She had textbooks scattered about, but she was messing around on her phone when he walked in. She looked up, startled, like she had been busted doing something she wasn’t supposed to do on the clock.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a young, feminine, pleasant voice that matched her cute appearance as she tucked a flyaway piece of hair behind her right ear. She had golden blonde hair, emerald green eyes, and just enough makeup to highlight her sexy cheek bones.
“Yes, hopefully. I think I am supposed to have a reservation until Thursday, but the way my day has been going, you probably lost it.”
“Name?” she asked, still sounding upbeat and desirable. He probably shouldn’t take the cold, snow, ice and flat tire he had out on this cute girl who was probably just trying to make ends meet while in college.
“Jason Bennett. Sorry I was cranky. It has been a long day, and all I want is a hot shower and will even settle for a cold meal at this point.”
“Ah, yes, I found it, and you have one king bed until Friday, checkout at 11 AM, breakfast is served from 6 to 9. But if the weather gets as bad as they say, it might only be fruit and cold cereal if the cook can’t make it in.
“Sounds fine, I should only need it until Thursday, but I will keep the extra night just in case,” and looking at her name tag, “Stacie. Thank you. And once again, I apologize for earlier. Can you recommend a place to eat that is open on a Sunday night?”
“This town buttons up pretty tight on Sunday, but Luigi’s Lounge is still open. The pizza is good. Anything in particular I can order for you?”
“Anything that is cheesy and meaty,” Jason said, feeling better about the day and upcoming week. He had been wound pretty tight while white-knuckle driving at about 25 miles per hour on the interstate for the last several hours. Luckily his tire blew right before the rest area so he could pull off right away and change the tire in relative safety. But that meant he had to get a new tire put on his car sometime this week. Just one more burden to deal with.
I’ll see what I can do. Come back down in half an hour,” Stacie responded.
*********************
Half an hour later Jason came down, freshly showered and in clean clothes. He felt hungry but relaxed. Just as he entered the lobby and dining room, a man came in and dropped a pizza off at the counter with Stacie. The pizza smelled good, but it replaced the smell of flowers or perfume he smelled while at the front counter earlier. He really had enjoyed the smell the young beauty gave off.
She grabbed two paper plates and two packs of packaged plastic silverware and said, “Hope you don’t mind sharing a meal with me. It’s a variety, but the price is right.”
“Sounds good, and smells delicious. How much do I owe you?” Jason asked.
“It was free. Leftover from the Sunday evening buffet so they sent it over. I tend to send a lot of business their way.”
They ate and talked, and since no other travelers came in, they ate uninterrupted for over two hours. She found out he was a high school teacher in Springfield, but wanted to teach at the college level. He found out she had been an Army brat and missed going to the Air Force Academy, settled on community college, and will graduate with an associate’s degree in science and was next going to George Washington University in Springfield next fall to become a physical therapist.
“Thanks for the pizza, and thanks for being kind to a weary traveler,” Jason said, and he stood up as she left. He went to shake her hand, but she went in for a hug, and they awkwardly and clumsily embraced.
Both felt the sparks.
“No problem. I will be here Tuesday and Wednesday again. Maybe we can eat another meal?” Stacie said.
“Sounds like a date,” he said, then regretted it. The 19 year old Stacie was way out of the 25 year old Jason’s league.
*************************
The next morning Jason awoke, showered and dressed for his class. He had two days of physical therapy training to finish off that part of his endorsement, and then was going to wrap up with two days of advanced referee training so he could officiate college ball along with high school basketball. For a single teacher, coaching and officiating various sports kept him out of trouble and added some extra pay to his wallet. He was hoping to add these endorsements to his resume and maybe trade up high school pay for college level pay. Unfortunately, this class was out of his own pocket over his school’s spring break, and this late March winter storm had everything screwed up. Hopefully he would finish his classes and not have any cancellations before his real job started up next week, otherwise he was out $1000 for training. Hopefully, just maybe, this week would be well worth it...
A few hours later when he was on his mid-morning 10 minute break, staring blankly at the billboard on the wall, not even noticing he was looking at nursing job postings and places to go for birth control, he heard a bang and an exasperated female voice cry out, “Oh! Nooooo!”
He snapped out of his trance and looked towards the sound of the commotion, he saw a sexy figure in a long skirt and stockings bent over trying to pick up the contents of the box she had been carrying before the bottom opened up.
“Ma’am, let me help you,” he said. Then he realized the sexy figure was Stacie, and he gasped. “Stacie! Sorry I didn’t see you there. Let me...”
“Thank you, Weary Traveler. How is your class going?”
They talked briefly as he helped her box up her contents, and she opened the classroom door as he carried the box in. Just as he was walking out the door, he spun around, and blurted out, “Hey, wanna get dinner with me again tonight?”
“Meet me at Luigi’s at 6pm. It’s the pasta bar special tonight,” she said. Jason didn’t know it last night, but Luigi’s was the restaurant and bar attached to the hotel. Maybe a drink last night would have allowed him to relax.
“It’s a date,” he said, this time confident in his use of the word “date”.
Unlike his casual supper last night, for tonight’s “date” Jason dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt with no tie. He looked masculine and casual all at the same time. He looked good, felt confident, and radiated manliness.
Stacie wore glasses that highlighted her eyes and a shorter skirt than when he saw her on campus. She had shapely legs and her cleavage was evident beneath the red sweater. She looked absolutely stunning, and felt ladylike, more grown up. For Jason, the best part was that she appeared to be one of those rare beauties who did not know how beautiful she was. Sexy in her innocence.
Stacie melted when she saw Jason and hoped that one day a man like Jason would look at her the way she was looking at him. She thought he was perhaps the manliest gentleman she had ever laid eyes on. There was no way this slightly older man would ever look at some young, bland girl like her, she thought. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t dream.
While they were eating, her phone went off, and she resisted to look at it, then frowned. “Oh, no...”
“Was that your roommate texting you with your escape?” He asked, partly scared that was the case, but trying to be light hearted. Then he got an alert on his phone, and saw the same message she saw.
“Campus is closed tomorrow due to the ice storm,” she read.
“That bites,” he said. “I would love the chance to stick around here another day or two,” he paused, and looked into her beautiful eyes, “but I hope I can still finish all of my training.”
“W-why do you want to...stick around?” Stacie breathed, hope, desire and the glimmer of an opportunity in her voice.
“Because I have had the two best meals of my life the last two days,” Jason said with all of the same emotions that Stacie felt.
“I suppose for an Irishman calling himself ‘Luigi’, he’s not a bad cook,” she said. She subconsciously licked her lips and knew deep down inside her heart that this man of her dreams was talking about her, yet her mind just kept telling her, “He isn’t into me, he can’t be, I’m still a 19 year old kid. “
“I don’t remember a thing about the food, only the company I had,” he replied. With that, he dropped $50 on the table, stood up, held out his hand for Stacie- which she gladly accepted and he helped her out of her chair. As they walked arm in arm past the bar he laid another $20 down and grabbed a bottle of wine on their way up to his room. She was only 19- not old enough to legally drink, and neither one was going to need alcohol to make this happen anyway, but something about a bottle of wine would make the whole thing all the more romantic.
They walked arm in arm to the elevator and both waited nervously for it to make it to the ground floor. When they heard the “ding” of the bell announcing its arrival, they stepped back involuntarily in case some passenger barged off, and when none did, they both stepped inside just before the doors closed.