trouble | i.g

thirty - "shady motels."

Bella's POV

"I'm assuming you want a room with a queen bed to share with the girl here." the man behind the front counter said, raising his eyes brows and casting me a sly glance. I stood beside Ian with the hem of his shirt bunched up in my fist, pressed tightly against his side as I looked around the lobby of the motel in awe.

"This is the absolutely shittiest motel I've ever seen." I remarked. "Like, the shittiest." I raised my hand for a highfive with Ian. "Awesome." He just sighed.

"Bella, sweetheart, I'm going to have to ask you to shush for a moment." Ian said, before directing his attention back to the man, who was busy hurriedly wiping orange cheetos dust from his chubby fingers. "Right, well- actually, this probably looks bad. But, you see, she's my girlfriend and we just really need a room to stay in. It's a long story-"

"He got me drunk!" I shouted enthusiastically. "And now I don't remember why right and left are relevant."

Ian grabbed an ancient looking lollipop from
the bowl on the desk, tore off the wrapper, and stuck it into my mouth. I was confused on what to do with the sudden candy. I gnawed experimentally.

"Whatever you say, pal." The man said, "We have customer confidentiality here. We get people like you a lot." He laughed and tossed Ian a room key. Ian stared at the man as the keys bounced off his chest and landed on the floor.

"Shiny." I remarked, bending down to get them. "Ian, you're horrible at catching." I threw them at him again. They sailed past him and stabbed a near passerby in the eye.

Ian laid the cash on the counter. He straightened his shoulders, and I could tell he was getting his tough guy face on, as he usually does when he's intimidated (or hungry or whenever, actually) "Well, I was wondering if you could tell me where the-"

"Condom machine is? Through that door."

Ian looked horrified. "I was going to say the vending machine."

"I don't think I could eat a condom." I intelligently added.

"Oh." The man awkwardly cleared his throat. "Ah, yes, we have those too. Down the hall. To the right."

•••

I didn't have much experience in the practice of being extremely drunk. So, in fact, I probably wouldn't of even realized it if Ian didn't keep laughing at me about it every five seconds. All I knew was that it was late and I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be, with someone I wasn't supposed to be with, and the air felt charged with all the secrets we had together. I couldn't go home, so what better a solution than to text my mom that I was sleeping at a friend's house and rent a room for a night.

Ian was not as enthusiastic about the motel as I was. It made him tense, I could see it in the rigid way he carried himself and how his eyes were in a constantly shifting cycle from me to the surroundings and back again. This place was apparently a "hot spot for perverts and ex-inmates".

I couldn't see it as a hotspot for anything. It seemed to be caught in a paradox several centuries before it's time, everything old and coated with a fine layer of dust that was occasionally stirred by lazy ceiling fans overhead. It certainly did not help while we were at the vending machine arguing over which candy to get, a man slid silently out from
behind the machine and asked if we wanted to accompany him for a platonic threesome. I had never seen Ian abandon candy so fast.

"I really do not feel comfortable with you staying here." Ian said upon entering our room. "I swear, one day I'm going to be able to get you everything you absolutely deserve, kitten."