the imperfect game of life » Places

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connor & alejandro
dialogue - #b7472a | dialogue - #003B32
thought - #eb9788 | thought - #7CBDC9

Alejandro watched Laila and Lilith walk away for a few seconds before turning to Connor. Despite his brother appearing to open up a little back in the restaurant, he wasn’t sure how it would go without the other two with them to distract from their friction.

Without the others, however, the air cleared. For him, this was literal. They emitted very strong energies, contrasting but powerful nonetheless, both pulling him in different directions. He couldn’t quite understand it though. He wondered if Connor felt the same way.

Alejandro pulled out his phone from his pocket and opened the maps application, typing in hotel.

Only three results appeared, with two of them being motels.

"There aren’t a lot of hotels here," he said. It made sense considering it was a small town. "Theres one down the street, do you want to go check it out?"

It was a weird feeling not having the girls around. A part of him was semi relieved because he found them exhausting, but still entertaining. The other part wanted them to stay just so he didn’t have to be around his older brother by himself.

He held back a sigh, not wanting to seem too obvious about his feelings of discomfort. He glanced over at Alejandro for a quick second before quickly skimming around his surroundings.

It had gotten dark but there was something nice about the lighting. He was wondering whether he could get some cool shots in when he heard his brother speak.

Without a word, Connor simply nodded and motioned Alejandro to take the lead.

Alejandro headed to the car since he didn’t want to leave it in the restaurant parking lot and have to come back for it later. The drive to the hotel didn’t take more than a five minutes.

Inside, the lobby was nice but it was clearly older than the pictures showed. Still, it was nice and he hoped the girls didn’t have a problem. Well, that Lilith didn’t have a problem because he felt like Laila would be more open to whatever the situation was.

At the front desk, Alejandro greeted the receptionist and asked for two rooms.

"Yes, of course," the lady said, looking into the system. "You’re lucky, we only have two rooms left. Queen beds. Would you like them?"

Alejandro nodded, confirming that the price was within budget, and quickly texted Laila to let her know the hotel directions. He realized they didn’t have Lilith’s phone number which he supposed would be good in case Laila’s died and they weren’t together.

The hotel seemed good enough to Connor but then again, the problem was mostly Lilith. As he followed closely behind Alejandro, he glanced around the lobby.

They got lucky that’s for sure since only two rooms were left. He wondered how awkward the night will continue to be seeing as he would have to share the room. Since Alejandro’s move to college, it’s been quite some time since the two shared the same room.

Connor glanced over at his brother who texted Laila. He wanted the girls to get here quickly so at least he felt a little less awkward.

The woman handed Alejandro a few pages to sign and got his ID checked.

“Here are your keys,” she said, hanging each of them a card key. “Your room is 302. The elevator is to your left. Once you felons come, they can sign for their room.”

Alejandro thanked her and let Laila know through a second text.

“I guess we should go up and check out the room?” Alejandro asked Connor.

Connor was glad they had found a decent place to crash and he was hoping to take a shower and turn in for the night since the whole day seemed to be dragging on. As he watched Alejandro send a text, presumably to Laila he wondered what the girls had been up to while they were looking for a place.

”Yeah, you lead the way,” he responded tiredly.

The two made their way up the elevator. Alejandro didn’t say much else; much like his brother, he just wanted a shower and some sleep. After today, they would have to start breaking up the driving more, now that they were heading out of Florida. He hoped the girls could drive or, at least, one of them or else it would be a much longer trip for Connor and himself.

When they got to their floor, Alejandro passed two doors before getting to theirs. Sliding his card, he pushed the door and stepped inside, expecting a clean, unlit room.

Instead, the first thing he saw was that the lights were on and there were two luggage’s opened on the floor with some clothes strewn on the table. His eyes widened as he heard someone ask if it was room service in an angry tone.

”What the he-,” Connor couldn’t finish his sentence as a large looking angry man walked towards the door.

He glanced over at Alejandro and then back at the man and sighed heavily. ”I guess there was a mix up with the rooms?”

Alejandro spluttered out an apology as he stepped back, placing a hand across Connor as if to instinctively shield him from the man whose fist had balled up. With a quick move, he closed the door again.

He quickly began to walk down the hall, making sure that Connor was with him, as he heard the man scream curses behind them.

Once the man disappeared, Alejandro began to frown in anger as he punched in the elevator button down. He felt both embarrassed at what had happened and also realized that they could have easily gotten themselves into a physical fight all because of a misunderstanding

“Well, back to square one,” He sighed as he stepped into the elevator. There really weren’t many options left except… the motel? The girls probably wouldn’t be too happy.

Once back down at the lobby, the receptionist began to repeat apologizes as she checked on the rooms again.

"I’m so sorry, the system seemed to have a glitch with the reservations," she said. She called her manager over who confirmed that there were no rooms left.

"We can return the money, of course," she explained, "And give you a gift card for compensation due to the mistake, but I’m afraid we cannot accommodate you or your friends tonight. We have availability tomorrow, though."

Alejandro nodded as he was explained. "We’ll be gone tomorrow," Alejandro said, "But thank you for your time."

He turned to Connor, "I guess the motel it is."

He didn’t mind the place for himself but he was worried about the girls’ reactions. It was out of their control, but he didn’t look forward to it.

Maybe the universe was trying to play games with the four since it seemed that every little thing wasn’t going the way it should be.

Connor glanced at the clock on the receptionist wall and suppressed a yawn. It was getting late and the day had already been so long and tiring as it was so at this point all he wanted was a hot shower and a bed to sleep on.

The motel would be fine. It would do the job and they would only be there for the night, so it couldn’t be that bad right?

[color=#b7472a]”I guess we should text the girls the new address.”[/ color] He finally responded. Connor’s plan was to get into his room as soon as possible in order to not be around Lilith for long enough to see what she would do.

Alejandro nodded to Connor's words. The thought certainly wasn't exciting; he had felt lucky when they were told they could have the last two rooms available at the hotel, but he supposed luck just wasn’t something they could count on today.

He pulled out his phone and quickly texted the new address to Laila. Nonetheless, hoped that the motel wasn’t too shabby; at least it wasn’t a $10-a-night motel or those things called hostels where you shared a room with multiple strangers.