Chapter Thirty-Six
Thirty-Six
WE STAND OUTSIDE THE BAR, the black sky above us, the music and shrieks of joy muffled behind the wooden door.
Peter looks at me and then grabs my wrist. Oh, okay. We’re doing this.
Except he’s not actually trying to hold my hand. He’s tilting my watch toward him.
“Oh shit.” His face goes white. “Oh shit shit shit.”
“Hey, I think that’s my line,” I say.
“It’s 1:38!”
“And?” I say. My dad doesn’t give a shit about curfew or any other normal parenting things. “What, is your mom going to ground you or something?”
“Worse,” Peter says. “We’re going to miss the train.”
“What do you mean? This is New York City, don’t the trains run like twenty-four seven or whatever?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Not outside the city. The last train home is in eleven minutes.”
“What do we do?” The stupid beer is still fizzing in the base of my neck, making it hard for me to come up with some genius plan. Oh wait, no. I’ve got it. “Run?”
“Yeah,” Peter says, and then he actually does grab my hand and we bolt down the street. He’s got those long legs, but even though I’m half his height and a handful of drinks deep I’m still way faster than him, so I end up kind of dragging him after me.
“Jesus, Syd,” he says, stumbling to keep up, “you’re not even panting.”
“You’re not even running,” I say, yanking on him again.
We make it to Grand Central with a minute to spare.
The place feels weird and slightly eerie at night.
It’s not like it’s deserted or anything, but it’s not frenzied and bustling like it is during the day.
There are even a few people curled up on the ground, using backpacks as pillows, sweatshirts draped over their heads, fully sleeping.
“What platform?”
Peter scans the marquee. “Seventeen.”
We run, our shoes squeaking on the tile floor. We fly down the ramp … just as the train jolts to life and takes off, blowing my hair back in a gust of stale air. Fuck.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah,” Peter says. “Fuck.”
“So … how long are we trapped here for? When’s the next train?”
“Like five a.m.”
“Great. So what now? We just go out there and sleep like those backpack people?”
“You’re not sleeping on the ground,” Peter says.
“Doesn’t really seem like we have much of a choice.
Unless you want to stay out all night, but honestly, I’m not really up for that.
” My heart rate is starting to slow down and as the franticness of this whole situation starts to slip away, the Charles of it all starts creeping back to me.
I can feel his text messages burning at the bottom of my purse, demanding to be answered.
“We can find a hotel,” Peter says.
I raise an eyebrow.
“Just to sleep. Somewhere safe.”
“Okay,” I say. “But we better google somewhere that doesn’t have bedbugs.”
WE FIND THIS PLACE that’s somewhere between a hotel and a motel that seems like maybe it is not actively battling an infestation and also won’t care that we’re technically underage, and we walk inside.
There’s a person with faded orange hair at the front counter, their phone tilted sideways, a Marvel movie blaring at full volume.
“Excuse me,” Peter says, standing up nice and tall, or well, even taller than usual. He’s clearly attempting some approximation of Adult, and I have to stifle a snort.
“Yeah?” the front desk person says without looking up. “Goddamn Iron Man,” they mumble to themselves.
“We would like a room for the night, please.”
The person—Kam, according to their name tag—lets out the most belabored of sighs and pauses their movie. They swivel to a computer that looks like it was imported by some 1980s time traveler. They hit a few keys and then turn back to us. “We have a king bed available.”
“Oh,” Peter says. “Can we get two queens?”
“You cannot,” Kam says. “That’s the only room we have left. Take it or leave it.”
“I can’t believe this,” Peter says to himself. “I’m living an actual trope.”
“What?” I say.
“One bed. It’s a whole thing in romance books.” He sucks his cheek with the dimple like he’s trying extremely hard not to make any kind of face.
“This isn’t a romance.”
“I know,” he says quickly. “I was just saying. Tropes are funny. Well, not funny. But they exist. Actually, tropes get a bad rap in romances, but they’re not just used in genre storytelling. Even lit fic uses them. It’s a really misunderstood concept and—”
“Are you okay?”
Peter lets out a breath. “Yes. I’m fine. Definitely fine. Do you want to try and find somewhere else?”
I shake my head. “Get the room. It’s whatever.” I’m starting to feel really drained and the texts from Charles are clawing their way into the back of my brain. I need this day to be over.
Peter nods and turns back to Kam. “We’ll take the room.”
“That’ll be six hundred and twenty-three dollars.”
My eyes practically fall out of my face. “What the fuck? For this shitty place?”
Kam looks up at me blankly. “Yes, for this shitty place.”
“Sorry,” I say. “But come on.”
“It’s New York, baby. You want to stay at the Holiday Inn for forty-nine bucks, go to Florida.”
“Listen—”
“It’s fine,” Peter cuts in. “We’ll take the room.”
“Peter,” I hiss. “We cannot afford this. My Greenlight debit card has like sixty dollars on it.”
“I have money.”
“Oh, ‘I have money,’ he says casually. What’re you, dealing fentanyl to Noah on the side or something?”
“I just happen to save my birthday funds. It’s no big deal.”
“And you want to blow that money on a one-night stay here?”
“Money is whatever. You can’t take it with you when you go.”
“Yeah, but you can take it with you when you go to college.”
A flicker of something slides over Peter’s face, but before I can process it his face goes smooth and calm again. “Really, it’s fine.”
He takes out his wallet and puts a credit card on the peeling counter.
“Room thirteen,” Kam says, sliding an actual physical key back across the counter and smiling at me.
“Lucky us,” I mumble.
We walk down the hall, our footsteps muffled on the worn red carpet. Peter slides the key into the lock and we step inside. There’s a bed with what looks like clean (I hope) white sheets, a ratty-ass plaid couch that’s probably marinating in jizz, a tiny desk, and a rolling computer chair. Luxury.
“Well,” I say, “this is a hotel room.”
“It is,” Peter says. “We should probably text our parents. To let them know we’re not coming home.”
“Yeah,” I say. I pull out my phone to text Jules. Charles’s messages are still there. Demanding to be seen. I squeeze my nails into my palms until it hurts and there are little crescent shapes in my palm. And then I go back to my Jules texts.
JULES:How dare you not respond to my beautiful love letter of emojis
JULES:Where are you
JULES:Are you banging????? Lmaoooooooo
JULES:Seriously where are you
JULES:Hello?????
JULES:wtf
JULES:Do I need to involve the police
JULES:Jk you know I hate those lil piggies
JULES:For real where are you though
JULES:SYDNEY WHAT THE FUCK
ME:Ok so i’m in the city with peter. we missed the train but we’re fine dw. be back tmrw
Dots immediately pop up, but I lock my phone before I can see Jules’s response.
Peter finishes his text and turns back around. “All good on your end?”
I nod. “You?”
“Yeah.”
We don’t have any pajamas or anything. So I guess there’s nothing to do but just … get in bed.
“So …” I say.
“So,” he says. “Uh, okay. So. Good night?” He leans in and gives me a hug. I put my arms out and pat his back. “Right. Okay.” He walks over to the couch like he’s about to lie down on it.
“Ew. Stop.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll just sleep here.”
“Peter,” I say, “I don’t even want to think about what that thing looks like under a black light. It’s a king-sized bed. We can both sleep in it. It doesn’t have to be weird.”
He rubs the back of his neck. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, just stop making it a thing.”
Peter nods. “Okay. Cool. Fine. Cool.”
We pull down the covers and get in, fully clothed. And then just lie there, flat, arms at our sides, staring up at the popcorn ceiling.
“Night,” he says, his voice straining for casualness. And then he reaches up and turns off the lights with the switch above the bed.
We stay like that for a while, not moving, not talking.
And then Peter rolls over toward me. And I roll over too.
His face has this golden glow from the city lights filtering through the tiny hotel window’s cream curtain, and we just keep lying there with the noises of drunk people laughing (and fighting) and distant sirens mixing with the sound of our own breathing.
He takes a breath and it looks like he’s about to say something or scoot closer to me and my heart starts beating against my chest, and I can’t even tell what I want to happen next. But then he reaches out over the covers and slides his hand over mine.
And we stay there, holding hands and looking at each other until Peter says “Good night” for the third time, and I whisper it back, my voice sort of cracking in this excruciatingly embarrassing way. And then we both close our eyes.
And I fall asleep holding Peter Beckett’s hand.