Page 3 of A Series of Rooms
“We’ve only been out for an hour and you want to leave?” Nate said.
Would you have even fucking noticed?Liam wanted to shout back.
“I have a headache,” he lied.
“Don’t be a buzzkill,” Nate said. “We brought you all the way out here for your birthday, and you’re going to bail on us?”
The lights, the bass, the sweat, the damp cloth clinging to him—Liam was crawling out of his skin and ready to snap. “I haven’t seen you since we got here,” he yelled back, struggling to be heard over the music. “Just let me leave and you guys can hang without me, which was clearly the plan all along.”
Ben seemed to sober a bit at the accusation, almost looking genuinely hurt. “Come on. You know that’s not true. It’s easy to lose people in here. I lost Nate for a minute, too. It’s fine. We’re all good now.”
“Whatever.” Nathan put a hand up, digging into his pocket with the other. He flipped open his wallet and shoved the hotel key at Liam. “If he wants to be a little bitch about it, let him go.”
Liam reached for the key, but Nathan dropped it before he made contact, letting it clatter to the floor. He turned his attention back to the girl without sparing Liam a second glance. Ben looked away, pretending to be distracted by something across the room. Liam swallowed back his anger and hurt and dropped to a crouch. The card was sticky when he finally pulled it off the floor.
“Hey,” Ben called after him as Liam turned to leave. “Happy birthday.”
Liam forced himself to stay awake long enough to shower when he got back to the hotel. His stained shirt, mostly dry after the long walk, lay in a heap on the bathroom floor. His mood had already improved after rinsing off the grime of the bar bathroom and other people’s sweat, but the exhaustion lingered. It didn’t take long after his head hit the pillow for him to drift off.
When he woke, it was to the harsh overhead light and the ungraceful entrance of his friends. Ben was drinking something wrapped in a brown paper bag and stumbling into walls. A quick glance at the alarm clock told Liam it was a little after one in the morning. He had only gotten an hour of sleep.
“Rise and shine.” Nate pointed at him. “Night’s not over yet.”
Liam blinked at them, pulling the comforter closer to his chin. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on,” Ben echoed, “is we got you a birthday present.”
Something light and flat landed on Liam’s stomach. He peered down over the blanket and saw a hotel key card. “I don’t get it,” he said.
“It’s a surprise.”
“It’s a key to a room I’m already in, but thanks,” Liam countered.
“Check the room number,” Nate said, stealing the bottle from Ben’shand to take a swig.
Liam did as instructed, flipping the key around to see the number “336” scrawled at the top of the card. “That’s not our room number,” he observed.
“Oh, he’s quick.”
“I was sleeping.”
“And now,” Ben said, bouncing onto the bed and jostling him, “you’re awake.”
Liam—begrudgingly—sat up and lifted the key card. “What is this? You got me a different room?”
“We wanted to make it up to you,” Ben said. “We were assholes for losing you earlier, so take this as our apology.”
“You do understand how exiling me to a room by myself might not send the right message for that?”
“Who said you’d be by yourself?” Nathan said, smiling. “The room isn’t the surprise. It’s what’s waiting for you there.” He sounded very satisfied with himself, which had Liam tensing. It wouldn’t be the first time Liam was the butt of one of Nathan’s great ideas, and he was really not in the mood.
“Just tell me what it is.”
“That’s not how surprises work,” Ben chided. “Up you go.” He followed up by bodily shoving Liam until he rolled off the bed in a tangle of blankets.
“What is wrong with you?” Liam stumbled to his feet. “I just want to sleep.”
“There are beds in the other room,” Ben said.
