a chance to say anything yet,” she started. She could hear him take a breath, a big one, probably so he could yell at her, and she barreled right through him. “He wanted to see all these touristy sights, and I couldn't exactly dump him at the Grotta di Fornillo, knee deep in tourists!”
“Did you spend all fucking day there?” Tal's voice was snide.
“No, but we did go just about everywhere else. The man can walk for days, Tal. I had to beg for lunch. Then he wanted to fill me in on everything that's gone on at home – everything I've missed out on because I was avoiding his phones calls for somebody else,” she threw back at him. If he was going to make her feel like shit, then he should feel that way, too.