I was working my usual shift when I feel someone staring at me. My head pops up from the seating chart and I look around my immediate area. My gaze eventually lands on a man with piercing blue eyes at the entrance, somehow I know that he's my culprit.

He's surrounded by people but his gaze is firmly locked with mine. He's wearing a navy suit with a white shirt but he wears no tie to complete the outfit. His suit fits nicely on him and shows his muscular figure, not too tight but not too loose either. He's tanned and I can't help but wonder if he's tan all around or if it's just his face. He also has vividly grey hair but that only adds to his attractiveness. I'm not the only woman in the room to notice this man, I'm just the only one holding his gaze.

My fellow hostess nudges me aside to get a look at the floor chart.

"Phoebe? What are you looking at? We don't have time for you to be spaced out." Rachel snaps at me.

I know she's right but she doesn't see the fine piece of man until he's right in front of us. He speaks and his voice is like smooth bourbon. How do I know this? I have no idea.

"Party of 6, under the name Marceles." he's still looking right at me! Rachel can't seem to function properly now that she sees him, so I take up the slack.

I look through our computer system to find the name. I can feel the mans eyes traveling over every part of my body that isn't under the podium I'm standing behind.

"Right, here you are Mr. Marceles. You're a bit early for your reservation. Would you and your party care to wait at the bar?" I nearly purr at the man but instead I give him my pleasant hostess voice, the purr would be deemed as inappropriate.

"That will be sufficient." He motions for me to lead the way. I plaster a fake smile on my face and walk towards the bar. He doesn't say anything else but I can feel his presence. I sway a little more than usual just in case he's looking below the belt.

"Here you are. Your table will be ready in about 15 minutes. Is there anything else you all need?" One of his companions asks about the restroom and I point to its direction. "If that is all, I'll be taking my leave."

Before I can walk away I feel his hand on my arm. I turn around slowly and we're about a foot apart.

"Will you be showing us to our table?" I'm so close that I can smell his cologne. It's making it hard for me to think properly.

"Y-yes sir."

"Good." with that he lets go of my arm and walks back to his party.

I walk away a little confused but feeling hot. It's like I'm dressed with full blown snow gear in July. When I make it back to the podium Rachel is still staring towards the direction of Mr. Marceles along with half of the lobby. I give her a nudge with my elbow and we share a knowing look.

"Damn." She couldn't have summed it up better if she tried. We share a laugh and get back to work.

When the 15 minutes are almost up, Paisley lets me know to take the Marceles party to one of her free tables. I walk over and Marceles immediately looks down at his gold watch.

"Fifteen minutes on the dot, I like that." His voice comes out a bit deeper than before.

"Well we do aim for efficiency." I have to fight my flirtatious smile that wants to pop up. "If you all would please follow me, your table is ready." I lead them to a round table and address them all after they're seated. "Your waitress' name is Paisley. I'll be taking your drink orders and she'll bring them out to you." I got the standard sodas, mixed drinks, and one of the woman wanted another martini. When I got to Marceles though, he ordered a simple water with lemon.

"Come on Marceles! Live a little, the conference will be over before you know it!" One of the men in his party jested.

"Oh I'll have my fun, don't you worry about that." I can feel his gaze on me as I walk away.

No. No. No. You may be a walking sex symbol but I'm not here for your entertainment....

The rest of the evening goes by smoothly. I make excuses to go into the dining room just to get a glance at him and Rachel doesn't blame me.

~~

He's been here for three hours chatting with his companions. Slowly they dwindle down until about two are still there with him. Thirty minutes later both of his companions leave and he's sitting there by himself. I check his table as another thirty minutes pass by and he's looking at his phone perfectly content sitting alone. It's like he knows I'm there because he looks up and smiles at me. As 12:30 rolls around I make my way to his table. Paisley came up to me and told me that he wanted to speak to me specifically. She had no chance to even tell him that we were closing down before he interrupted her with his demand.

"Um, Mr. Marceles, it's 12:30 and we're shutting down. Would-" I sound nervous and it makes me even more embarrassed. He cuts me off and meets my eyes.

"I'll take the bill now." He says it so simply!

"Great! I'll have Pais-" Again I get cut off.

"No. I want you to bring me the check."

"I'll be right back." The tone in his voice gave me no wiggle room. Paisley hands the billfold over and I take his ticket to him even though that's not apart of my job description. "Here you go. Would you like anything else sir?"

He takes the little book, opens it, looks at the balance, pulls out his wallet, takes out a couple of hundred dollars, places them inside, closes the book, and hands it back to me. The process doesn't even take a minute.

"The change is for you." He stands up and puts his jacket on.

"I wasn't even your waitress....." My mouth is suddenly dry 1) because I really want to see him without clothes on in this second and 2) I know his bill was only $460 something yet he put like $700 in the book. No way was the service THAT good.

"I'll be seeing you around." He completely ignores what I've said and leaves. I'm motionless as I watch him leave the room.

I'm still in a state of shock but I still function properly. Regardless of that he said, I took two hundred out and tell Paisley he said that all of the tip was hers. I'm not THAT generous as to split the entirety with her.

When I get home I quickly take a shower and go to sleep. I traded shifts with Jennifer so now my shift is at 8am instead of 8pm. The switch suits us both perfectly, she can take her kid out and I don't have to deal with the Saturday night crowd. The only problem is that I'm not a morning person.....

~~~

I wake up at 5:25am and I almost throw my alarm clock across the room.

'Maybe I should place it across the room so that I'm calmer when I reach it.' I saw this video on Facebook that suggests doing that to actually get a person out of bed instead of constantly clicking snooze.

I wash up and brush my teeth in record time, then I work on my hair. I decided to leave it down but that meant I'd have to straighten it. Contrary to popular belief I'm not bi-racial. My skin is a deep caramel color and I own the fact that my hair is permed. I put my time in with natural hair before there were even products readily available for it, but as I went off to college I broke down and got a perm- it was the best thing ever for me to do.

Choosing an outfit was easy seeing as though it was my work clothes. I pick up my shirt from yesterday and remove the name tag from it. Once I'm presentable I make myself a bagel and sausage, I could just eat at work but the food tastes bland to me.  At 7:00am I'm ready to go. The bus only takes about 15 minutes to get me to work and it's always on time. I clock in promptly at 7:15 and I'm immediately put to work.

"Phoebe, take this tray up to the top floor- Suite 3." my manager tells me.

"That's not in my job description? That's housekeeping?" I pose my statements as questions because surely he knows this, for matter of fact he's the one who went over the specifics with me when I got hired!

"You were requested. You go. Don't forget to smile." That's it before I'm heading up the special elevator that will take me to the best suites in the hotel.

I've never been up to this level but I approve only of the suites facing west because then the sun doesn't enter the room until the afternoon. I knock on the door before I use the universal key card. I then poke my head into the little hallway leading to the living room area.

"Room service!" I yell into empty space. I'm pissed that I have to deliver food to this person. I'm not some pawn that people can just order around! I mean, I am but this still annoys me. I'm tempted to shove the cart down the hallway and watch it crash into the living room couch BUT I need this job to pay my bills.

When I get no response I knock louder and slowly walk into the suite until I'm out of the short hallway. The door to the bedroom on my left is closed so i walk the cart over to the table that's in front of the sliding glass doors that lead outside.

"Room service!" I yell again and walk back to the short hallway ready to leave, I cross my arms in impatience.

The bedroom door opens and I see the guy from last night naked, except for the towel wrapped around his waist. My arms drop like they don't have the energy to stay up anymore.

"Great! I'll just be a minute. Sit down." Then he walks back into his room and closes the door.

The man was muscular to the level of an Olympic swimmer. Everything was toned and tan on this man, he must spend a good amount of his time outside too. I sit down knowing I have no real choice in the matter, he could complain to my manager if I didn't follow his demands.

~

30 MINUTES LATER and I'm still waiting on this man to come out.

He finally walks out of his room a couple of minutes later wearing only grey sweatpants and he has nothing on his feet. 'It took him thirty minutes to put on some pants?'

"Oh sorry, have you been waiting long?" He says this with a smirk, this man knows damn well how long I've been waiting for him to get out of that room.

I stand up, ready to leave, but then he comes up to me and places his hands on my waist.

"Sit with me." He whispers. He cocks up one of his eyebrows up like he asked a question.

He's wearing the same cologne as last night and I can't seem to refuse. I nod my head and he leads me to the table. He sits in the chair across from me and starts pulling things off of the cart. He places a plate in front of me, I'm startled because I didn't even notice all the items on the cart, everything seemed to be in twos. By the time he's done we both have the same things in front of us.

"Eat." Another command from him.

"I've already eaten."

"Are you lying to me?" His eyebrow goes back up. I can tell that he'll be pissed if I was lying and for some reason I want to see what he'll do. I don't take the bait though. *Sighs.

"No. I had a bagel with sausage."

He laughs. "That's not a proper breakfast. Eat." He motions his fork towards my food and then he tears into his own.

I don't want to start anything so I pick up my fork and slowly start eating. The food is still pretty warm considering the fact that its been sitting for thirty plus minutes. I finish all I can before I clear my throat and clean up my area. Hes already finished his breakfast but was drinking his juice, so he puts it down and settles back into his chair waiting for me to speak.

"Um, thank you for breakfast and your tip last night. It was very generous of you, um.... I should get going now?" I hate that he makes me so nervous. I hate that his eyes make my legs shake. I hate the fact that he doesn't have on a shirt dammit!

"What are you doing this weekend?"

"Um nothing?" WHY DO I KEEP ASKING HIM QUESTIONS!? I swear, I need to get a grip on myself.

"I need a companion this weekend. Would you be interested in that? Of course I'll pay for your time." I open my mouth to curse, "No sex is required of you." My mouth shuts closed.

"What would you want to do?" The first question I had was actually asking how much money but that would seem a bit low class so I ask my follow up.

He smiles like he knows. "I'll pay you two grand up front. What will we do? That depends entirely up to you, i just want your company." Then his eyes slowly trail up and down my body like he can see through the clothes. I stop myself from fidgeting under his gaze.

"What if all I want to do is my homework?" I decide to challenge him.

"Then you can do your homework and I get to see your home." He accepts my challenge but adds his own. No way in hell is this man coming into my apartment. 

"There's this local club that opened up not too far from here, we can go but we may have to wait in line." I don't even like clubs but it's something to do that's public.

"What's the name?" He doesn't seem excited about the idea but he also doesn't outright dismiss it.

"It's called Prism."

"Okay." He suddenly stands and walks into his room. A couple of minutes later he comes out and hands me a check. "I'm giving you the money up front to form a sort of trust between us. Of course you can cash the check and run away but I get the feeling that you're an honorable person. What time do you get off?"

I take the check, it suddenly hits me that all of this is real. I actually just agreed to be this mans sort of escort.

"Uhhh," I clear my throat, "I get off after the lunch rush."

"I will meet you in front of the hotel around 7:30. We'll get dinner and then head out to the club." He leans down, kisses my cheek, and then walks back into his room closing the door. I have a feeling that he isn't coming back out for a while.

I stare at the door for a couple more minutes until I just leave with the check folded up in my pocket.

'What the hell did I just agree to?'

W2683