Chapter 6
I woke up with a start. A soft pillow was beneath my head, my body was surrounded by silky sheets, and I felt utterly confused. Where was I? I cleared my throat and then coughed, which made my head hurt. I turned and saw Myles sleeping in the bed on the other side of the night table. It was then that I remembered where I was. It was so nice waking up in a bed; I hadn’t even realized how much I missed it. It was so comfortable that, for a moment, I wished that I could keep it. How amazing would that be?
I sat up gingerly and saw the bottle of ibuprofen sitting next to the lamp. I glanced at the clock and saw that it had been four hours since I had taken it last. I slipped another two pills into my mouth and washed them down with the last of the water. Then I got myself out of bed quietly and went over to Myles. He looked so young and innocent when he slept. I watched him for a moment, making sure that his chest was moving, and then I padded to the bathroom, the carpet soft beneath my feet. I locked the door, brushed my teeth, and then stripped out of my sweat-soaked clothes.
As I turned the bath on, I got a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. I hadn’t shaved in a while—why bother when it was impossible to get laid when you lived in a tent with your brother. I also hadn’t done it since it was winter, and I lived in pants literally all day and night. Yet it was obvious that it was getting out of control so I searched in my bag for my razor and got into the water. I had added the little bottle of bubble bath from the hotel, and I could have cried from how delicious it felt all over my body. I leaned back against the tub wall and closed my eyes. I could not even remember the last time I had taken a bath.
I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up, the water was dangerously high but not yet spilling over. I quickly opened the drain to let it go down a bit and got to work on shaving. I started with my toes, worked my way up my legs, and then all the way to my thighs. Then I did my arms, my armpits, and the little bit of fluff that grew between my boobs. It was for sure the Italian grandmother on my mom’s side who had given me that. Then I tackled my pubic hair. As I finished up and felt the water splashing my now-bare lips, I put the razor down and ran a finger through the wetness that had pooled there. I hadn’t masturbated in way too long. Again, living in a tent with your brother wasn’t exactly conducive to self-pleasure. I wasn’t going to go “flick the bean” in the bathroom at work either. So it had been a while. I knew that my brother was in the other room, but I had the water going at full blast, the door was locked, and I figured the endorphins from coming could only help my immune system. Right?
I slid my fingers up to my clit and rubbed it as I held back a moan. Muscle memory had me moving exactly how I knew I needed to in order to come quickly and come hard. Images of muscly arms holding me down assaulted my mind's eye. I loved it a little rough, and I needed a dominating man. I had to be so responsible all the time in life that in bed, I just wanted to be told what to do and when to do it. My hand was splashing the water as I imagined him holding me down forcefully, kissing me with that bearded mouth of his, and fucking me into the mattress.
It didn’t take long for me to come, and damn if I didn’t feel a little better already. I washed my body with the fancy bottles of hotel body wash and then wrapped myself in the soft, fluffy robe that hung on the hook on the back of the door. I heard a rap on the door as I worked on detangling my hair, which had grown knotty from being shoved into the shower cap. I opened it to find my brother looking well rested and relatively sober.
“How many pills did he give you?” he asked me, his eyes darting around the room.
“How many do you need?” I replied. “Love the person, hate the disease” was a quote they said at family meetings all the time. I didn’t really hate the disease; I hated the things that had happened to him that had led him to feel the need to be numb all the time.
“If I snort it, I’ll only need two right now.” He kept his eyes downcast because he didn’t like talking about this. He almost preferred to pretend he didn’t need to be high all the time just to exist. I didn’t know if it was uncomfortable for him because he was embarrassed by his actions or if he didn’t want to bring attention to it because he knew how much it hurt me. Myles wasn’t getting high for anything other than numbing out his constant emotional agony. He didn’t really do uppers, and he wasn’t out there looking for a good time and partying. He stayed home most of the time and read my ratty copy of Harry Potter . He drew and he planted flowers. He rehabbed baby birds that fell out of the nest too young. In fact, he was so careful to only do enough to numb the pain and not more than that. Knowing what a dangerous game of roulette he was playing, he willingly followed the rules that we had come up with together. He would never buy more than two days’ worth of product at a time to lessen the risk of him taking too much at once, and he would only buy it from Ricardo, whom we called “the pharmacist” on the streets. He didn’t sell tainted product, and he didn’t sell heroin, meth, or cocaine. He stuck to pharmaceuticals, weed, or psychedelics. I figured if I couldn’t get Myles clean, at least I could try to keep him safe. I leaned over and wrapped my brother in a hug. He felt jittery beneath my hands, so I didn’t hold him for long.
“I love you,” I murmured.
“I love you too, sis.” His voice sounded pained, but he was too sweet to push me away. I walked out of the steamy bathroom and found the pills that Kian had given me. I wordlessly handed Myles two of them and watched as he took a medicine grinder out of his pocket. He ground the pills into dust and then poured it onto the glass top of the night table. Using the key card, he formed two lines. He didn’t look at me as he closed one nostril with his finger and snorted both of them. He took a deep breath in and let out a sigh.
I had never done drugs other than smoke some weed here and there, but I had watched my brother flirt with its toxic love for years. I watched it torture and tease him. Drugs promised him paradise and instead gave him heartbreak. I watched as he slid back down under the covers, and I wished I could give him a life that came with a bed and peace and sobriety. It broke my heart that I couldn’t. I took a deep breath in and focused on being grateful that today we had a room. Right now, we were off the streets, and it was only for a moment, but it was a moment all the same.
I went back into the bathroom to finish combing my hair and then put on a pair of boxers with a thick fleece hoodie that someone had left at work the other day. When they never came back for it, my co-workers told me to keep it. It was black, and in white letters, it said,
“He who does not lick the clit should not get to hit. Coochielations 1:69.” Myles rolled his eyes when he saw that I was wearing it.
“Mom would be mortified if she could see you in that,” he told me as I crawled back into bed after taking some more elderberry.
“Well, what she can’t know won’t hurt her.” I winked. My dark humor was likely what got me through the hardest of times. He gave a half-hearted laugh.
“I’m getting hungry.” He was talking slower than usual. “When’s your man coming back?”
“For one, he is not my man; I barely know him. What he has done for us is completely unexpected, and I can never repay him. I hope he knows that. Honestly, I don’t even know his last name, and I just found out that he lives in a van.” I laughed. “Second, I don’t know if he will come back, so why don’t we order something and if he comes, then he comes.” I was very realistic in my expectations of people. I expected very little, so if they did something, it was already above and beyond anything I had hoped for.
I pulled up the room service menu on the TV that hung on the wall and told Myles to order whatever he wanted. He asked for a burger, fries, and a milkshake. I got soup, a slice of cheesecake, and a drink made of ginger, orange juice, and lemon. At Kafe, we had a drink called a flu bomb that consisted of mint green tea, peach tea, steamed lemon, and honey. So I figured something with vitamin C and lemon in it couldn’t hurt. I fell back to sleep while we waited for the food to come, until I was awoken about forty minutes later by the sound of knocking on the door. I had never gotten room service before, and I was feeling very excited to experience it for the first time. Out of habit, I held my finger under Myles’s nose to check that he was still breathing and then went over to the door and looked out the peephole. Instead of a hotel worker, there stood a very sexy-looking Kian. I stood there for a moment, pondering how I felt about him actually showing up before turning the lock.
I opened the door as I remembered that all I was wearing was a sweatshirt. Kian immediately noticed and averted his eyes.
“They’re just legs.” I laughed, moving aside so he could come in. He was still not looking at me as he asked,
“Are you feeling better?”
“A little bit. I didn’t know if you were coming, so we ordered without you,” I told him regretfully.
“That’s fine; I can order now.”
I got back into bed as there was another knock on the door. Kian went to open the door while telling me to stay in bed. This time, it was our food, and I gently woke Myles up so he could eat. Kian watched as I blew on a spoonful of soup and then hummed when I tasted it.
“You’re not shy with your emotions,” he observed out loud.
“Jessa is the most real person I know,” Myles piped up. “She’s also brave and smart. She’s almost always in a good mood no matter what life has put her through.”
“Shush.” I laughed it off. “Eat your burger and stop running your mouth.”
Myles took a bite but I could see the smug look on his face that he had managed to get those compliments in before I shut him up. After a few moments of quiet, Myles piped up again.
“What do you think of her sweatshirt?” He pointed to it when my mouth was full of more soup. I made a noise in protest, but Myles just laughed. Kian shifted in his chair, almost looking uncomfortable.
“I mean, it’s a valid statement,” he finally replied. Myles raised his eyebrows at me as if to say, “He may be a keeper.”
“So when is your next fight?” I asked Kian, pointedly changing the subject.
“It’s at the end of every month.”
“Where is it?”
“The location changes with each fight, so I don’t know yet.” Kian got up when there was yet another knock on the door, indicating that his food was now here as well. I watched as he sat down on the one chair in the room and took off his beanie. Oh good god, his hair was better than I had even imagined. It was a light brown at the base, like his beard, but he had natural streaks of blond throughout, and it was long enough to be pulled into a small bun at the back of his head.
“A man bun, huh?” Myles commented. I didn’t know what had gotten into my brother tonight; he was usually so docile and quiet. Kian absentmindedly ran his hand over his hair.
“Yeah, I had a buzz cut my entire life, so I figured it was time for a change, but I may cut it shorter soon.”
“I like it,” I blurted. Kian’s gaze met mine, but he didn’t respond, which I was finding to be pretty common for him. What was that quote about a quiet man being the strongest man in the room? I wondered to myself.
After we finished dinner, Kian leaned forward in his chair and said, “So I spoke to the hotel, and apparently, there is a program that they participate in that provides a long-term stay for free to help people get off the street, and they happen to have one available now. So I told them about you, and they want to give you a two-bedroom with a kitchenette for as long as you need it.”
My brain was having a hard time processing what he had just said.
“No there isn’t. I know about all of the available programs out there, and I have never heard of one that does this.” I was skeptical. He shrugged.
“I guess it’s not public knowledge, but they do it.”
I scoffed.
“No way.”
He was watching me with those green eyes that seemed to know and feel so much more than he let on.
“Take the room, Jessa,” he said softly. I made a motion with my hand to dismiss his words.
“So we’re friends now?” I asked sarcastically, reminding him of how he said we weren’t friends yet, which was why he was sticking to calling me Jessamine until we were. His slip of Jessa belied his aloof behavior. Kian’s eyes darkened for a moment, but he didn’t say anything back, as usual. Myles grunted as he stood up and took a cigarette from my pack that I hadn’t touched since yesterday due to feeling so crappy.
“I’m gonna go smoke. I’ll be back in a few.”
I heard the door close behind him, and I looked back at Kian.
“Something feels weird about this,” I admitted. “I feel like you’re not telling me the whole story, but I really don’t even know you well enough to know if you’re hiding something.”
My own room? With a bathtub and little bottles of bubble bath to use whenever I wanted to? A kitchenette? It sounded like a dream come true. I knew what I would bake first. My mom made the best chocolate chip cookies in the world, and I had her recipe written in her handwriting on the back of an envelope. I would make those, and I would eat them all just to tell her hi. I felt a tear slip out of my eye and run down my cheek, dropping off my nose and into my lap. I heard Kian get up from his chair, and the bed shifted as he sat down on the edge of it.
“I want you to take the room, Jessamine Bardot.”
I nodded, still not looking up at him.
“I’ll take the room even though it feels weird, but I’m only doing it for Myles.” I sniffed.
“I know you are.”
I could hear something akin to admiration in his tone.
“I’m going to play your song, and you’re going to sleep.”
I felt the bed shift again as he got up and went to the door to retrieve his guitar. I laid my head on the soft down pillow and closed my eyes as he began to strum and sing. I fell asleep to the chorus.
When I woke up, the lights were off, the food had been cleaned up, and Myles was snoring softly in the bed next to me. I was burning up with fever. I felt cold on the inside but boiling hot on the outside. I shifted to sit up, and as I shivered, I took two more ibuprofen and looked at my phone. It was ten a.m. I had never had the luxury of sleeping in. Hotel life was treating me nicely, although I really needed to get better because I could not afford to keep missing work.
Eric had texted me last night before I ate dinner, asking how I was feeling, and I told him I still had a fever. He told me to feel better and to take another day off. I knew my job wasn’t in jeopardy, but we didn't get paid sick days. He had also said he still wasn’t convinced that Kian wasn’t a murderer, and I had said he was probably right and to watch his back. Eric had sent me the middle finger and the rolling eye emoji. I got up to pee, and after changing my underwear, I pulled on a pair of sweatpants. As I was looking over the breakfast menu, there was a knock on the door. My heart skipped a beat as I wondered if maybe Kian had come back, but it wasn’t Kian at the door; it was someone from the front desk coming to switch us to our new, permanent room.
It took me a minute to wake up Myles, but once he was awake, we grabbed our bags and followed the hotel worker down one floor. He led us to the new room and gave us our key cards. He left as we entered, and I played it cool until we shut the door.
“Holy shit, My,” I whispered.
“Why are you whispering?” He laughed.
“Because if I don’t, I’m going to fucking scream.” The happiness I was feeling was almost overwhelming me.
“Which room do you want?” Myles asked as he walked into each of them. “Never mind, I’m taking the room with the queen bed, and you take the king.”
“Why? I’m perfectly happy with a queen,” I protested. Myles stared at me long and hard, then went into his claimed room and shut the door. I guess that conversation was over. It made me laugh as I made my way into my room and marveled over the size of the bed and the attached bathroom. I itched to take my phone out and text Kian to say thank you, but I had never gotten his number. Come to think of it, I had never even seen him holding a phone.
I still felt a flicker of unease when I thought about this supposed program, which I was ninety-nine percent sure did not exist, and I sincerely hoped that he had not spent his own money on getting it for us. But that was absurd because a busker living in his van could never afford this. I coughed, reminding myself that I still needed to rest. I climbed into bed and ordered French toast with orange juice for both of us. The room was so quiet without Myles. Since we had slept side by side for so many years, I was so used to hearing his breathing as I fell asleep. Being alone would definitely take some getting used to.
I had a moment of panic and got back out of bed to check on my brother. I knocked on his door, but he didn’t answer. I eased it open quietly and saw that he was in bed. I tiptoed over to him and hovered my hand gently on his chest to confirm, yet again, that he was breathing. I gave a sigh of relief as he cracked an eye open.
“Can’t sleep without hearing me snore?”
“Something like that.” I nodded.
He pulled back the blanket from the other side of the bed. I climbed in and promptly fell asleep.