Originally this was written as a small series of quickie gifts for a special friend. I intended for each part to be a small teasing build up to a main event. I'm not sure how quick the re-edit ended up being but I hope the feel of the tease was left intact. Hopefully this adventure is one you find enjoyable.
As always all characters are over 18 years old. This is just entertainment, don't do anything stupid because you read about made up people doing it too :) Enjoy
Shelby frowned trying not to be rude to the front desk clerk at the hotel, she hated when people treated others badly. She knew the girl checking people in at the hotel wasn't in charge she was just trying to do her job.
No matter how mad she was, Shelby tried to remind herself, this is a person you are dealing with. It is probably not her fault anyway, yelling at her will just ruin her day and won't make her want to help you. Plus, everyone will know you as "that crazy screaming bitch" for the rest of the visit. Be nice.
She'd known this family reunion thing was a bad idea from the very first time her parents mentioned it.
She loved her family. Her mom, her dad, even her somewhat narcissistic older brother. The four of them got along better than anyone else' family she knew of.
She loved going on vacation to beautiful places and she loved staying in nice hotels, but it was different when nothing was your choice and you had to try to make an entire family happy at once.
Their little foursome would've had a good time anywhere. In fact, they often had a great time right in the backyard of the house where Shelby and Spencer had grown up.
They liked to get together and have dinner as a family. They would play games or just shoot the breeze, but a family reunion apparently needed to be bigger than just a barbecue at the beach.
The entire family, including obscure relatives, had descended upon Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Seven days for "fun in the sun" family bonding activities. She just hoped she wouldn't have to see her great-uncle shirtless.
Shelby only agreed to come because it was the Bahamas and she knew it would keep her mom off her back. Her one stipulation was that she didn't have to deal with the planning. She just wanted to show up and enjoy.
When they'd originally planned this "once in a lifetime" trip she'd had a boyfriend. She couldn't wait to spend a week in Paradise drinking cocktails, taking in the sun, eating good food and staying up late screwing Michael's brains out while she spent a little bit of time with her relatives on the side.
Then everything changed. Michael had been a good boyfriend at the start but as time went on, things were less and less dreamy and more and more blah.
Michael was attractive, funny and attentive when they first started dating. She'd wanted him more than anyone she'd ever been with and they spent every second together.
Then it was less "let's go to dinner and you can choose the movie" and more "you can make me dinner and we'll watch this movie I've been dying to see on cable".
Shelby thought he was just settling into the relationship, but then she realized he had just become himself without the shiny, new, nice guy routine he'd used to attract her in the first place.
Michael was an okay guy but okay wasn't good enough for her. When X-box and Wolverine became his mistresses she thought it best if they parted ways. She liked him but wasn't willing to waste her time if something else better could be waiting for her.
Shelby had known that she was going on this vacation by herself which was fine by her. She had become an increasingly rare breed in her little group of friends, a single woman. More and more she knew people that were getting married and having babies but she was still just her.
She figured the timing of the break up was perfect. It would leave her free to have a little vacation fling. Maybe she'd meet a hot millionaire that would fall madly in love with her. They'd run away together to his giant mansion and live happily ever after.
Or she'd have a terrible, drunken hook-up fueled by too much rum with some frat boy on vacation with his buddies and regret the entire trip. She hoped for the first.
She'd been smart enough in college to avoid ending up on any "My Hot Ex-girlfriend" amateur porn sites and since she was an "adult" now, she figured she'd be able to avoid any self-involved tools and find a real man to have some fun with.
She was still young, but she knew what she wanted. She wasn't desperate and could handle herself if it came down to it.
The only problem with traveling and single-hood was that Shelby hated flying. Her vibrator wasn't a companion that could entertain her during a lay over or hold her hand when the plane bounced around with turbulence and she had to wrestle her bags all by herself.
Knowing she would be stuck on a plane by herself for hours had started her day off badly. Then there were all sorts of delays and she'd arrived hours later than scheduled.
She was tired, unwashed and sweltering in the humid, tropical heat. She was desperate to just get to her room and continue her mini-meltdown in air conditioned privacy.
Since she had arrived so late and hadn't been in charge of booking her own hotel room (thank you Aunt Barbara) things were already fucked up.
She had been in Paradise for only a couple of hours and was supposed to be relaxing and enjoying herself but those were two things that were obviously not on the menu for her.
The poor desk girl, Carla, was on the receiving end of Shelby's death glare while she tried to figure out exactly where the reservations went wrong.
"Umm, I think that, uh, well... I found your reservation ma'am. But, um, it looks like there was some sort of mistake.
I just started my shift, but the best I can tell is, uh, since you were, um, unfortunately, severely delayed, your room was given away," she said the last part quickly and then flinched away, clearly afraid she was going to be chewed out.
Shelby scowled darkly, rather infuriated. She didn't want to scream at the desk girl but she was thousands of miles from home, on a vacation she didn't even really want to be a part of and now she had nowhere to stay.
"So, what exactly happened?" Shelby asked, in an extremely strained voice.
"Uh, well it looks like your reservation got combined into one room with another member of your party.
We were extremely booked up and someone must have seen that the last names matched and thought the two separate reservations were a mistake.
When you didn't show up in time for check-in, they gave your room away."
