Page 69 of Uninhibited
Whit:Cleveland. And not for a couple days.
The response is immediate, as though they’ve been holding their phones and waiting for my text.
Knox:The fuck are you doing in Cleveland?
Ty:A couple of days?
I can’t very well ignore them now, so even though my eyes can’t focus too well, I tap out a text.
Whit:Yeah, I’m gonna do some touristy shit. But classes don’t start for what? Two weeks? I’ll be home by then.
Booker:First it was a few days and now it’s a couple weeks?
Whit:Maybe. I never did get to ski. Look, I gotta run, but I’ll check in soon, ok? Love you assholes.
Booker:No. Not okay. You gotta run? Where are you running to in Cleveland?
I snap a picture of myself, bare chested in a hotel room with a bottle of booze on the pillow next to me.
Whit:Goodnight
They don’t text back after that. Or maybe they do. It’s hard to know because my ass passes out minutes after my head hits the pillow.
* * *
It’s notthe pounding that wakes me. I hear that, but my consciousness chooses to ignore it in favor of sleep.
But when my phone starts blaring about two inches from my left ear, I jolt awake and answer instinctively. “Yeah?”
“Open the damn door,” Ty’s growly voice rumbles over the line.
“The fuck?”
“Just open the door, Whit.” Booker’s voice is quieter, but no less tense.
Stumbling out of bed, I shuffle to the door. “Did you bitches get me strippers?” I mumble into the phone as I undo the lock.
“Hell, no,” Ty growls, his voice in stereo. I pull the door open and see him standing on the other side, with Booker right next to him. “I’m not stripping. It’s too damn cold.”
I just stand there with my mouth hanging open as they shoulder past me into the room. “How did you—”
“How did we get here? We flew, like normal people do,” Ty says, eyeing me. “As for how we got your room number, that’s easy. Golden boy over here pretended to be you. The lady at the front desk totally bought it. I told him Jesus doesn’t like liars, and I’m serious, Whit, for a second I thought he might flip me off.”
I laugh and shake my head. Booker and I don’t really look alike, but we could pass for brothers. He’s got an inch and twenty pounds of muscle on me, but we’ve got the same color hair and a pretty similar build. And this isn’t the first time he’s pretended to be me. One thing is for sure—that guy has had my back since we both learned to crawl.
It’s so good to see them, and something inside me aches to hug them both, but melancholy thoughts have been plaguing me the past few days, and nasty doubts start to creep in.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, leaning back in the bed while Ty takes the sofa and Booker spins around in the desk chair.
“Sorry for what?” Book asks, steadying himself.
“Sorry you had to come all this way just to drag my stupid ass home,” I shrug.
“Uh? You think this is some rescue mission? Because it’s not,” Ty says, shaking his head.
“Maybe he’s still drunk,” Book muses, grabbing the bottle from my bed and placing it on the desk.
“Look, we’re here because we want to be. In fact, Knox was set to come along, but Rosebud has an ear infection, so he stayed back.”
