"Well Taylor, do you want to go with her? Have you gotten breakfast yet?" Diana fussed a bit over him, he was looking wiped, but very happy.
"No mum, we were gonna grab something on the way over, hey Lane, you wanna grab a muffin or something?" He looked over at me expectently.
"Sure, I just really need to get to my stuff. Thanks for keeping my bag Mrs.Hanson, and uh, for taking me to the hospital." I walked to her, across the hotel room and gave her a hug. At first she seemed surprised, then she willingly hugged back.
"Oh you." She smiled, releasing me from her warm hug. "It was no problem, we're responsible though, and there was no way we would've left you by yourself in the hospital. Tay'll keep you company, if you want it, today. I don't know how long he'll last, it doesn't look as if he's gotten much sleep."
"He can take a nap when I grab a shower, I'm meeting up with a couple friend later on today, but I want him to come along, he needs a break." Diana looked at Taylor, who was struggling valiantly to keep his eyes from closing permanently. She stood up, and handed me my bag with all my stuff in it.
"Make sure he sleeps, and remember, no sleeping for you till at least seven." She grinned at me, then winked. I had to wonder how much she knew.
We ran to a bagel shoppe and I got my typical strawberry cream cheese on a plain bagel. Taylor just bought four doughnuts. I eyed the offending breakfast, "You shouldn't eat too much of that crap."
"Hey, it's NOT crap Lane."
"Are you nuts? Do you always eat like that?" I raised my voice slightly, this was going to be interesting, I had little patience with junk food eaters.
"Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do. And if you don't like it just disown me." With that he stuffed the rest of a red jelly doughnut in his face.
"Whatever you're eating, it must be doing the trick, 'cause it certainly hasn't stunted your growth." I slapped the back of his tight leather pants and laughed. He couldn't reply to that, since both hands were involved in carrying and eating the last of his second doughnut.
"Hey, do I really have to take a nap while you're in the shower?" He lightly dropped the question with a childish voice.
"I don't want you to pass out on me at the bookstore from exhaustion."
"Aw, c'mon. I've always wanted to do that with someone, the shower's the best place." I closed my eyes and thought of the warm, wet coccon of hydrated air and water. The heat of the water leaving the glowy sheen on the showerer's skin, and how soap enables the skin to slide against skin with a quick, or painfully slow movement. I shivered with the thought.
"Maybe, depends." His eyes pleaded. "Hey, I said maybe."
"I need a shower too, I think you forget that you weren't the only one working up a sweat there missy."
"True, true, the boy does have a point. Well then when are you going to get a nap? There is NO way that you'll make it till seven with me."
"And why is that?"
"Taylor, you're wiped as it is."
"So are you."
"Yeah, but that's just 'cause I have to be. I'm already so tired, I'm going to need you to make sure I stay up. How's that gonna happen when you're wiped too?"
"Well you could go to that Neil thing, and I could stay in your room and sleep."
"Are you sure? I mean, you wanted to go."
"I want to take a shower with you more." He stopped and my hand, I was still eating my bagel, but quickly swallowed my bite and looked at him. His eyes were sea coloured as he kissed me, I could slightly taste the sweet sugar in his mouth. Just as our tongues touched, he pulled away. "Isn't this your hotel?" He asked as he controlled his breathing. I nodded, and fished out my key card, my grin was from ear to ear as we entered the fancy lobby, filled with deep crimson velvets and pearly marble. I knew I should check at the front desk for any messages, but I wanted to be under the nozzle of my showerhead as quickly as humanly possible.
Just as we passed the front desk, the attendant, a young, twenty something girl called my name. She looked a little flustered, and I realized she was looking at Taylor. Her large dark brown eyes looked at him before she looked at me. "Sorry to interrupt you, but you recieved a couple messages while you were out, and some were urgent." She tucked her chin length coffee colored hair behind her ear as she reached for the little pink messages slips that were inscribed in my name. I stopped and started to read over them, quickly, dropping a couple, Taylor bent over and picked them up for me. Most were from my publisher, it seemed as if I needed to schedule in another Hamburg date, and needed me to call her back as soon as possible. Then Taylor gave me the dropped pink slips. The first was from Miles, a close friend who I spoken to earlier in the week, when I had first arrived in London, he lived in Liverpool with Mac. I smilied when I saw his name, I had known him since eighth grade, we had been forced to be a group in our American History class, and had stayed close ever since the first group meeting that dealt with Robert E. Lee. It always confused me a bit why we had never hooked up, I had always been attracted to his silver green eyes that always held my own from beneath his shaggy black hair, but I'd never questioned it seriously, we'd always been so close, and that was good enough for me. He was the drummer for Mac's band, although he was a bit of a symbol of my past with Mac, I liked him too much to leave behind. He left his number, said he and Mac had moved to a new place in Liverpool. The next one was from him too, he really needed me to call him, it was pretty urgent. Knowing Miles, it was borderline emergency or something, his personality didn't allow him to be that passionate when it came to big stuff, only small stuff, like arguing how stupid Tori Amos was, and defending the Rolling Stones. It often amazed me how well we got along because we disagreed on everything. There was one from my parents, whom I was supposed to call when I got back from a bookstore reading last night, but was cut short from a slight run in from a subway train. They'd be pissed if I didn't call back now, they were always worried about me traveling. The last one was again from Miles, looks as if I'd have to call him, and my parents now. While I had been reading my messages the front desk attendant had struck up a conversation with Taylor, he looked back at me.
"Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, I need to make a couple calls, they won't take that long. But they do need to get done now." I apologized with my eyes, I wanted to get into my room as badly as he did. "Excuse me, can I use the phone?" The desk attendant lifted her eyes to me, and smilied.
"Sure, just get on line two." I picked up the phone, punched my parent's number along with all the country, and state codes, and my phone card number. As I waited for them to pick up, I noticed the desk attendant laughing about something with Taylor. Every once and a while he'd look over to me, and then the front of the lobby, which was a wall of tinted glass. I realized he didn't want to be talking to her. Finally my parents picked up.
"Hello?" My mom's sleepy voice was a little slurred, I wondered what time it was.
"Mom! I wanted to call as soon as I could, I got into an accident."
"What? Are you okay, are you in a hospital?" Her voice immeadiately grew more awake, words instantly clear, I heard her raise her voice to wake up my dad.
"I'm fine, I just, uh, ran into a subway train, actually I was pushed. I had a concussion, but I'm okay."
"Who pushed you? Did you go to a doctor?" She sounded worried and frightened.
"I'll tell you about that later, but some people on the subway, a family, actually, brought me to a hospital, and I was out for a couple hours, it was right after my reading. So I'm back at the hotel now. Really mom, it's okay."
"You're sure you don't want me to come, are you really okay honey?" Her voice calmed, and a more heartfelt tone replaced the frantic one.
"I'm absolutely fine, besides some pain. I just need to stay up till seven over here."
"Okay, do you have a friend to keep you awake?"
"Yeah the people that brought me over, Mrs. Hanson, and her son, or one of 'em, Taylor, he's staying with me, he's pretty cool. And I made a date with a couple friends tonight, so they'll help too, don't worry."
"Elaine, you make sure you stay up. The doctor's serious about that." I cringed, she always used my full name whenever she was mad.
"I AM mom! Do you have any clue how tired I am right now?! I've been dragging myself around the whole night!" Taylor looked over at me, my voice had risen considerably.
"You know what Elaine, I do, because it's 3 am here. Give us a call soon." I could feel my mom's smile, she knew that she overreacted.
"Will do. Give dad a hug for me. Bye mom. Oh yeah, do you want to get you guys something while I'm here?"
"When you go to Germany, go to the BMW factory there and get your father a souvenier. Love you." With that she hung up. I took a deep breath, I missed her.
I hung up, then called my publisher, who wasn't in. So I left a message, then I rang Miles, who also wasn't in, so I left a message on Mac's answering machine. Something twisted in my stomach when I heard his voice on the machine. I didn't know if I wanted to see him, but I knew I couldn't ignore him. As I hung up the phone, Taylor asked me if I was done.
"Yeah, let's go." I rubbed my temples, I needed to relax.
As we sat in the fluffy velvet seats of the elevator, Taylor groaned. "That girl was so annoying, she was a fan, madly in love with Ike." His voice took a higher, girlish pitch. "How's Ike? How come you're not with him? Is anything wrong? I'm going to see you guys when you come back, will you look for me?" I raised my eyebrow.
"Would you stop?" I didn't like the way he portrayed her, my tone was flat.
"What? Don't you get sick of people sometimes?"
"Yeah, sometimes, but I wouldn't ever make fun of them. I don't see them as objects, they're the reason that I'm over here, doing what I love." I felt like drifting off into a nap, I was so tired.
"Listen, I didn't say that I don't like them, I just can't stand it when they scream and don't treat me like I'm a real person." He caught me as I leaned over to the elevator wall. I grunted and mumbled something like 'wanna take a nap' Taylor sat me up and looked me in the eye. "Lane, you gotta wake up, c'mon, just a couple more hours, and we can sleep together. Just think of that, please?" I opened my eyes and struggled to keep them that way. The elevator had reached my floor, and I struggled for more oxygen and yawned. My eyes watered, we stumbled out, and I stretched, and yawned again. It started to work, I was waking up.
"There ya go, that's better." Taylor smilied weakly at me, and took my hand.
I ran my free hand through my messy, barely shoulder length hair. As we neared my room, I realized there was someone in front of my door, I knew him.