Again, But Better(30)



We’re on level twenty-seven now. I don’t know how long we’ve been doing this, but I can finally see out the window again. When Pilot loses the level, he takes notice of the change and suddenly sits up straight, breaking shoulder contact.

“Oh, man, we must be getting close!” He hands me back the iPod. My chest deflates a smidgen as his body heat leaves my arm.

“Yeah, that was fast,” I say, trying to sound casual and not at all distracted by romantic shoulder-contact nostalgia as I turn off my iPod and repack it in my bag.



* * *



A Parisian taxi drops us off outside a building that looks kind of like a run-down diner. It’s decorated with faded signs proclaiming it to be our hostel, so we head through the door. The inside looks like a diner too. To the left is a cafeteria-looking area, and ahead of us is a young girl in a red tank top standing behind a tall hostess-like desk, texting. To her left, Babe and a pale boy with dark hair are waiting for us on a bench.

“Hi!” Babe jumps up. “We’ve been down here for thirty minutes now. I figured you’d be arriving within the hour window, and since our phones are shoddy, I wanted to make sure we were here to meet you. We’ve just been hanging out, so you haven’t missed anything. I got the keys for our room and your room.”

I bring my roller bag to a stop behind me. “We have two rooms?” I ask, confused.

“Well, they didn’t have four beds available in one room, so we’re in one room, and you guys have two beds in the other room. I figured this way we both have guys in the room with us, so we’d feel safer about the random strangers,” she says coolly.

I swallow hard. Pilot and I don’t comment. This is weird. I wonder if there really isn’t a room available with four beds, or if this is a ploy to give Babe and Chad time by themselves. She hands me and Pilot keys.

“Come on, let’s go drop your things off and get some food—oh!” She turns, remembering Chad, who’s still sitting quietly behind her on the bench. “This is Chad. Chad, this is Shane and Pilot.”

Chad gets up. He’s a little shorter than Pilot—about five-nine with spiked-up dark hair, brown eyes, and a long straight nose. He stretches out his hand, so I shake it. “Yo, yo, nice to meet you,” he says.

I nod and smile.

“Nice to meet you, man,” Pilot says, taking Chad’s hand. I keep sneaking glances at Pilot to see how he’s gauging all this. He doesn’t look caught off guard or uncomfortable. He looks chill. I relax a little bit. If he’s not uncomfortable, I shouldn’t be uncomfortable. He’s the one with a girlfriend.

“You guys are on the sixth floor,” Babe explains as we follow her down a bland, gray corridor. We pass a shelf full of brochures and tourist maps. Pilot snatches a couple as we go by. The corridor leads to an elevator. We load in and press six. I stare at the other buttons; they’re different from the usual elevator. The ground floor is labeled zero and then there’s a negative one floor … and a negative two floor.

“Guys, look, floor negative two!” I laugh stupidly.

Babe snorts. “Oh my gosh, I didn’t even see that.”

“Must be where they store the dead bodies,” Chad adds. Babe laughs enthusiastically at his non-joke.

I exchange a look with Pilot, and his eyes go round with amusement. There’s a ding, and we file out into another dimly lit corridor, stopping outside a door labeled 62. It swings open to reveal a large room with six beds: all singles, with white sheets, spaced about a foot apart. It looks like an old-fashioned infirmary. Everything glows a greenish-yellow under the outdated overhead lights—the same kind we used to have in my elementary school classrooms. To the right of the door are a half a dozen blue lockers. It looks like gym class.

“Wow, cozy.” Pilot grins. He throws himself onto the bed nearest to the door, opens a map, and starts studying.

Babe and Chad linger near the door as I inspect the lockers.

“This is a little scary,” I start hesitantly. It doesn’t appear that anyone else is currently staying in the room, but I see that two of the lockers have locks on them.

“You guys have more beds in here than us,” Chad says. “We only have four.”

“Oh boy, more strangers for us.” I chuckle nervously and test out a locker.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” Pilot says, dropping the map down onto his lap.

Pilot and I don’t have locks.

Babe reads my mind. “They have locks you can buy downstairs! I got one for me and Chad to share. You guys can get one.”

“Cool, cool,” Pilot says, rolling off the bed. He hangs his backpack in one of the lockers, and I shove my carry-on into another.



* * *



After we sort out our lock situation, the four of us find a Chinese restaurant that’s still open and grab dinner. My chest feels tight as we head back to the hostel, and my pits are sweating up a storm.

We’re sharing a room and bathroom with random strangers who could be ice-pick killers. And I’m going to be sleeping in a bed a foot away from Pilot. What do I do about makeup? Do I sleep with my makeup on? I’m not ready to be makeup-less around Pilot. I’ve never been without makeup, close up, around a boy I like. I’m going to have to take it off when I know it’s dark and he can’t see me, and run to the bathroom in the morning to put it on before he wakes up.

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