Page 7 of For the Boys
“Okay,” Berkley said, joining her friends on the bed. “Okay. What’s the last thing either of you remember?”
Amelia and Kimber exchanged a glance, and then, as if reading the other’s mind, said in unison, “Shots.”
“Same,” Berkley said, rubbing her left temple where a slight twinge was slowly working its way into what she knew would be a full-on, day-long migraine. “So we have a couple of options in terms of what happened.” Her analytical mind whirred through the possible scenarios before settling on the two that were most plausible. “Either we drank entirely too much and blacked out, which, knowing us, is high on the list of possibilities, and somehow came here instead of going home. Or...” She hesitated, afraid to voice the second option.
“Or we were drugged,” Kimber finished for her. “I don’t know about you two, but this doesn’t feel like your typical blackout hangover. This feels worse.” Groaning, she eased herself back down onto the pillows. “I’ve genuinely never felt like this after a run-of-the-mill bender.”
Amelia stood, swaying slightly, and carefully moved across the room toward the mini-fridge. She removed three bottles of water and carried them back to the bed. “I’m with Kimber,” she said. “I think we were drugged.”
“But by who? And why?” Berkley’s head was spinning and not just from confusion. She lay down next to Kimber. “And that still doesn’t explain how we ended up in this hotel room, unharmed, our personal items still with us. Who would drug us and then do that?”
Amelia took a tentative sip of her water and waited a beat. Seeming satisfied, she chugged half the bottle in one go, letting out a small burp when she finished. “Berk, I want to know what happened to us just as bad as you do, but my brain hurts way too bad to even be awake right now, much less think.”
Berkley took a deep breath, scrunching her forehead up against the building pressure behind her eyes. “Fair. How about we get out of here, sleep it off, and try to piece it all together when we’re feeling better?”
“I am all in on that plan,” Kimber said, sitting up enough to take a drink of her own water.
The three of them laid there for several more minutes, searching for the motivation to move their bodies up off the bed and away from the hotel.
A half hour later, they entered the lobby, the bright sunlight forcing them all to squint. Berkley left Kimber and Amelia near the elevators, making her way to the front desk to return the room key.
“Good morning,” the woman at the front desk said. Her name tag read: Alana. “Checking out?”
Berkley smiled and nodded, sliding the key onto the counter. The woman, Alana, reached for it, but before Berkley let it go, she said, “I was hoping you could help me with something though.”
“I can sure try.”
“I’m not really sure how to say this,” Berkley started. “It’s going to sound weird. But my friends and I…Truth be told, we have no idea how we ended up here, so I was hoping you could tell me who paid for the hotel room? Or was it us?”
Alana looked at her, a small line creasing the space between her dark brows. “I can’t give out the information of who booked the room, unfortunately. But I can tell you it wasn’t any of you three,” she said, shooting a pointed glance at Amelia and Kimber. “It was a man.”
“Okay,” Berkley said, finally sliding the key across the counter to her. “Thank you.”
Alana smiled. “We hope you enjoyed your stay.”
A man? Reason told Berkley it wasn’t the same man who had drugged them, because what kind of man would do that and then leave them safe and sound in one of the nicest hotels in the city? What kind of man, who clearly didn’t know where any of them lived, would take care of three random, drugged girls and make sure they had a safe place to recover instead of leaving them to fend for themselves?
Two months later, Berkley was seated at her desk in her bedroom, desperately trying to clear the cobwebs in her mind where her inspiration for writing normally lived. It was seven on a Wednesday night, and the paper due the next day for her professional responsibility course wasn’t going to write itself.
Her roommates were downstairs watching some ensemble comedy on television, and their laughter drifting up from the living room certainly wasn’t helping matters.
There were apparently people who had the ability to completely shut out the world, hyper-focus, and get their work done in a timely manner, but Berkley was not one of them. She had to work,hardat eliminating distractions.
She turned from her desk and grabbed her backpack, rifling through it until her fingers closed around her AirPods case. Sticking the buds in her ears, she spun back around and selected her Get Shit Done playlist on her phone. She vaguely registered her phone pinging over the sound of the music, alerting her to an Instagram notification. Ignoring it, she put her phone on airplane mode, settled her fingers on the keyboard, and got to work.
By ten, Berkley’s paper was complete. After reading through it one more time, she submitted it through her professor’s online homework platform. She leaned back and stretched, the bones of her upper back and shoulders popping and cracking.
It made sense to her now why people her age had such horrible posture and back pain. After several hours a day bent over textbooks, her phone, and her laptop, the muscles of her back were often tight and sore.
Despite the late hour, and the ache in her back, she wasn’t headed for bed. There was a hockey game she refused to miss. The Detroit Warriors were her favorite professional team, and they began their regular season tonight against the Eagles. The Eagles were based in Anaheim, California, hence the late start time.
Halfway down the stairs, she heard the unmistakable music of the pregame show.
“I texted you like five times,” Amelia said when Berkley reached the living room. “I thought you were gonna work right through the game.”
“Me, miss a Warriors game? Never.” Berkley laughed. “I actually just finished, and my phone is on airplane mode. Where’s Kimber?”
“She went upstairs.” Amelia rolled her eyes. Kimber, the California girl, tended to disappear whenever the Warriors played West Coast teams. She didn’t want toconfuse her loyalties.
