The Rebel of Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels #1)(111)

Mr. Black appeared beside me and leaned across the counter, taking something from the night manager’s hand: a long, scuffed, brass fob attached to a dangling key. On the brass fob: the number twenty-seven. “So you do have a room,” Mr. Black said, holding up the fob.

The night manager tore the cheap plastic poncho over his head, exposing a broad section of dimpled belly fat as his shirt rose up; he growled under his breath as he wadded up the waterproof poncho and tossed it into the overflowing trashcan behind him. Above his left shirt pocket, the name ‘Harold’ had been stitched in black thread.

Harold staggered a little as he turned to face Mr. Black. “I ain’t checked that key back into the system. So, no. It ain’t free.” He lunged to snatch the key back, but drunk as he was, he ended up grasping at thin air and nearly hitting the counter face-first. Mr. Black cleared his throat, flipping the key over in his hand.

“How much to expedite the process of securing this room from you, Harold?”

“Hey! I was here first. If anyone’s gonna bribe him for the room, it’s going to be me.” I was far more successful in wrenching the key from Mr. Black’s hand. The handsome stranger standing next to me didn’t see me coming, or maybe he didn’t expect me to hurl myself at him. Either way, I yanked the key from his grip and shoved it into my pocket, hurling a vicious look at him, just in case he was thinking about trying to get it back.

With the strangest expression on his face, he whispered a word that made my blood run hot and cold at the same time. “Hellcat.” His entire body pivoted to one side, away from me, as he curled a finger, motioning for Harold to lean in and speak with him. “I probably have way more money than her. What’s it gonna be, cowboy?”

Harold, clearly a little discombobulated, just frowned. “The room’s forty-nine ninety-nine for the night.”

Mr. Black smirked. “Yeah. But if you give it to me, I’ll pay you two hundred.”

God, what a bastard. “I’ll give you three hundred, Harold.”

Mr. Black huffed down his nose, his smirk now a full-blown smile. “Five hundred, Harold. And a box of Cuban cigars. The good kind, not the cheap shit you can buy at customs.”

Harold’s eyes had glazed over a while back. He didn’t seem to be taking any of this in. I grabbed hold of Mr. Black by the arm and tugged him forcefully away from the check in desk. “Look. You heard me on the phone just now. I have to get to my sister’s wedding in Fairhope by Saturday. If I let her down, I’ll break her damned heart. I’m the only member of family she’ll have at this stupid fucking ceremony. Now, please… I need to drive out of this dump first thing in the morning, and to do that I need to fucking sleep. Please! Just let me have the fucking room!”

“You know you say fuck a lot?” he whispered, leaning into me, as if imparting a piece of information I might not yet be aware of. His snowstorm eyes flashed at me, filled with amusement.

“Lady, what’s your name?” To my left, Harold scratched at his temple with the chewed end of a ballpoint pen. Oh, thank god. The guy had seen reason. I’d been the first person waiting for a room, so therefore I got it. Fair was fair. I breathed a sigh of relief, releasing my grip on Mr. Black’s arm.

“It’s Sera. Sera Lafferty.

Harold stuck out his tongue, his brow furrowing as his hand weaved toward what looked like a guest ledger. I risked a victorious sidelong smirk at Mr. Black, but I wasn’t rewarded by a look of dismay plastered across his face. The bastard was still smirking, himself.

“And you. What…?” Harold hiccupped. “What’s your name?”

“Felix Marcosa.”

Of course his name was fucking Felix Marcosa. It suited him down to the ground. What an asshole. Harold obviously agreed with me. He groaned, shook his head, and then scribbled something sideways in the ledger. “I entered you into our state-of-the-art database as Mr. and Mrs.…” Hiccup, “…Jones. Twenty-seven’s got two beds. Figure it out. Now…” He squinted at me and then at Felix, narrowing his eyes. “What did we agree? Three hundred from you,” he said, pointed at me. “And five hundred from you. Plus…a box of Cuban cigars.”

Felix Marcosa wasn’t smiling anymore.

But then again, neither was I.