Dropping Like Spies - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Ten

The thing you have to keep in mind about D.C. is that it's a two-faced city.  I'm not talking about the people—I'm talking about the culture.  On one hand, you have a city made for presidents and politicians.  Visity royalty and the most influential artists that generations have to offer.  On the other, there's the journalists covering doomed campaigns.  Waiters working the late shift at the diner where Georgian republicans like to discuss healthcare and people too proud for the shelters scavenging through the dumpsters out back.  

When we checked in to the hotel that night, overnight bags slung over our tired shoulders, I was expecting to see the second face.  When we reached our floor and hunted down our room number, I thought that we’d be boarding up with the rats and the roaches, our room so small that one of us would probably have to sleep in the bathroom.

But when Will slid that keycard and opened the door, I was greeted by a suite fit for a king—maybe literally.  The three of us stood there for a moment, struck to the core.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Will check the keycard as if it held some magical code that had somehow let us into the wrong room. 

I spend the majority of my time in a centuries-old building—a castle, really.  It’s a castle.  The Gallagher Academy has some of the most beautiful architecture I’ve ever seen, complete with intricate stained glass and seemingly infinite secret passageways.  With such an impressive place to call home, I shouldn’t have been all that impressed by the room in front of me, but I was.  I totally was.

There was a view of the Washington Monument straight through the massive window at the rear of the room, the light of the reflection pool shimmering in across the cotton candy stripes that sat diagonally across the walls. One part of the room was wrapped around a massive fireplace that floomphed when we turned the light on, a pair of cushy sofas with little pink pillows sitting just in front of it.  Our beds were just behind that, each decorated with draping canopies and (possibly) actual fairy dust.

The carpet felt like it was stuffed, golden swirls twisting into the creamy white.  The first thing I did was fall onto one of the sofas, sending the decorative pillows flying.  It felt like a hug for my butt.  A butt hug.

Will and Bill followed me in, ditching their bags just inside the door.  Bill went to close the massive drapery, golden fringe swinging with his movement.  It was standard procedure, I remembered.  These boys were all about procedure.  I couldn't help wondering what procedure Will was acting upon when grabbed a washcloth from the neatly folded stack on the back of the toilet and started to wet it.

There was a pale, wooden coffee table in front of me, decorated with more pink stripes and a basket full of goodies.  A note sat on top of it all.

Treats are paid for.  Help yourselves.  Good Luck.

-Hughes

Bill plopped down on the couch opposite me, lounging about in a way that he looked like he could grow accustomed to.  Will flicked the light off in the bathroom and threw the washcloth at me, the wetness letting out a  disproportionately loud snap as it smacked my skin.  It was warm and soft against my torn up hands.  “You look awful,” he said.  He was trying to hide his guilt, but Will was so easy to get a read on.

I shrugged pulling off my dark sweater and throwing it aside.

The boys didn’t even blink at the sight of a half naked girl in their room, mostly because they didn’t notice.

They were too busy calling dibs on which snacks they were going to eat and even if they weren’t, the sight of me in a bra was one that they had seen many a time over those long, summer months (because if guys get to run drills without shirts on, then I get to run them in a sports bra).