The stop at McDonald’s was the worst time in his life, Nick decided. All he wanted to do was find his bed and curl up into a ball and sleep the rest of the tour away. He had planned on getting only a chocolate milkshake when they stopped, but Lou had seen to it that Nick ate a Big Mac, extra large fries and a huge coke along with an apple pie.
Now the food was sitting like a greasy ball ontop of his stomach.
He fumbled with his room card a few times before finally getting it syncronized with the lock. The room looked inviting to him, and he didn’t even bother to undress, he just flopped his body down ontop of the comforter.
It didn’t take him long to start drifting off to the sleep he had been craving when there was incessant pounding on his door. Pulling a pillow over his head, Nick groaned, hoping that it was the door across the hall and not his.
”Wakey, wakey Kaos, let me in!”
Rolling over, Nick took the pillow and pulled it over his head, trying to block out AJ’s knocking. The night had seemed to pass by so quickly and he didn’t feel rested at all!
The knocking persisted. “C’mon Nick, I know you’re still up, let me in!”
Nick’s eyes flew open when he heard the words ’still up’. He turned his head to look at the digital clock on the nightstand.
”Jay......go away, I wanna sleep!”
”Let us in!”
Upon hearing AJ begging to be let in, Nick groaned, dragging his body out of bed. Pulling the door open, he started to complain to AJ about him bothering him when he didn’t feel good but stopped short when he saw AJ standing in the doorway with a girl.
“It’s about time,” AJ grumbled, pushing Nick against the door as they walked in.
Nick clenched his jaw as he watched AJ filed past him, along with his ‘flavor of the night.’
“Please, I’m really not feeling so great...... I wanna to sleep, do you mind?”
AJ adjusted his trademark sunglasses, lowering them to look over the top. “I don’t mind, you can just go down to my room and sleep away. We’d like some privacy anyway.”
“What’s wrong with your room?”
“Howie’s in it for starters.”
“Why don’t you just kick Howie out then? Why me?”
“Because Howie has a girl with him and I didn’t care to ruin his time.”
“So what makes you think he’s gonna want me in his room?”
AJ started pushing Nick out the door. “Because it’s his turn to babysit your ass. See ya later!”
Nick tried to catch the door before it slammed shut, but he was too late. He started pounding on the door but it aparently was falling on deaf ears. At least it was AJ that was deaf, not the other hotel patrons that were next to his room and the room across the hall.
He smiled sheepishly at the shocked and angry faces that appeared in the open doors. “Sorry..... I-I um, lost my room key,” Nick quietly apologized.
Reaching up with his fist to knock on the door once more, Nick stopped when he heard the girl’s laughter. He knew that once again he was kicked out of his room for AJ’s night of lust. Sadly, he turned away and trudged down the hall toward Howie’s room, inwardly praying that AJ was lying about Howie having a girl in their room.
Standing outside room number 1412, Nick raised his hand to knock on the door but once again stopped suddenly when he heard Howie and a girl laughing. Resting his head against the door, Nick mumbled, “All I want to do is get some sleep.”
Running a hand through his hair, he turned away from the room knowing that he wouldn’t be welcome in there either. He decided he had no other choice but to go and try to see if Brian and Kevin would let him in their room.
He knocked quietly on the door at first, scared to catch Kevin’s wrath if he got woke up but after there was no answer, he cleared his throat and knocked again. “Bri? Are you awake?”
After a few moments, the door creaked opened and Brian’s tired face appeared. “What’s wrong now?”
“I got kicked out of my room. Can I come in?”
“You got kicked out of your room?”
“Yeah AJ has some girl with him and he kicked me out.”
“Why don’t you go and sleep in Howie’s room then?”
Nick sighed. “He has a girl in his room too.”
”Brian? Who is at the goddamn door now?”
Brian rolled his eyes, opening the door wider. “It’s Nick, he needs to sleep in here tonight.”
“Why?”
“I’m sorry Kevin....I got kicked out by AJ. I’ll be really quiet, you won’t even know I’m in here.”
“You got that right. You can sleep in Brian’s bed, not mine!”
“I’ll go someplace else, I don’t want to put anyone out,” Nick mumbled as he edged his way out into the hall.
Brian reached out and jerked Nick back into the room by his arm. “Don’t be stupid....where else can you go?”
Reluctantly, Nick laid down in the bed next to Brian, trying to find a comfortable spot as quietly as he could.
Instead of the alarm clock buzzing, Nick jerked awake by the sudden spray of ice cold water to his face. Sputtering, he quickly sat up. “What the hell was that for?”
“Can’t you smell it?” Kevin spat as he towered over the bed.
“Smell what?”
“You were farting like some goddamn barn animal. I’d be surprized if Brian doesn’t wind up with brain damage from that infernal smell!”
“That doesn’t give you a reason to throw water at me,” Nick protested, wiping his face with a corner of a bedsheet.
“I think it does. My room, my rules.”
“God, someone didn’t wake up very happy this morning,” Nick mumbled as he pulled the blankets off his body.
“Neither one of us slept at all,” Brian grumbled in a tired voice.
“Yeah, you were either snoring or hacking up a lung all damn night long,” Kevin pointed out.
“And the smells weren’t the best either. I have never heard you fart so much in my life.....ever.”
“I’m sick.”
“That’s always your excuse Nick, it’s getting old. Grow up for a change, okay?” Kevin hissed. “You better go down to your room and clean up, we’re due for a breakfast conference in an hour.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ll have to go anyway, like it or not.”
As Nick started walking toward the door, Kevin stopped him. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you a question about something I found the other day.”
Nick stopped and turned to face his older brother. “Yeah?”
“I found some pills on the floor in your room, I think they fell out of your pocket.”
Nick could feel the hair on his neck prickle. He had forgotten about the diet pills that Lou had ordered him to take when he was pressing him to loose weight.
“I was wondering, what are they?”
Afraid that Lou would know if he said anything about the diet pills, hesitated and stalled as he tried to come up with a lie to satisfy Kevin’s curosity.
“Pills?”
“Yeah, the little white things I found in an unlabed bottle. Hold on, I’ll get them.”
As Kevin disappeared into the bathroom, Nick decided this was a good time to make his exit. “Hey, I better go get dressed or I’ll be late for the meeting.” He opened the door thinking that questioning would be over.
“Hey, wait Nick, Kev will be out in a minute, you act like you’re trying to hide something,” Brian called out.
Nick stopped, his hand still on the door knob. “I just don’t wanna be late, you know how Lou is always on my case about being late for meetings and stuff.”
“Here they are,” Kevin announced, tossing the bottle to Nick. “What are these again?”
Nick looked down at the bottle in his hand. “Oh, these?”
“Yes, those.....what are those again?”
“I never told you?”
Kevin folded his arms across his chest; arching an eyebrow as he waited for an explanation from his young brother. “No, Nick you never told me. Why are you stalling?”
“I’m not stalling.”
“No? I could have sworn you were....”
“Vitamins,” Nick blurted.
”Vitamins?”
“Yeah they’re multi vitamins.”
“Funny...I’ve never seen vitamins that look like that. They’re so tiny.”
“Well, that’s cause they’re a special foreign blend. I got them in that shop down the street.”
“Is that a fact.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s funny cause I found those when you came back from being lost in Warsaw....how could you get them here?”
“Um.... well, um, I guess I got them in Warsaw, how the hell can I remember where I am from one day to the next. Look, I better go get ready.”
“Take one.”
“Huh?”
“If they’re multi vitamins, you can take one right now. Here’s a bottle of water. Take one.”
“Geeze Kev, I don’t want to take that on an empty stomach.”
“Nick, I think you’re lying about those pills.”
Snatching the water bottle from Kevin’s hand, Nick popped open the vial containing the diet pills. He knew he was going to have a hard time eating anything to satisfy Lou, but he had to please Kevin.
“There.....satisfied?”
“Yeah, I’m thrilled. I still don’t believe you though.”
Nick sighed. “Okay Kev, I’ll come clean. They weren’t vitamins.”
”I KNEW IT!”
“Yeah.... it was Ectasy and I’m gonna go crazy in five....four....three...two....”
Kevin’s face flushed with anger when Nick rushed up to him and started jumping up and down and talking jibberish.
”GO GET READY!”
Relief washed over Nick’s body when Kevin finally dismissed him from the interrogation. He was grateful that his story seemed to have been bought but in an instant, soon realized that he would have to force himself to pull off the breakfast now and he didn’t know if he would be up to the task.
Life always sucked for him, no matter how hard he tried.
