To Hook A Star

V

Tammy mysteriously disappeared that morning. Mia and Athena woke up late and would be lying if they said their heads weren't pounding. Robert had just come back from a morning jog and admitted he hadn't seen Tammy either. He disappeared into the shower and Mia quickly took a peek inside Tammy's suitcase.

"Seriously, what is she doing here?" She hissed at Athena, who was still in bed, with a random shirt from her suitcase thrown over her eyes to block out the sunlight. She groaned instead of answering the question.

Mia started talking to herself, pretending that her friend was listening, even when she went back to snoring after a sentence and a half.

"She'd already booked Miami when I booked the Florence trip," she said, tiptoeing around her things. She hated herself for looking, so instead, she did not touch anything, which made her feel somewhat better about it. "She can't really be here for a new girlfriend. She couldn't even be my girlfriend! She literally used the word suffocating when we broke up."

Her eyebrows shot up when she eyed Tammy's laptop in her weekend-bag, barely hidden under a folded up sweatshirt that must have been new, because Mia had never seen it before. She hesitated for a few seconds, wondering if she should look through it. The password was probably still the same, but she quickly shook her head and sat back down on her own bed.

"Who is her new girlfriend?" She leaned against the wall, closing her eyes for a moment. "Do you think she's from here? How could that even happen?"

Before she could turn her head around to face Athena, the bathroom door opened and Robert walked out, stopping in his tracks when he saw Mia gawking at his bare chest, covered in tiny droplets of water and steam. Besides the towel he'd thrown over his shoulder, he only wore dark blue boxers and a pair of cheap slippers with cracks on the sides.

After he realised how he looked, he quickly held the white towel in front of him. "Shit, I thought you would be asleep, I'm so sorry," he stuttered, running to his suitcase to find a pair of pants.

Mia's eyes darted to his back, and she watched as the muscles quickly moved under his skin in his search for clothes. She was almost drooling when they were both distracted by a sound so ugly that it could hardly be described as a laugh coming from the other side of the room.

"No need to be sorry, Nobby," Athena grinned, sitting up and looking for her phone, lost somewhere in the pile of pillows. "Moe's is enjoying the view."

Mia's cheeks turned red, heat flushing to her face. "I was barely looking, I just zoned out or whatever." She rubbed her eyes dramatically and pretended to look for something in her own suitcase as well. "It's totally okay, though," she assured Robert, "no need to apologise at all."

"Obviously," Athena teased, not looking away from the screen of her phone.

Robert put on a pair of linen pants and a T-shirt and sat on his bed, looking for deodorant in his backpack. "Are you two doing anything today?" he asked.

"We don't really have plans, but we're eating pasta for dinner and going clubbing," Mia answered.

"That's right, you can't enter a nightclub under twenty-one in America, right?"

"Something like that," she shrugged.

"Can't wait to get sensory issues just like prom." Athena quipped. Mia shook her head.

"It's going to be fun, and it's an experience we may never have again."

"In Australia you can get into nightclubs when you're literally fifteen years old." The cucumber-scented smother filled the tiny space around them as Robert sprayed deodorant under his arms. "But I've never been much of a clubber person."

"Oh," Mia let out a breath. "That's unfortunate, I wanted to ask you to come with us."

"I never said that I wasn't a clubber person at all, Mia."

A grin appeared on her face. "Is that a yes, Robert?"

"Yes."

Mia's lips parted, her eyes locked with Robert's, but before she could speak, she was cut off by the door flying open.

A group of four men stood in the doorway with suitcases by their sides, all around twenty to thirty years old. Mia, Athena and Robert's eyes darted to the men, who said nothing more than "Well, hello," in a vague British accent that neither one could place.

"How did you get a key?" Athena cried out, sitting up straight in her bed. "Did we not lock the room last night?"

"I locked the room, I'm like one-hundred percent sure I did," Robert vowed

"Did Tammy leave it unlocked when she went out this morning?" Athena slapped her hand on her mouth. "She's a goddamn safety hazard!"

A few coughs came from the door and a small, almost bald man with incredibly smooth skin stepped forward. He was about to take another step when Robert put his hand on the man's chest and shook his head.

"They're in bed, man," he sighed, heading back down to his bed and looking at the group of four with a pinch between his eyebrows.

"This is supposed to be our room," the bald one said.

"Clearly, it is not. We booked for two weeks," Athena spoke up, unintentionally mirroring their accents. "There must be a mistake; maybe check with the reception desk again."

Without concealing his annoyance, a bearded man who looked like Shaggy said sarcastically: "The key fits, doesn't it?"

Mia's eyes grew narrow. "Well, this is our room and we're all here for two more weeks." She didn't exactly know if that was true for Tammy, but she had to scare these British men away somehow.

"Look, get the hell out of here," Shaggy continued. Athena and Mia repeated it after him, mockingly copying his tone in a British accent that turned out to be more Scottish. He gave the girls a nasty look and threw his backpack inside the room.

"I'm going to get this manager here right now."

"Ow now!" Mia and Athena yelled after him in their awful accents. "Not the manager!"

In the corner of her eye, Mia saw Robert trying to hold in his laugh. What was there to worry about? They booked the room for two weeks, these Brits probably made a mistake or the manager did, no biggie, right?

Wrong, actually. Within five minutes the owner of the hostel had come upstairs and asked them to leave. When they complained, he pretended that he couldn't speak English and sent them on their way.

Where was her Italian ex-girlfriend/stalker when you needed her the most? As she was nowhere to be seen, they had to take Tammy's things with them.

Within fifteen minutes, they were all thrown out of the hostel, outside on the curb at eleven in the morning.