One Week Read Online Free Page B

hell am I supposed to do until then? I look down and resist the urge to kick him. “What bus?” I demand. “Where is the bus going?” Because I’ll be damned if I’m going to follow this asshole around for another second.
    He looks up at me, confused. “New York? Aren’t I going to New York? We just talked about this.”
    “No, you said the bus goes somewhere, and then from there you take a train to Chicago, and then to New York, remember? So where does the bus go?”
    His face is blank. Of course it is. I’m going to kill someone. Preferably him.
    The hell with it. I’ll just go to the Canary Hotel, have some of my favorite mac & cheese and chickpea fries, and I’ll figure this all out in the morning. I shove the Geek back onto the sidewalk, and start to look around for a cab. But then I stop.
    I can’t go to the Canary Hotel. If I use my credit card, my dad will see the charge, and he’ll get on his stupid plane and he’ll be here before I even have a chance to finish checking in. He called ten times while I was waiting out here, and each message was more and more irritated. I finally had to turn my phone off. I pull out my wallet and check my cash level. $15. Well, that’s definitely not going to pay for a room at the Canary. I look back at Goth Geek, who is currently sitting on the curb with his head between his knees. I walk over there and shove him forward and pull his wallet out of his back pocket. He has eighty bucks. I eye the Motel 6 across the street warily.
    “I think that’s my wallet,” he says.
    “Shut up,” I tell him. Are those places sanitary? I mean, are we talking motel-where-truckers-get-some-shut-eye, or motel-where-hookers-go-to-die?
    I sigh heavily. Whichever it is, it’s not like I have much choice. I look down at the Geek, and sigh again. Not like I have much choice there, either. I haul him to his feet, sling his arm over my shoulders, and pull him across the street. At least the motel won’t object to a drunk guy in their lobby—they’re probably used to it.
    As it happens, the clerk gives him a sideways look, but I smile brightly and he takes the cash readily enough. Bastard gives us a room at the very end of the long hallway though. My shoulders are aching from holding up the Geek by the time we get there.  I fiddle with the stupid key card, and when I finally get the door open, the Geek stumbles through and falls down again. I’m tempted to leave him there, but the door wouldn’t close if I did. I kick him gently in the side, and he rolls over.
    “Get up,” I say, and point at one of the beds. “Go pass out over there.”
    He looks over at the bed, shakes his head, and curls back up on the floor. “Too far. Comfy here.”
    I bang the door into his side. “You can’t stay here.”
    He glares at me and crawls over to the bed, but he can’t quite get himself up on it. Unbelievable.
    “You’re pathetic,” I say. I crouch over him and reach my arms around his waist to shove him up on the squeaky bed. Who needs weight-lifting when there’s drunk-lifting?
    As the Geek snores, I look at our remaining cash, and shrug. Enough for a pizza delivery, anyway. I use the flier the motel has so helpfully tucked next to the phone, and order a pizza from “Three Brothers from Italy.” The voice that answers the phone is clearly Hispanic, but whatever.
    While I’m waiting, I look around the motel room. It’s not that bad, I guess. It’s kind of dim, and the furniture is cheap, and the painting on the wall is incredibly tacky, but it does seem to be clean. Mostly. I sniff the sheets suspiciously. I did specify a non-smoking room, but it totally smells like smoke in here.
    When the pizza arrives, I wave a slice temptingly in front of the Geek’s nose, but he barely stirs. Probably for the best—I’d much rather the smell of smoke than the smell of vomit. I eat until I’m full and flick through cable until I fall asleep.
     
     

  DAY TWO
     
     
    When I wake up, it’s