“Me too,” she said softly. “That’s what I meant when I said I have no regrets about it.” A pause, and then: “Do you?”
“Regret is a strong word,” he told her. “I feel guilty for what we did, conflicted. I cheated on Laura, the woman I plan to ask to marry me.”
“You did,” she said. “And I was the one you cheated with. Laura is my friend, one of my best friends, as a matter of fact. Will I ever be able to look her in the eye again? Will I ever be able to be in the same room with her, to watch the two of you together, without feeling horribly guilty about this betrayal?” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“I feel the same about Greg,” Jake said. “Assuming the two of you survive the events that brought us to this moment in time, how am I going to feel when we go play golf together? When we go out to the bar for a few drinks? Am I going to be able to live with the fact that I had sex with his wife in a Portland hotel room?”
She sighed. “I think the very fact that we’re worried about something like that speaks a little about our underlying morality, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Jake said bitterly. “We’re not moral enough to stay out of bed together, but we’re moral enough to at least feel guilty about it.”
She frowned. “That’s not nice, Jake,” she said.
“No, not nice ... but it’s the truth.”
“I suppose,” she said.
They lay in silence for a few minutes, both of them looking up at the ceiling, as if the answers to all the questions of life could be found up there. It was Jake who finally broke the silence.
“We can never do this again,” he said.
She nodded. “A true pity if there ever was one, but you’re right. One time has to cover it all.”
“It was actually four times,” he reminded her.
She giggled. “You know what I mean,” she said. “From this moment on, no more. We can hug each other like friends, maybe even steal a quick, platonic kiss here and there when the occasion seems right, but nothing else, no matter how tempted we are, no matter what kind of circumstances conspire to give us an opportunity.”
“Agreed,” he said. “And we never speak of this. Not to anyone else in the world, certainly, but also not to each other. Not even when we’re alone together somewhere and no one else can hear what we say. We keep the memories, lock them away, treasure them, and that’s as far as this goes.”
She nodded solemnly. “I think that would be for the best.”
Jake left the bedroom shortly afterward, heading to the other bathroom to take a much-needed shower and freshen up. He winced as the water hit his member. It was raw and abraded in a few places secondary to the action it had participated in. It was a good hurt though—as good as any hurt could possibly be.
When he emerged back into the sitting room, dressed in clean clothes now and feeling human once again, he found Celia clean and sweet smelling and dressed in one of her new outfits as well.
“Good morning,” he greeted, as if he had not just spent the night with her.
“Buenos dias,” she returned, as if she had not just spent the night with him. “How did you sleep?”
“Pretty good,” he said. “I had a rather pleasant dream.”
She smiled. “Me too,” she told him.
The shades covering the window were now open and he saw that the storm of last night had passed and the sun was now shining brightly. The city, however, was still covered in a blanket of fresh snow. There was very little traffic moving about on the streets, especially considering it was now a workday.
Jake’s mind made note of this but he did not think too heavily about it. Instead, he called the concierge’s desk on the room phone and asked him if he could arrange a private flight for two passengers from either PDX or Hillsboro to North Bend Municipal.
“Absolutely, sir,” the man promised. “I’ll call you back as soon as have the information. How will you be paying for this flight, sir?”
“My credit card,” Jake told him. “Can I give you the number?”
“That would make the booking easier, sir.”
Jake read off the number and then hung up. He then turned to Celia. “Should we order up some breakfast?”
“Breakfast sounds wonderful,” Celia said. “I am famished.”
“Yeah, me too. Do you want to look at the menu?”
She did. She came and sat next to him at the writing desk and they began perusing the breakfast menu together. Before they could even begin to make a decision, the room phone began to ring insistently.
“Wow, that was fast,” Jake remarked, picking it up. “Jake Kingsley here.”
“Mr. Kingsley,” said the voice of the concierge, “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”
“You do?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” he said. “All of the Portland area airports have been shut down today because of the storm. There are no flights, commercial or private, leaving until tomorrow morning at least.”
“You’re kidding me,” Jake said. “The storm is over. The sun is out now.”
“Well ... yes,” the concierge said apologetically, “but the snow is still on the ground, and there is apparently ice on the runways.”
“Why don’t they remove it?” Jake asked, exasperated. “I’ve flown out of Chicago and New York in the middle of storms like last night before.”
“Such storms are routine in Chicago and New York, sir. Here in Portland, however, they’re a bit of an unusual occurrence. Our airports are not equipped to deal with snow and ice on the runways because it doesn’t happen very often.”
“Well ... that kind of bites,” Jake said.
“Again, I am sorry about this, sir.”
“It’s not your fault,” Jake assured him. “What about other airports? Eugene maybe? That’s only a hundred or so miles south. We could drive down there in a couple of hours.”
“Eugene was hit by the same storm and is likely in the same situation,” the concierge told him. “But even if it hadn’t been, you would probably have a hard time getting there. You see, Interstate 5 has been shut down in several places as well due to black ice.”
“They shut it down because of black ice?” Jake asked. “Are you serious?”
“I am quite serious, sir,” he assured him. “I’m afraid you’re probably stuck here for another day.”
“Well ... shit,” Jake said.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said again.
“That’s okay,” Jake assured him once again. “You’re not to blame for the black ice either.” He looked over at Celia, who had a puzzled look on her face. He took the phone away from his mouth for a moment. “We’re stuck here,” he told her. “The airports are closed because of snow and the highway south of Portland is shut down because of black ice.”
Her look of puzzlement increased, as if she was not quite catching his meaning. “So ... we have to stay another night?”
“Yeah, looks like it,” he said. “You cool with that?”
“I guess I’ll have to be,” she said.
Jake put the phone back to his mouth. “All right,” he told the concierge. “I guess we’ll be staying. Can we get this room for another night?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Kingsley,” he assured him. “No one has reserved it for today.”
“Excellent,” he said, and then glanced at Celia again. “And ... uh ... what are the odds of getting another room as well? You know? So we each have our own?”
The apologetic tone returned in an instant. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kingsley,” he said, “but we remain otherwise booked up. The Festival of Lights is still ongoing, and it is Christmas week.”
“That’s okay,” Jake told him. “Thought I’d give it a shot. Go ahead and book it.”
“Shall I put it on Ms. Valdez’s credit card like before?”
“No, put it on mine,” Jake said. “I’m the dumb-ass who crashed his plane into a bird during the Festival of Lights while a storm was moving in.”
“Yes ... that’s very unfortunate, sir,” the concierge told him.