We had been driving for a couple of hours in a stifling hot car. The air conditioning had gone out about an hour and a half before we reached Port Falls. The road had been dusty, but the heat was worse, so we drove with the windows open. This was not how Caryn and I had envisioned our weekend escape from the city. However, we felt that once we reached our destination, the Port Falls Resort with it’s natural hot springs seemed like the ideal location, everything would get much better.
“Hey, why don’t you go get a drink?” I suggested to Caryn as I pulled into the hotel parking lot. Across the street was Mac’s Bar and Grill, which based from the loud music spilling out into the street and filled parking lot, appeared to be a pretty popular place.
“Are you sure?” Caryn asked. She handled the heat much worse than me and I knew she would be grateful to get out of the blistering heat and into some place cool.
“Sure,” I said. “Order me a margarita and I’ll be over as soon as I get our stuff in our room.”
Of course, when I tried to check in, our reservation had been misplaced and with a sales convention going on the only room they had available was the Panorama Suite, which I grudgingly accepted in place of a standard room. Wow, what a room! The western wall of the suite was almost entirely of glass, which looked out over a majestic view of the Cascade Mountains and the burning embers of the setting sun. To make up for their “mistake,” the hotel manager offered to pick up our in-room bar tab at the end of our stay. Taking the manager up on his offer, I fixed myself a cocktail and sat back on the bed to watch the last ray of the light dip past the mountain peaks before heading over to the bar to meet Caryn.
When I got to the bar, it was so packed that I had a hard time finding Caryn. The place was wild, like spring break in Cancun. Luckily Caryn found me and waved me over to a table, which she had been sharing with three other guys. “Neal, Leon, and Ryan, this is my husband, Tim.” Caryn said as we shook hands all around. After a few minutes of small talk, we discovered that Neal and Leon had graduated from the same college as Caryn and I and that we all had season football tickets. Soon, as our table became littered with empty glasses, we became like old friends.
“I hope you don’t mind us sharing a table.” Neal apologized after Caryn had excused herself to the ladies room. “We had been waiting for so long and nothing was opening up, we were just about ready to leave, when your wife offered to share her table with us.”
“No, that’s not a problem at all.” I assured him. “There was a foul up at the front desk, so it took me longer than I expected to get over here.”
“No kidding,” said Ryan with a tinge of disgust. “We’re here for a big sales training weekend and they have no where near the number of rooms available for what they need. We’re already doubled up with two other guys’ from the office and a quarter of our sales staff hasn’t even gotten into town yet.
“Yeah,” picked up Neal. “I heard they double booked two groups in here this weekend.” As Mike talked, I couldn’t help but notice Leon looking admiringly at Caryn who had paused on her way back from the restroom and was standing at the outer edge of the dance floor watching the couples swaying sensuously to the music. Caryn was wearing a short spaghetti strap dress that showed off her long tan legs. Standing where she was, with the lights from the stage behind her, a perfect backlight effect was created. The fabric of her dress might as well have been transparent as the curves of her body were perfectly visible inside the dress.
“Come on, dance with me,” Caryn said after returning to our table.
“Not me,” I groaned.
“Well, does anyone want to dance with me,” Caryn questioned in mock pout.
“I will,” blurted Leon too eagerly for my taste.
Caryn looked at me questioningly. “Sure, go ahead,” I said. “Have fun.”
I watched in admiration as Leon, worked the dance floor with Caryn. Leon was a very confident dancer seeming naturally to meld with the music. I, on the other hand, always felt so mechanical any time I tried to dance. “Whew,” sighed Ryan. “I guess it’s true what they say about black guys and dancing.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. Let’s just hope that Caryn doesn’t find out if anything else is true.”
“I don’t know about that,” laughed Neal. “Leon always seems to get what he wants when it comes to the women.”
When Caryn and Leon returned to the table, I suggested that instead of over paying for drinks at the bar, we could just return to our room and drink for free. “I’m always in favor of free drinks,” agreed Ryan.
Once back in the room, I began mixing drinks while Caryn went into the bedroom to find some discs that she had packed away. I noticed immediately that Leon had followed Caryn into the bedroom to help with the selection of the music. Their laughter echoed down the hallway. Neal, who had found a pack of cards in a desk drawer flopped onto the floor and started shuffling through the cards.
“How about playing some cards?” Neal suggested.
“Fine by me,” I said. “What do you want to play?”
“How about a friendly game of poker?” Suggested Neal. From the way he handled the cards, it was obvious that Neal was no stranger to poker – friendly or otherwise.
“I don’t know how to play poker,” said Caryn as she entered the living room with Leon trailing behind.
“Great. Then let’s play strip poker,” laughed Leon.
“I should have known that was coming,” Caryn said with a roll of her eyes. She took a sip of the drink that I offered and winced immediately. “Wow honey,” she said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re trying to get me drunk.”
