The heartstopper

Chpater 18

After leaving the arcade, they headed back to their rooms, feeling more relaxed and joyful. Dinner should be half way done as long as it hadn't been delayed.

Back at their rooms, there were two pieces of paper that had been slid underneath the door. Both pages had the hotel logo in the right corner. The only difference between the sheets of paper was the language it was written in. Isaac grabbed the English copy and began to skim it, Nick took the French copy as he was fluent in the language.

"What does it say?" Tao asked, who was watching the other two boys read.

"Basically, we're stuck, locked in the hotel for the next few days, there's security situated on every floor, any extra days that aren't already paid for will be free and then they advertise different activities that we can take part of. Those activities include…" Nick paused as he looked at the list at the bottom of the page.

"Swimming - pool is on the second floor,

Bar - must be of ages, ID's required - first floor,

Arcade - first floor,

Fitness room - fifth floor,

8.00-9.30 am, instructed aqua-fit - adult only,

2.30-4.00 yoga in fitness room,

Teen room - 3rd floor," Nick continued to list off things from the long list.

"No one but staff and security should be out of their rooms from 10.30 pm - 7.00 am." Nick finished off.

"You translated all that?" Charlie questioned.

"Yeah, I've told you, my dad's French," Nick shrugged as It wasn't a big deal.

"Bilingual people are on a whole different level, my mind can barely handle one language," Tao mumbled.

"I grew up with both French and English so it comes naturally," He explained.

"Everything comes to you naturally," Tao muttered, rolling his eyes. Now Tao probably didn't mean to say it so loud, he meant to not say it at all but either way, Nick heard this and responded.

"Definitely not everything, I have a long list of things that I suck at and Charlie likes to remind me about it constantly," laughed.

"I do not!" Charlie struggled to get it out. 

"You do too! Might I remind you about Mario Kart?" Nick asked playfully.

"Well yeah, you are quite suckish at it," Charlie hummed.

"See? You're mean!" Nick exclaimed.

"I am not, you just have a bad time admitting to failure so I've got to remind you every once in a while," He excused.

"Ohh, sure, let's call it that," Nick laughed.

"It's true," Charlie insisted.

"I agree with Charlie, he could never be rude," Tao grinned, knowing he was wrong in the aspect that Charlie could be blatantly honest.

"See! I'm not rude," Charlie pointed.

"Wow, okay this fight was completely unfair," Nick crossed his arms before uncrossing them as his phone began to ring.

"It's my dad, you guys can head to dinner before it ends, I'll meet you down there," Nick said, not waiting for a reply before he rushed out of the room, phone in hand.

"Alright then, are we leaving?" Asked Tao, waiting for a response from his two friends.

"Sure," Isaac agreed.

"Sounds good," Charlie replied.

"Perfect, I'm starving," Tao complained, throwing his arms around his two friends' shoulders.

"You're always hungry," Charlie laughed, Tao shrugged in response, knowing it was a fact.

"Have either of you heard from your parents About our situation?" Asked Isaac.

"I didn't have time to read them yet but I heard from Tori," Charlie explained, not bothering to mention that he did have time to read them, he just didn't want to.

"My mom's worried, I think that if she could, she'd show up at the hotel in the middle of the night just to make sure I was safe…" A moment passed before he added, "Or at least to check on Elle, I think she cares more about her then she does about me," 

They laughed. Tao's mom cared about all of his friends as if they were her own children, but she specifically adored Elle. It was probably because she's the only girl other than herself who comes over to visit. Tara and Darcy had yet to visit Tao's house but as soon as they did, his mom would probably be all over them too. Tao's mom is impossible to hate, she always has tea prepared for Elle when she comes over.

Dinner was enjoyable that night, it was the same for the rest of the night. They didn't have to deal with the group of boys yelling up and down the halls, nor did they have to deal with Harry or the rest of his crew. 

When they had first arrived at the restaurant, their usual table was filled with a family of five. That was a disappointing moment for them, it also turned out that every other table was also full. Because no one could leave the hotel, it was fuller than usual, even with the large number of people who had signed out earlier. 

They could have taken their food to go but they didn't feel like waiting in the long line to get their meal. Instead, they decided to head back to their room to order room service. It would cost extra to order room service but they might as well enjoy their stay so, they gathered their money with Nick - who they had run into on their way back to their room.

 They ended up calling Elle, Tara and Darcy to join them, who insisted on dining in their room, as it was larger and had a tv. They split the dinner bill amongst the seven of them and enjoyed their delivered meal. Imogen had headed down to eat with other friends already so she did not join them until they had already finished their meals and were watching one of the few programs which they didn't have to pay for, which was on Disney channel. 

They watched a couple episodes of a show that Darcy recommended, saying she watched it and so, she forced the others to do so as well. The show wasn't necessarily up to Taos standards but he didn't have any complaints. 

They ended up losing track of time, having not noticed it was past curfew until their teachers knocked on their door.