Enough Noise

Trent

I walked through the grand lobby of my hotel, smiling and nodding at the guests. The doorman opened the door for me, and my car was waiting. I got into the backseat, still smiling and looking like the well put together man I was supposed to be.

“Home, sir?” Bentley asked from the driver’s seat.

“Yes, please,” I murmured, rubbing my right knee. The damn thing had been acting up again. I hated letting anyone know I was in pain.

“Doing those exercises?” Bentley asked, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror.

I considered lying but knew he would know better. “No.”

He shook his head. “Man, you know you need to do the exercises.”

“I know. I will. It’s just been kind of a busy few weeks.”

I hated complaining to someone like Bentley. I rubbed the knee again before leaning back against the headrest. I looked out the window, watching the tourists roll their luggage, wrangle kids, and take pictures, all at the same time. I liked living in a town where people loved to visit. It made me feel lucky to be alive.

With the choice to live anywhere I wanted, I chose Lake Tahoe. I made it my home, and I hoped, through the businesses I was running, I could make it a little better place for people to visit and the people that lived there.

The car pulled through the gated entry, driving past the palm trees lining the circular driveway to my house on the lake. He parked and jumped out, running around to open my back door.

I shook my head as I got out. “I’ve told you I hate when you do that.”

He grinned, giving me a wink. “Which is exactly why I do it, Guvnor,” he said in a horrible British accent.

I used my left hand to shake his left hand—his only hand. The prosthetic right hand looked real enough and functioned well enough, but he’d told me long ago, he wanted a real handshake, and that meant using our left hands. It worked for me.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” I said and headed up the walk.

I walked inside and waited for it. It took about ten seconds before I heard the nails on the marble floors. “Come here girl!” I shouted, knowing she was making her way to the foyer via the doggie door.

She rounded the corner in a full gallop. Her ears bounced and her tongue lolled to the side as she ran. I dropped to my knees, waiting for her to maul me with her tongue. The beautiful brown boxer leaped at me, nearly knocking me on my back with all of her eighty pounds.

“Hey girl, how’s my sweet girl?” I asked, rubbing her ears and happily accepting her exuberant kisses over my cheeks, eyes, nose, and wherever else her tongue could reach.

She barked once. In my mind, she was talking to me. I gave her a good belly rub as she rolled to her back. “Good girl, Leia. Did you have a good day?”

I spent a few minutes with her before very slowly getting back on my feet and heading into the kitchen. I was hungry but had no inclination to go out anywhere. I knew I should go out, shake hands, advertise the hotel, and be a man about town, but I really liked being home.

Richie couldn’t understand it, but I liked the peacefulness of sitting on the patio with my dog, watching the gorgeous sunsets. I didn’t need noise. I’d had enough noise in my lifetime.

Richie was the type who liked chaos and noise and people. I used to before I joined the Army. The Army changed me. It was why I’d joined. I needed the changing. That was for damn sure. I pushed the thoughts to the back of my mind. I didn’t like revisiting those years any more than necessary.

“Should we order some dinner?” I asked Leia, who was walking alongside me.

Her answer was to wag her tiny cropped tail. I pulled out my phone, hit my food app, and quickly scanned through the regular options.

“Chinese, it is,” I said, quickly pushing the buttons to order before putting the phone on the counter and grabbing a cold Heineken from the fridge.

Leia knew the drill. She ran through her doggie door and was waiting for me on the patio. I sat down in one of the deck chairs and looked at her. Her tongue was hanging with what could only be described as a smile on her face as she waited for me to give her the go ahead.

“All right, up,” I said.

She leaped into the chair beside me and turned around a couple of times before dropping down on the nominal free space in the chair. She was the biggest lap dog.

I rested my head against the chair, staring out at the water. I idly rubbed her head with one hand, the beer in the other. It was my idea of a good time. I didn’t need the clubs or the women. I just needed a good woman, who happened to love dogs and appreciated a quiet night with nothing more than the lapping of the lake for music.

I reasoned it was wise to stay in for the night. There would be plenty of late nights ahead as I worked the crowds over the coming months. I needed to recharge. I had been working around the clock for over a month getting everything ready, crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s. There was no room for error.

I wanted everything to be perfect, not just because it was good business, but because I wanted people to have a good time. They were spending their hard-earned money at my hotel. It gave me a great deal of pride to know they chose my place over all the others.

Or my place was the only one they could get a reservation at. Either way, I wanted them to keep coming back.

I wanted them to look back on the vacation to Tahoe and think it was better because of where they had stayed.