Chapter 22 — The Road Trip Room Mix-up
Away weekend travel always felt like controlled chaos.
Bags in the lobby. Players hyped and restless. Coaches pretending they weren’t counting minutes. Staff moving like they were holding the whole thing together with tape and prayer.
Sabrina stayed in the staff lane. Clipboard. Schedule. Distance.
Max stayed in the player lane. Hoodie. Headphones. Tension coiled under his skin.
They arrived at the hotel late, bus lights cutting through misty rain. The lobby was crowded with another team checking in, front desk phones ringing like alarms.
Coach Price handed out keycards in a tight line, eyes flicking between names and rooms.
“Delgado,” she called, sliding a card across the counter.
Then she looked at the printout again, brow furrowing. “And… Yu.”
Sabrina’s stomach tightened before she even knew why.
Coach Price’s mouth flattened. “That can’t be right.”
The front desk clerk—young, overwhelmed—gave a helpless shrug. “We’re overbooked. We had to move some assignments for staff convenience. Adjacent rooms with a connecting door. It’s fine. It’s normal.”
Sabrina felt heat crawl up her neck.
Max’s head tilted, slow and incredulous. “No. It’s not.”
Coach Price’s eyes went sharp. “We are not doing this.”
The clerk lifted both palms. “There’s nothing else. No extra rooms. No upgrades. We’re full.”
Sabrina could feel the lobby watching without watching. The way people always clocked tension even when they pretended they didn’t.
Max turned slightly toward Sabrina, jaw tight. “I’ll switch. Give me someone else.”
Sabrina forced her voice steady. “It’ll look worse if we make a scene.”
Max blinked, irritated. “So we just—what—accept this?”
Coach Price leaned in, low voice. “We accept it and we handle it clean. Door stays shut. You follow protocol. Sabrina, you document it. Max, you don’t give anyone anything to talk about.”
Max’s eyes flashed at the word document, like it made him feel like a problem again.
Sabrina met his gaze, calm. “I will.”
Max looked away first. “Fine.”
Upstairs, the hallway smelled like carpet cleaner and stale heat. The lighting was too bright, too unforgiving.
Sabrina stopped in front of her door.
Max stopped in front of his.
The connecting door between them sat in the middle like a bad idea with hinges.
They stared at it for one second too long.
Then Sabrina reached into her tote, pulled out the hotel stationery packet from check-in—thick paper, branded notepad, a strip of tape holding it closed.
Max watched, confused, as she tore the tape free.
Sabrina walked to the connecting door and pressed the tape across the seam like she was sealing evidence.
One strip.
Then another.
A ridiculous little X.
She stepped back and looked at her work like it mattered.
Max let out a quiet breath that almost sounded like a laugh.
“That’s your solution,” he said.
Sabrina’s tone stayed dry. “It’s a visual reminder. For both of us.”
Max nodded once, slowly. “Okay.”
Sabrina turned toward her own door, keycard in hand. “If anyone asks, we were assigned adjacent rooms. The connecting door stays unused.”
Max’s voice came out low. “I’m not trying to ruin your life.”
Sabrina paused.
Not because she needed the reassurance.
Because she believed him.
“I know,” she said.
She went inside and shut her door.
On the other side of the wall, she heard Max’s door close a beat later.
Silence settled.
Not peaceful. Not comforting.
Just… charged.
Sabrina lay on her bed fully dressed for ten minutes, staring at the ceiling, listening to the faint sounds through the walls—pipes, distant laughter, a door shutting down the hall.
She kept thinking about that connecting door.
Not because she wanted it open.
Because she wanted the world to stop making everything feel like a test.
On the other side, Max lay awake too.
She didn’t hear him, but she could feel it anyway—the way the night pressed in, the way his mind never stopped running.
They both slept badly.
Not because they did anything wrong.
Because the room assignment itself felt like someone else writing their story.
And neither of them could afford to let that happen.